Natrose,

Turbulance is nothing to worry about, chances are, you'll have a smooth flight over the atlantic. Aircraft are designed to cope with everything the sky can throw at it. Aircraft can cope with stresses far more sever than clear air turbulance (CAT) can ever subject an aircraft to. I honestly wouldn't worry about it because the chances are, it won't happen. The flight crew will be doing there upmost to avoid areas of turbulance to provide you with the smoothest flight possible. They'll be assisted by air traffic control and other aircraft to let them know if there are areas to avoid to minimise CAT, its honestly nothin to worry about. Just think of it like being on a coach on the motorway, its smooth apart from the odd pothole in the road, its nothing to worry about. I've been across the atlantic 8 times now and apart from the odd patch of light turbulance, flight have always been smooth. Just sit back, relax, keep your seat belt loosely fastened and enjoy your flight, it'll be fine.

Darren

Nicely put Darren, now if you could just accompany me every time I fly and repeat those words in a soothing voice..........

The aircraft will never be in danger , but if you fly a lot sooner or later the seat belt signs will come on during the flight and you will be jarred about in your seat and hold on to anything . It wo'nt last long , but you often get what is known as clear air turbulence so do'nt assume because it's sunny outside ..........

Just a realty check for you .....

Thankyou Darren i will think about your words on my flight in december.

Stanley

Just a realty check for you

Of course extremes do happen, and CAT can occur at anytime, but those upfront usually know when to expect, avoid it if at all possible, and let you know a minute or two before you enter it so you can prepare, often no more than a few bumps. There have been severe, unexpected cases of CAT which have resulted in injuries, but thats why its always recommended to have your seat belt on loosely while seated. 99% of the time, its nothing to worry about and just part of being 5 miles high.

Darren

Dazbo...you must be lucky...maybe some thing to do with flying over ocean most of the flight perhaps...but on most flights I've been on tend to encounter some form of turbulence along the way, usually just about the time they are serving the coffee. Rarely enough to spill your coffee, but enough for the captain to put the fasten seat belt signs on.

To counter it just sit in the seat with your belt fastened, its usually no worse than driving on a bumpy road.

I remember the last time we flew back from Florida that there was quite a lot of turbulance along the Eastern Seaboard of the USA. The pilot had a sense of humour and said that we had paid for a roller coaster ride at Disney in Orlando but that we were now getting it for free!!

I think it is quite common to get it up the coast of the USA but it cleared once we headed across the Atlantic. We had a superb view of Manhatten so it wasn't cloud causing it.

Pippa

I must have taken 500+ flights since 1994, 12 in the last 7 weeks, of all those flights over the years I have had two flights where the turbulence frightened me, one was Liverpool to the Isle of Man in a 8 seat twin prop engine plane where I gripped the seat the whole journey, the other was with swiss air from Basel to Manchester where the pilot asked everyone to urgently take their seats (Including Hostesses) and to strap in, the ride for the next two minutes was the roughest and most violent I have ever experienced but the 50 seat plane coped well.

Planes are designed to take these loadings, most of the time it's just a gentle light bumping, it actually sends me to sleep (I must have liked being rocked to sleep when I was younger).

Dave

Sunbear,

Dazbo...you must be lucky...maybe some thing to do with flying over ocean most of the flight perhaps

Thats very true. Turbulance is caused due to sudden changes in wind direction and boundries between air masses moving at different speeds and in different directions. This tends to be lighter over oceans than land masses, particularly moutainoues areas which influence what the air is doing. Air is just a low density fluid and acts in similar ways to water. If you think of a river as an example, deep sections tend to move in the same direction, at the same speed and with little ripple on the surface (on a calm day!) whereas a riffle section, ie shallow water (ie moutains underneith) has water moving at different speeds, sometimes in different directions and causes a ripple on the surface. Imagine flying your plane across the two surface; one will be nice and smooth, the other rough. Thats roughtly what turbulance is. As the original question was a flight to New York, 90% of the flight will be oceanic so should be smooth. A flight to Turkey for example where you'll be crossing the Apls, you'll expereince turbulance during the crossing of the mountains. There are many zones throughout the world where turbulance is a common occurance, but they tend to get avoided unless there is no choice.

