MONARCH ZB947 28/07/2012
 

Just a question please if I may? Last nights flight from Paphos to Birmingham was a bit uncomfortable because the aircraft fealt as if there was a problem in maintaining level flight. So it fealt a bit like a small roler coaster ride. Couple this frequent engine changes (it sounded like this anyway), can anyone offer a reason please. No one was at all concerned just trying to learn the possible reasons.

many thanks

Umm.....light turbulence perrhaps???

Maybe practicing hand flying at the expense of passenger comfort?

One would hope not, as this would compromise RVSM

<<Maybe practicing hand flying at the expense of passenger comfort? >> No. I hope that comment was tongue in cheek. Flight data monitoring would obviously pick up hand flying in RVSM for the fun of it.

You transited an area with plenty of storms about / instability. Even with avoiding storms, in the vicinity the air tends to be fairly unstable with shear and temperature changes. The autothrust will be working hard to maintain mach, so the engines can be changing thrust dynamically.

All in all, a normal flight in that region at this time of year.

I tried it once in the 737. It is Mountains waves, and we constantly moved up and down by 50-100 feet in approximately 30 minutes close to the Alps. We flew parallel with another aircraft, and the other aircraft “were out of the sync”, so the chances in spacing on the TCAS were fluctuation 100-200 feet. It was a non turbulent rollercoaster.

Forgotten which aircraft, could have been B744 or L1011, but the autopilot altitude hold was designed to permit an excursion of something like 50ft before permitting a power change.
Reasons given as passenger comfort and engine life (guess which one I believed? :) )

I operated PFO-MAN last night and the flight was just turbulent.

Thanks to you that repliied. The answers were very plausible and comforting to know. Since I do not normally fly that high in Europe I was intrigued.