last night on my flight from Philadelphia to Houston we encountered a prolonged bout of turbulence from about SW PA to around the area of London, KY/Nashville, TN around 7-8:30p EST. I
knew before I left for the airport that a storm system/mid-latitude cyclone was draped all along the Appalachiens w/ excessive rain in the Shenandoah and Blue Ridge Mtns. The turbulence didnt occur until we reached cruising altitude (31-33Kft) only problem was we were just barely at the tops. Also the tops were cu clouds at said altitude so as you would guess, anytime you have cu clouds at that altitude, you know its gonna be a bumpy ride. With parents that long careers in the airline business you would correctly guess that I have done a lot of air traveling in my time and that is most definately true. That said, the turbulence on this flight in the region previously mentioned became so excessive and severe that I began to fear not only for the integrity of the Boeing 737-800 aircraft, but also for my life. Things were honestly *BANGing around the cabin. The aft lavratory door was swinging and thus slamming itself against the side panels. Having a windows seat (24F). I had the not so great view of us going in and out of the cu clouds almost continuously. The wing bouncing to extremes Ive never wanted to see, it felt as if we were almost repeatedly hitting a 3foot high speed bumb at 300mph in a car. BANG. I was wondering what the 2 crewmen behind the yokes were thinking about and what extremes measures they were going to take. It was prob about 2minutes into another of several bouts of severe turbulence that almost with snap of fingers, it stopped. This was simultaneous with an immediate calming in noise of the engines. My guess was that the captain jerked back the throttles rapidly bringing the aircraft down to 120 -150 kts or so of airspeed from somewhere in the vicinity of 200+. This was of course a drastic measure by the 2 pilots b/c they knew that we would have to stay at such airspeed for an extended period of time due to the widespread nature of the turbulence and also due to the fact that this would significantly delay arrival into Houston thus causing many (including me) to miss their connecting flight. Though I arrived back in Norman this morning to make my first class with 15 minutes to spare. The turbulence didnt stop all together at that point, there were still many pockets of mod turbulence that threatened to become severe but didnt come as close.
So was wondering, has anyone else been thru such an experience?
knew before I left for the airport that a storm system/mid-latitude cyclone was draped all along the Appalachiens w/ excessive rain in the Shenandoah and Blue Ridge Mtns. The turbulence didnt occur until we reached cruising altitude (31-33Kft) only problem was we were just barely at the tops. Also the tops were cu clouds at said altitude so as you would guess, anytime you have cu clouds at that altitude, you know its gonna be a bumpy ride. With parents that long careers in the airline business you would correctly guess that I have done a lot of air traveling in my time and that is most definately true. That said, the turbulence on this flight in the region previously mentioned became so excessive and severe that I began to fear not only for the integrity of the Boeing 737-800 aircraft, but also for my life. Things were honestly *BANGing around the cabin. The aft lavratory door was swinging and thus slamming itself against the side panels. Having a windows seat (24F). I had the not so great view of us going in and out of the cu clouds almost continuously. The wing bouncing to extremes Ive never wanted to see, it felt as if we were almost repeatedly hitting a 3foot high speed bumb at 300mph in a car. BANG. I was wondering what the 2 crewmen behind the yokes were thinking about and what extremes measures they were going to take. It was prob about 2minutes into another of several bouts of severe turbulence that almost with snap of fingers, it stopped. This was simultaneous with an immediate calming in noise of the engines. My guess was that the captain jerked back the throttles rapidly bringing the aircraft down to 120 -150 kts or so of airspeed from somewhere in the vicinity of 200+. This was of course a drastic measure by the 2 pilots b/c they knew that we would have to stay at such airspeed for an extended period of time due to the widespread nature of the turbulence and also due to the fact that this would significantly delay arrival into Houston thus causing many (including me) to miss their connecting flight. Though I arrived back in Norman this morning to make my first class with 15 minutes to spare. The turbulence didnt stop all together at that point, there were still many pockets of mod turbulence that threatened to become severe but didnt come as close.
So was wondering, has anyone else been thru such an experience?