For many years when security wasn't as tight as it is today, as the Captain of my plane I would make it a policy to have the flight deck door open when passengers were boarding so that if they wanted to they could pop in and say hello or ask me something about the flight. Once they had settled I would welcome them aboard and give them some details about the weather, and when I'd finished that I'd say that if there were any children, or first time flyers on board then they'd be welcome to come up and have a chat and a look around the cockpit. Now I could almost guarantee what was going to be asked. And on the ground too passengers would ask " Is there going to be any turbulence?" Then in the air they'd re-phrase it to "expecting any turbulence Captain?"
Of course not every question was just that but enough were to make me recall it all these years into my retirement. Were they justified in asking that same old question? Of course they were from their point of view because it was important to them, but from mine it was almost irrelevant, if turbulence had been forecast there was nothing I could do about it and if it was forecast to be calm then it might change. I soon learnt though that my point of view was irrelevant and that the best thing I could do was to re-assure passengers that the prospect of being bounced around was pretty unlikely, although there was a slight chance of encountering little bit of weather later in the flight...but we'd be doing our best to make the flight as comfortable as possible for them.
Most passengers take the pilots words as absolute truths, so you have to be careful not to say something that turns out not to be true or they'll lose confidence in you as a pilot as well as a weather forecaster! For some reason most worried flyers think that it's harder to fly a plane turbulence than in calm conditions, perhaps they've seen a Hollywood movie where the star has had to fight the controls to keep his hero status...but in real life nothing could be further from the truth. Flying a plane in turbulence is like driving a car over a rough farm track rather than the highway..no harder, no easier...just different.
The causes of turbulence are simple...somewhere the flow of air over the land or sea is obstructed by something. And when that happens the air is displaced up or around whatever is in its way and instead of being smooth it becomes choppy. This happens in a river or the sea, when different currents collide with each other...the difference is you can see the waves in the water but you can't see them in the air. And it's the ripples in the air currents that is the reason for turbulence. Amazingly you'd think that the movement of the air (wind) would need to be quite strong to cause bad turbulence but the worst rough air I've flown in was when the wind was blowing at about 5 miles an hour. So what's the best thing to do under these circumstances? First and most importantly: fasten your seatbelt as tightly as you can bear it, and throughout the turbulence say to yourself. "Turbulence is uncomfortable but that's not the same as dangerous." and you'll soon be through it out into the smooth air on the other side.
The other thing you can do is remember that flying in turbulence is something that both the pilots and the plane can manage without effort.
Author Captain Keith Godfrey has been involved in aviation for over 50 years. He has amassed over 20,000 flying hours experience and now runs the internet's biggest web site to help people to overcome their fear.
Join him on his free Fear of Flying Social Network or learn more about airplane turbulence.
No comments:
Post a Comment