Darren

most flights I've been on tend to encounter some form of turbulence along the way, usually just about the time they are serving the coffee

Sounds about right to me

I've been on quite a few 'bumpy' flights - flying over the Pyrenees into Spain or over to the Balearics can be a bit of an adventure sometimes. We also had quite a bit of turbulence flying down to Tenerife last August, this was mainly over the Bay of Biscay and going down along the western coast of Portugal - had to keep an eye on the coffee for that one - I had light-coloured trousers on Been on one or two flights where we've all been told to fasten our belts, the toilets have been locked, and even the cabin crew have been told to sit down and belt up - the last one I can remember was going down to Gerona, flying over France.
The kids get worried when there's turbulence - I used to tell them it was 'lumpy clouds', but now they're older and son wants scientific answers, daughter just wants to hurry up and get there
I just try not to worry about it - I tell myself these planes are capable of doing loop-de-loops if necessary and still landing in one piece. I live directly under the flightpath for Manchester Airport and at busy times there's a plane roaring over my back garden around every 90 seconds, you can guarantee most of those flights will have had a bit of turbulence along the way, but they all get to where they're going

Hey up Dazbo...you sound like me dad (he's a meteorologist)

Most of my flights are in an easterly direction...often encounter turbulence over the Middle East and the Bay of Bengal. However the worst I ever experienced was flying to Edinburgh from Cardiff. We were all a little green when we got off that flight.

It's just a few potholes in the sky...
We need to spend more taxpayers money on mending the flight paths.

Planes are designed to cope with it same as cars can handle potholes.

thankyou darren your posts keep on reasurring me.

Thank you so much Darren Just to have it explained is very reassuring.
Sue

I'm a commercial pilot with easyJet and I have been flying for over 10 years. Clear air turbulance or CAT as we call it, cannot be detected on our weather radars and this is why we always recommend you have your belt fastened while seated.

As pilots we cannot avoid turbulence if it's on our route reasons being is that 1, you can't see it and it's not detected on our weather radar and 2, you may have to go a few hundred miles off course to find clear air. So we may ask Air traffic if we can change our flight level but in general they can only offer to change us by 2000 feet which is not much and rarely make a difference. What we can avoid is storm clouds and they do show up on weather radar and it's a lot easier to avoid because they are generally not very wide and we may only need to make a slight change in our direction to avoid it.

Clear air turbulance is more prone over the Atlantic and Pacific where you get most of the jet streams which is what we use when planning our routes, because if we can use it to our advantage it cuts down the fuel burn and get's us to our destination quicker.

I have been in some serious rough weather in my career but I have never had any doubt as to whether the aircraft can take the punishment, I am more concerned about ice building up on the wings when flying through cloud.

I would have to think very hard to find a incident relating to a loss of aircraft due to turbulence, it has happended but not in the modern era.

Any fears and post them on here and I shall try to help and answer them for you.

hi..darren/ross... thanks very much for your comments regarding turbulence,i have flown many times but hate it when the plane seems to bounce all over the sky ,you are both very comforting i am pleased i read this forum to-day....many thanks again and regards....johndoe....

hi to you all

what great explaining and reassuring many of you have given us about turbulance! i have only experienced it slightly a couple of times but enough for us to wear our seat belts and the last time was a couple of years ago flying back from tenerife about 9/10 pm had just been given our meal and hot coffee!! that then ended up all over me !!
even the cabin crew had to belt up--- pardon the expression i mean sit down and wear their seatbelts!!

thanks again for the reassuring perhaps they need to sort them potholes out!!lol

lou x

Hi Ross J

As cabin crew I could have done with someone like you on my CRM/SEP courses to explain the subject of turbulence the way you have, well done. It certainly helps if we know whats going on so that we can then help our nervous flyers !!

as i started this tread first about turbulance i take it that if we sit over the wings we will not feel it as much. I love New York but don't like the flight , sit there not talkingto anyone nearly the whole journey. thanks for all your advice , just hope i remember it when I'm up there.