Flying Life: Unsafe or just unpleasant?

We’ve all been asked that question when walking into the FBO or flight school after a flight. Often, in those environments, all it takes is one person to say how terrible it was, how gusty and bumpy, and suddenly people are finding reasons to cancel their flying plans. I wonder why it is that we pilots find turbulence so discomfiting, when most of us experience some form of it on every flight. In fact, the flights when the air is perfectly smooth are the exception rather than the norm.

I think it must have something to do with the fact that we are a group that likes to be in control. As a whole, we are not a blow-wherever-the-wind-takes-you kind of bunch. We are planners, risk assessors, safety-minded individuals. Throw in some invisible forces that make it hard for us to maintain an exact airspeed and altitude or a smooth ride for our passengers, and we tend to balk at that scenario.

If we fly long enough and over different terrain, we will have the opportunity to experience many types of turbulence. 
Here’s the question we have to ask ourselves when we hear pilot reports about a bumpy ride: Are the current conditions unsafe, or just subjectively unpleasant? If we fly long enough and over different terrain, we will have the opportunity to experience many types of turbulence—most of them benign, some less friendly. According to the Airplane Flying Handbook , there are certain types of turbulence to watch out for because they can actually cause loss of aircraft control. These include wind shear, wake turbulence, thunderstorms, and clear air turbulence such as the jet stream or mountain waves. Those types of turbulence should be avoided like the coronavirus.

The roughest turbulence I have ever encountered was flying right seat in a King Air. We had just dropped off the airplane owner in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and flew in the clear air between two thunderstorm cells on our way home. (When the FAA suggests staying 20 miles away from thunderstorms, there’s a good reason for it.) The rough bit only lasted for 10 seconds or so, but it sure felt longer than that. There was little the captain could do except pull both power levers back to reduce our airspeed while waiting for the turbulence to subside. When I looked at the back seat after things calmed down, our snack basket had thrown up all over the cabin, with bags of chips and soft drinks strewn about like confetti.

But what if you are flying in the kind of turbulence that feels more unpleasant than unsafe, such as hot summer day surface heating or the eddies of air that get displaced by the strong surface winds of winter and spring? Here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Choose the right time of day. Fly early or late, when thermal heating is at its lowest.
2. Know what conditions spell stronger turbulence: surface wind speeds more than 20 knots, frontal passage, temperature inversions, and unstable air (cumulus clouds are an indication, or a high temperature lapse rate).
3. Another trick that usually works is to get above the cloud layer. Even if it is only scattered or broken, the air above typically is much calmer than below. I have no idea what meteorologists call this line that you can climb above, but it feels like magic to me, when you go from being tossed around like a leaf in the wind to suddenly flying along in air as smooth as glass. (If only it were that easy for us to climb into smooth air in our personal lives…2020 was a turbulent year.)
4. Watch your airspeed: If at cruise, stay at or below maneuvering speed to avoid any structural damage. If landing in gusty conditions, increase your approach speed by half the gust factor to avoid an unintentional stall.
5. Tighten your seatbelt and secure your essential equipment. A bumpy ride is much easier to manage when you aren’t getting tossed about in your seat or dropping your iPad and checklist.
6. Ignore it. Accept minor fluctuations in altitude and airspeed and get on about the business of flying your aircraft. Or you could do like me and pretend you’re on a raft in the middle of the ocean, feeling the waves underneath you, soaking up the sun. Nothing like a little piña colada mind game in a stressful situation.

When people ask me “the question” now, I do my best not to dramatize the conditions. “It was pretty nice up there,” I typically say. And it’s the truth. Even a bumpy day in the air is still something to be grateful for.

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