Worst turbulence i experienced was approaching London-Luton on a 757-200, it was quite heavy, quite bad. I wished i looked out the window then because at cruising altitude we experienced a few, tiny bumps for about 10 seconds, i'm a nervous flyer and it was scary seeing the wings flex whilst it was going on. I realised that this was not my calmest of flights!

IANAM(eteorologist) but from the wind reports given earlier, it sounds like the strongest winds were in a lower layer near the mountain tops. When this happens and the temperature profile is suitable for wave, the waves get steeper with increasing height and may actually "break". This can generate some pretty nasty turbulence, especially if you're travelling fast.

I remember wave soaring behind the Brecon Beacons in a southerly wind. At ground level it was 180/25 but became virtually calm at 6-7,000', then about 350/5 above that. This produced a wall of cloud that became steeper and steeper until it actually started to overhang; you could see amazing ripples and vortices forming and decaying on the cloud edge, some with real violence. There was narrow lift up to 1,500 fpm which stopped abruptly at the shear level. I wouldn't have liked to fly an aircraft through there at that height...

Jagohu,

That all sounds good in theory, however we were offered no warning whatsoever by Bordeaux (who's frequency was pretty quiet). On handover to Barcelona we were warned but by that stage we had sudden moderate turbulence and were idling the thrust to avoid an overspeed. Perhaps more communication between Bordeaux and Barcelona - because either Bordeaux didn't know about it, or they did know about it and didn't warn anyone. I'm hoping it waws the former.

Oh My God, I´m another wannabee and you´ve all just frightened the life out of me! I´m still going for it though. See you all in the clear blue skies (and hopefully no turbulence) soon!!:eek:

FWIW, I climbed in a straight line last year on a paraglider just north of Brighton for about 1.5 miles at a climb rate of about 500 fpm in the 'nice' part of some wave set up off the north downs. I gues we are still talking the nasty stuff as below?

http://i17.tinypic.com/2moxxk0.jpg

Pretty bumpy coming back from canada monday night. About 3 hours west of Ireland. The A330 had to descend (engines idle nose down) out of auto pilot to get out of it. It was disconcerting because i was in the back and not up the front where i prefer to be. On the turbulence thread, low level in a Tucano through the lakes can get very bumpy indeed.

"........... before aircraft start diving for safer conditions!"
Or climb to FL410/430: I love the Falcon! :)

Coming from Lyon (LYS) the Bordeaux controller advised about "light to moderate" reported turbulence south of the Pyrenees. Maintaining FL310 as higher levels were occupied, just north of ZAZ we had 355/95 kts winds.
Within about 3-5 seconds the wind dropped to absolute 0 and the IAS dropped by about 40 kts with the autothrottle figthing at max thrust settings. The OAT increased by about 7 degrees.
Recovering the aeroplane from about 12 degrees nose up pitch we were hit by a sudden 50 -65 kts headwind, bringing the IAS very close to VMO. At the same time we experienced gusting effects which forced up to 25 degrees bank in both directions......
We got an immediate descent to FL 270 and all was fine there.... beside the cabin, my dinner all over the cockpit, my coffee dripping from the roof.
Beside a thorough cleaning of the aeroplane from inside, the engineers were just excited to go through a complete "severe turbulence check"....
No, there was no warning, no, there were absolutely no clouds around....
And no, never experienced anything like this before

Parapunter
 

I see in the wave illustration you posted, that the Aussie sense of humour is alive and well at Flight Safety Australia:

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c3...ia42/rotor.jpg

During severe turbulence, what's the rule regarding a/p usage? Does it remain on? Or better to hand fly it?