Kalinych
12-07-2010, 11:08 PM
I have flown from SJC to SEA this morning (regular flying is part of my new job, hopefully that'll be good for batlling FoF), and experienced new (for me anyway) kind of turbulence. We were cruising, passengers and flight attendants moving around, I was sitting in a row over the wings... Then suddenly there was a sideways jolt and it felt like the back of the plane got moved swiftly to the right (in the driving world analogy, it was like you momentarily lost control over your rear wheels and your car has spun a bit). I was looking toward the front at the time and it seemed that nothing happened there, certainly my water didn't move much or splash, but in the back I heard "uh-oh" as flight attendant fell into the seats and other people piled onto one another.
I got used to accepting turbulence through the jello experiment where the plane can suddenly move every which way but it generally moves as a whole. Today's experience got me thinking whether a powerful enough sidewind gust could spin the aircraft around in mid-flight. Probably not, since we just moved a bit, but to me at least it was an unexpected way of getting hit with turbulence. Any thoughts?
P.S. Of course this happened with seat belt sign off, so there were several people who probably got some bumps. Captain came on immediately saying we are experiencing clear air turbulence and fasten your seat belts and flight attendants be seated. But nothing else happened and we continued uneventfully.
I got used to accepting turbulence through the jello experiment where the plane can suddenly move every which way but it generally moves as a whole. Today's experience got me thinking whether a powerful enough sidewind gust could spin the aircraft around in mid-flight. Probably not, since we just moved a bit, but to me at least it was an unexpected way of getting hit with turbulence. Any thoughts?
P.S. Of course this happened with seat belt sign off, so there were several people who probably got some bumps. Captain came on immediately saying we are experiencing clear air turbulence and fasten your seat belts and flight attendants be seated. But nothing else happened and we continued uneventfully.