Sit by the window on the back row of a 757, and concentrate on watching the cabin wall. In even the lightest chop after T/O, you can clearly see the fish-tail movement. If it's an early morning business flight, you can observe a rippling wave of opened newspapers from the overwing seats back over as well ! It doesn't happen up front.

For turbulence etc the least impacted and smoothest conditions would be felt at the front of the aircraft.

The tail and the rear will be worse for all conditions.

This is one reason why when the cabin crew are at the rear and turbulence hits they might call the flight deck for the seat belt sign to go on when it really isn't that bad. ;)

On the B777, the smoothest ride in turbulence is in the row of seats just ahead of doors 2L & R which is usually the last row in business class This is ahead of both the wing leading edge and the engines. The ride in the flight deck is less comfortable and it is much worse at the tail end.

Roll vs pitch, yaw
 

Just my opinion as a passenger:

The best seat for minimizing the perception of pitch and yaw would be nearest the CG. So sit just ahead of the wings (to minimize engine noise as well). But on a wide body, sit near the center of the fuselage as well to reduce the perception of roll. Maybe its just me, but aircraft seem to do more rolling than either of the other two degrees of freedom.

I agree that roll seems to be more frequent however, on my recent CPT~LHR, I was looking out of the window at the moon and stars and noticed the wing tip moving up and down against the clouds. I had not thought that we were rolling and I am usually very sensitive to attitude change.

So I looked in front of me and tried to sense the roll - I could not. So I looked out of the window and there was the slow roll and not just a wobble but a very distinct up and down of the winglet against a moonlit sky. I cannot say how many degrees as I have no scale of reference but DISTINCT and continuing.

Once again, I looked in front of me and could not see or sense the roll. I was at the leading edge of the wing in PE on a VS A346.

As Chubby Brown said: "I always book seats at the back. You never hear of a plane backing into a mountain".

:E

When I fly in a 777 I find the 'sideways turbulence' far more pronounced than on any other aircraft.

I guess this is the yaw damping of which people speak? Why is it so much more noticable than on smaller aircraft? And though it's a while since I was on a 747 I don't recall the same effect there.

This is a bit bizarre, but bear with me.

My most comfortable long-haul ever was a 2-day trip in a C-130 Hercules from RAF Lyneham to Little Rock AFB. I have a string hammock, and with the Loadmaster's permission, I hang it from the aircraft frames right at the top of the rear ramp. It's a bit cold up there [you actually get ice forming on the inside skin], but wrapped in a warm jacket, and wearing gloves, you settle down.

You then discover this gentle swaying motion. The rudder is compensating for this, and the ailerons are compensating for that ... and you sway. Gently, endlessly, rocking in mid-air. I slept nearly all the way from Lyneham to Goose Bay, and most of the way from Goose to LR. It was simply lovely.

Oh, I forgot to mention wearing the ear-defenders :cool:

Glad it worked for you MPN11, even reading about it made me feel sea-sick.

It depends on the characteristics of the airframe. Of the two similar types of single-engined light aircraft I fly, for example, in turbulence the Cessna is much more unstable in roll, whereas the Piper is notably more unstable in pitch.

I have, of course, had several quite learned technical aerodynamic explanations for this about the differences between these two types. Unfortunately the explanations are all conflicting with each other !

I'm thinking in terms of normal maneuvering as well as motion due to instability. The latter is probably more tiring as it would be present throughout most of a flight.

But for normal maneuvering, what are typical roll vs pitch vs yaw angular motions about an aircraft's CG? While these are directly perceptible by ones vestibular system, the linear motion produced by the product of the roll/pitch/yaw and the distance one is from the center of that motion is what produces those 'stomach-flipping' accelerations.:yuk:

Definitive answer time:

If you're considering the response of the aircraft to vertical gusts then the front is the best. When the aircraft hits an upgust it heaves upwards but also pitches nose down, hence towards the front of the aircraft these motions to some extent cancel each other out, while down the back they magnify to make things unpleasant. (This is why most accidents involving broken bones occur in the final few rows).

If you're considering the response of the aircraft to lateral gusts then the middle is the best as it will minimise the acceleration due to any yaw motion.

Which is best? Well thanks to those massive wing things being designed to generate lift upwards, the aircraft has a far stronger response to vertical gusts than lateral ones.

Hence, finally, the front is the best.... But you're more likely to get killed there in a crash :{.