Airbus 319, what a lovely ride!
 

I've flown in quite a few aircraft over the years and I think I've now found the best riding aircraft to date - the A319. Before that I thought the small 737's (200/300) had the best ride but that it is truly surpassed by the minibus. What do other think?

The routing, skills of the flight crew and weather along the way notwithstanding ... ;)

@Piltdown Man

If the Airbus 319 is the best, which aircraft is the worst ?

Got to disagree. Older Boeings are far more comfortable. But in my eyes the one that beats them all is the old L1011 Tristar.

Ah, those were the day's.......

For me.....Viscount followed by VC1O. Worst......nope....nothing springs to mind

VC-10 still the best!

They're harmless enough, that's what I get going LHR-FRA-LHR routinely.

I'd prefer it if the seats could not be reclined for hops like that as I have long legs and I dislike slouching.

I reserve some affection for DC-10s as they were the first LH aircraft on which I travelled.

I can't say I've ever been on an airliner I did not like in some way.

Yep, Tristar for me too, preferably Delta in the old days.

Generally the rear rows of the cheap seats of long aircraft. Personally, I find the last few rows of a 737-800/900 and Embraer 190/5 uncomfortable in mild turbulence. I've been told, but yet to experience (and quite likely never will), that the 777-300 is not very pleasant as well.

I remember sitting in the last rows of a DC8-63 (aka 'stretch') and watching the fuselage bend and twist in front of me. No consolation that it was designed to do this ...

I like watching the wings flex but illogically, don't like to see the cabin flex!! The smoothest/worst ride can be on any machine on any day.

imho, the best ride is in the front of the upper deck of the B747, it can get a bit choppy down the back in E-Zone, but nowhere near as bad as down the back end as in stretched airframes like the A340-600/B777-300.

In the A320 family, I far preferred the A321 to the A320 to the A319. The A321 had a larger aircraft feel in turbulence, probably due to the higher wing loading, whereas the A319 just bounced all over the place - even in the flight deck!

Flew (Economy) on an Air China A330 which seemed to have a nice cabin layout, very comfortable seats and a reasonable amount of legroom.

Just to make some points here.

The quality of the ride is determined mainly by the weather conditons, aided somewhat by the carrier's policy for avoiding weather (or not), and some contribution from ATC in routing.

The seats are nothing really to do with the airframe type, as it is up to the operator what to put in there - it's a bit like blaming your housebuilder for the comfort of your lounge chairs, to stick seat comfort on the aircraft builder.

Comparing say the A320 and the 737/757, the A320 is capable of giving better ambience as the cabin interior is 6" wider than the Boeings, which can correspond to a noticeable 1" extra width per seat, provided the carrier has actually bought seats to take advantage of this - Northwest (now Delta) put in the same seats in their A320s that they had in their 757s for the sake of spares standardisation, a real triumph by the engineering department over customer primacy. At least they got a 6" wider aisle.

The Tristar ? Yes, it's strange, but that always gave me an impression of elegant, quiet spaciousness as well, whichever operator, whose cause I used to try and work out but never was able to put my finger on. Something to do with the cabin ceiling proportions and the way the lighting was arranged seemed to have something to do with it.

You could say the same about cars and blame a rough ride on the road. In general you'd by correct, but given the same road, some cars have a better "ride". It's the "ride" quality I was referring to.

I do like the 319s, but the best ride I've ever had was in an A340-600, very spacious and very quiet inside the cabin!