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Acceptable turbulence

@ibra

I’ve had IMC at FL370 and it was lumpy for 2 hours. Just high altitude crap at 36995ft lol.

Qualified PPL with IR SP/SE PBN
EGSG, United Kingdom

I still don’t agree, as a generality. You get all kinds of IMC at all kinds of levels

Of course but we are talking the most likely forms not what you get once in 1000h of flying, it’s not rocket science that a cloud is likely to reach higher altitudes when it’s a vertical bumpy towered cloud unlike layered smooth horizontal one, basic weather ABC

For sure IMC at 200ft is 100% smooth stratus while IMC at 60000ft is 100% washing machine thunderstorm, you can extrapolate the average in between

Someone with an IR will have more of that selection or sampling bias: they fly more often in clouds and usually on higher eurocontrol levels and sometimes above hot or high terrain, so likely they found IMC getting way more bumpy that what it used to be on PPL (illegally) or on IMCR rating (under UK airspace)

If one uses IR to cruise VMC on top, they will find flying getting more smooth

Last Edited by Ibra at 17 Aug 13:43
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

I still don’t agree, as a generality. You get all kinds of IMC at all kinds of levels.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

Not IME. Above clouds, the flight is nearly always very smooth.

I think Ibra was referring to flight in clouds.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

The higher you fly the most nasty it gets

Not IME. Above clouds, the flight is nearly always very smooth. And you get much better visibility for spotting hazardous wx many miles ahead. This is the main reason for getting the IR in Europe – ATC can’t keep you down below some no-VFR airspace.

My estimate is it’s closer to 50%. I remember a flight from Italy home along the southern edge of the alps, happily bimbling along in FL180 or so… probably with Milano Radar.

It doesn’t sound like he was IFR on a Eurocontrol flight. Well maybe with a fake IR Nobody would be reading off village names when “in the system”.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Ibra wrote:

The higher you fly the most nasty it gets, same if you are hitting clouds in RVSM airspace, it’s unlikely to be a smooth ride

Digressing slightly but when I used to fly back across the Atlantic, the flight crew used to put the landing lights on and could see the Jetstream which was frozen stuff speeding along. My gosh was it bumpy, sometimes enough to make you feel sick.

Qualified PPL with IR SP/SE PBN
EGSG, United Kingdom

On PPL or IMCR rating, one rarely get to fly FL120, surely not inside clouds and most of the time on own navigation

With an IR, you get to penetrate clouds at FL120 usually on a heading, direct or route and it’s unlikely to be a benign one in that band (convective towered one or frozen stratus one)

The higher you fly the most nasty it gets, same if you are hitting clouds in RVSM airspace, it’s unlikely to be a smooth ride

Last Edited by Ibra at 15 Aug 18:38
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

I found the wx got more convective after I got my IR

I would say the same, when I did my IR it was convective every flight. Now almost every flight except my Dusseldorf has been enroute convection. Annoying but I guess that’s just “Climate Change”.

Qualified PPL with IR SP/SE PBN
EGSG, United Kingdom

I found the wx got more convective after I got my IR

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

etn wrote:

For what it’s worth, my approach to it is to have personal minima and stick to them.

I always now have this fear on the ground, how bumpy is this going to be? I always look ahead during a flight and go right, this will be lumpy and I feel on edge. But fully respect the weather and do my best to fly through acceptable weather. But I guess as you say, having personal minimums is probably the best.

Snoopy wrote:

That’s good operating practice. Albeit you can get nasty, headset removing and head banging stuff much lower. DA40 isn’t the most stable ride with those glider-esque wings.

DA40 can be extremely bumpy, especially if the aircraft goes into yellow arc, momentarily you have to reduce the power and it settles down. I try to avoid any build up with vertical extent, any wont go in anything above FL80+ as that’s usually going to be seriously bumpy. Most CBs I’ve avoided in Europe are FL150+

I did have those pulse storms in the channel that day to LFAT and they were hard to spot from the tops as they were pretty messy but you could easily see they was heavily convective. Tops were FL80-FL110+



Snoopy wrote:

Personally, and completely subjective, my impression is there is more „weather“ in later years in Europe. Maybe instability of atmosphere increased?

Strangely I think in Europe storms have remained the same, whereas in the UK the numbers have dwindled. Take this chart for example. Since the 90s, storms here have been few and far between per then.

Of the two big trips I’ve done this year, I’ve had to avoid weather on 3 of the 6 flights I’ve done. All 3 times I carried oxygen which helps massively.

Buckerfan wrote:

I have only had one problem getting wx avoidance from ATC and it still troubles me years later. Heading west over the channel at FL100 ish there were a long line of connected TCUs ahead and to the right, stretching from near Southend away to the north at least 50 miles.

I asked London Control for a heading xx degrees to the south to avoid. They refused.

I watched this recently back in May when there was massive Thunderstorms ploughing through the LTMA. Everything was holding everywhere, even the enroute holds on the STAR’s were activated and some aircraft were flying through it. Majority of them probably through the building phase and had no choice, but once I heard an A380 call up asking to route DUE south of that to hold because it was lumpy and lots of ice.

Buckerfan wrote:

I stupidly went ahead and ploughed through the line of weather and dealt with pretty bad turbulence.

On my flight back from LEGE, things rapidly changed where I had to dive out of CAS because ATC wouldn’t accommodate a high level approach towards the north of the TMA and more direct routing northbound. They was keen on my heading towards DET, which was being avoided by A320s and the like (CBs that later became TSRA).

As soon as the ATC controller saw how drastic my descent and turn was, did I receive a better service with handover to Thames who offered any routing I wanted and Southend who gave me CTA transit to Stapleford just in time. I try to help ATC, but there’s a limit to my love.

On that same flight, I was racing a front coming in from the Atlantic and Paris wanted me to fly through it. I didn’t want to climb through a thin layer to then avoid and nor did I want to end up in the tops of a front because ATC felt I was too close to Paris. There was literally nothing in the sector. I looked at the Golze and refused any left deviation, except 5* till I had to avoid a CB over the Le Harve area, then by that point Paris had to coordinate a more direct routing to LYD into the EGTT FIR. Basically she gave up asking…

Snoopy wrote:

Never experienced something like this in Europe.

Come to think of it, I think it’s the complexity of the sectorisation of the London TMA. Anything outside the norm, requires coordination and the last 2.5 years there’s been limited amounts of that with staff shortages. I think it’s going to get better though as we head further away from “COVID” excuses.

Snoopy wrote:

I can see the adriatic from here” (sic!).

I’ve flown up the Adriatic in the late night from Turkey (x2) and oh my god, you wouldn’t want to weather avoid that in a puddle jumper. The storms are horrific and easily FL400+ – not sure what it is, some local effect but something I hope to do next year is Turkey in the DA40 or Croatia.

Qualified PPL with IR SP/SE PBN
EGSG, United Kingdom
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