Flew Luebeck to Cannes in 3:30 hours today. Best groundspeed 246 knots in cruise!
The bad thing was moderate to severe turbulence over the Ligurian Apennines. Worst I have ever encountered. Fortunately only exprienced passengers on board. To be honest, there were numerous SIGMETs, all advising about the turbulence and I chose to ignore them. Not a brilliant decision to fly via Italy today. Via Geneva and Lyon would have been better.
Fanatastic weather and vis >100km here.
You are very brave, considering that the ligurian coast has lost 60% of its trees in the last 48 hours!
(see:
http://iltirreno.gelocal.it/versilia/cronaca/2015/03/05/news/forte-dei-marmi-irriconoscibile-e-facile-preda-di-sciacalli-1.10985294 )
Damn! I wet my pants in light to moderate turbulence and what do YOU do ! :-)
You didn’t make a video, did you?
Can you describe what that kind of turbulence feels like in the Cirrus? How much did you pull the power? To stay below Va?
I sure didn’t make a video, I was very busy flying the plane and making sure cameras and ipads didn’t fly around. Did a couple of nice photos though with that incredible visibility. Will share a few of them next week.
Since I was VFR in class G, I could do what I wanted to make it as smooth as possible. Went from almost idle to almost full power various times. Gotta keep that speed under control and react quickly when a downdraught or updraught starts.
Today was a very pleasant flight back via West of the Alps to Verdun (fuel), to Trier (food) and then to Lübeck.
Yes, I was sure you had no time to make a video :-)
If there’s something I really hate then it’s strong turbulence … One time i flew into (probably only light to moderate) turbulence with my fomer girlfriend (1999) over the Alps and she started screaming like crazy! It made me so nervous that I told her to shut up or I’d make an emergency landung on a mountain and let her out … ten minutes later it was over.
“… ten minutes later it was over.”
@Flyer59: what was over, your relationship with that girlfriend :) ??
I experienced some very, very bad turbulence in a DA40 about four years ago when flying from LFGA to LSZB. In the Rhine Valley with 50kts crosswind – to my left the Back Forest, to my right the Alsace – the wave was so damn extreme. Additionally, I couldn’t get any COM-contact to anyone, so I really started wondering whether my COM-antenna was ripped off from the aircraft by the strong wind for a minute. I felt so damn alone up there with no contact to anybody, my g/f sitting next to me, being totally silent but pinching her nails strongly into the upper panel. Since I was aware that all airports on my way had north-south-runways I planned to redirect to Zurich for landing on RWY 28 because it was clear that this strong crosswind would never allow any crosswind landing.
I finally managed to get in contact with the Swiss FIS, and when turning west towards Bern I had some 52 kts on my nose, reducing my groundspeed to some 60 kts. After our landing in LSZB (smooth and perfect with just 8 kts wind on the ground but strong downdrafts in the short final) my g/f only mentioned ‘we will never do that again, ok?’ – to what I agreed. Brave girl :) !
Yes, that can be very ugly. Fortunately i didn’t have it very often.
Once, some years ago I was flying towards a thunderstorm that was actually at least 20 miles behind my destination airport. Where I flew the sky was blue, beautiful weather and we could see the T/S only in the very far distance. The Piper Warrior was flying on autopilot in 3000 feet, about 20 miles to go to the airport when we were hit by ONE (really only one!) downdraught which was so strong that I really hurt my head on the ceiling. It was like a big hammer and i was sure the wings were off! And then all was quiet … nozt even light turbulence until landing … I still wonder what that was … but it was pretty scary!
Wake turbulence perhaps?
Or a sheet of hot air rising from a tarmac road heated by the sun. The road can be 2000ft below.
I have seen such isolated but severe bumps.
Quarries can also generate localised areas of rising air, as well as pine forests.
I remember flying with a paraglider pilot who had an impressive (to me) ability to predict where we would fly through thermals, where we would find mechanically raised air masses just by looking at the ground and terrain.
I think it was no wake turbulence, very far from any airport … also it was over open land/fields … no quarries either … it was strange because it was only one isolated hit, like with a big hammer from above … and the rest of the flight was completely calm! Since it came from “above” (downdraught) I don’t think it was lifting air …
