I hate flying with passion and get extremely scared when flying through turbulences but, there was a journalist in my country, that also had experience as a pilot and said once on TV that during turbulences, is one of the safest moments in a plane. I don't remember the reasons but is there anybody in here with knowledge in the field that could confirm/deny this?
That's just not true. No turbulence is better than turbulence.
That said, experiencing light chop on a modern large airplane presents no danger to the airframe or properly secured passengers. You really should be strapped in, though, especially if you're on a small plane. Wake turbulence, for example, actually does present a significant risk to smaller aircraft.
It is safe because you are flying. Airplanes almost never have issues at altitude. Problems occur when closer to the ground. Landing/takeoff are the most dangerous times, the transitions between flying and not flying.
My first guess is that during turbulence everyone has their seatbelt on. No one is walking around the cabin. It’s only at the start of unexpected turbulence that anyone should get hurt. Once your seatbelt is on things have to get pretty bad to get hurt.
The standard that you must meet to get a pilots license is being able to hold your altitude within 100 feet in a 360* turn. A 40 foot
He's not saying the drop was 40 feet instantaneously, he's saying the turbulence and the subsequent recovery only caused a 40 foot deviation from the assigned altitude.
Just for reference, a descent rate on a standard flight is pretty normal at 40 feet per second. Some descent profiles can double that. The NCAA diver will hit the water at 46 feet per second.
I agree. It’s funny to think of the gap between safety and scary when talking about turbulence. Large planes can take an absolute beating and be completely fine, but it could feel like the end of the world inside.
A modern airliner is rated to something like 3-4G's including the safety factor, probably much more if it's not at max takeoff weight. I'm sure you could do a Mythbusters-style test but I'd assume most passengers would pass out from the negative and positive G forces long before the aircraft structurally failed.
You'd lose that bet. The wings would fail long before people blacked out. They're only required to withstand 2.5g positive. Blacking out takes more like 6. We can see from various crashes that that sort of G load does in fact cause most wings to fail.
Aircraft have to be built light for the sake of efficiency (or even, just, being able to get off the ground.
There are certainly factors of safety... but not 3x+. Probably closer to 1.5.
"(b) The positive limit maneuvering load factor n for any speed up to Vn may not be less than 2.1 + 24,000/ (W + 10,000) except that n may not be less than 2.5 and need not be greater than 3.8—where W is the design maximum takeoff weight.
(c) The negative limit maneuvering load factor—
(1) May not be less than −1.0 at speeds up to VC; and
"
The 2.5 number is important. That right there is the +2.5 to -1.0 requirments for transport (i.e. seating more than 19 passengers) category aircraft.
Here's a quote from Boeing: "Our airplanes are built to withstand 3.75 G load before there is any kind of damage — that's almost four times gravity,” said Doug Alder, a spokesman for Boeing. “Some of the worst turbulence gets in the range of 2 to 2.5 G's, well below the damage tolerance.”
3.75 is not nearly enough to cause a blackout. It's also exactly 1.5 (typical airplane factor of safety) times 2.5
I feel the same way about flying but a boating enthusiast friend bought up an interesting analogy. He asked me if I enjoyed boating and I said yes. Then he asked me if it was fun when you run over waves bouncing around and I said yes. Then he said that is exactly what turbulence is - wakes and waves in the air the plane is bouncing on so relax and enjoy the ride. Kinda made me feel a little better since I could now visualize what is going on but still - eh, Id rather be on terra firma.
If you've ever sailed, a more apt analogy would be heeling over extensively (and potentially capsizing) due to a gale. You could be sailing along just fine and then all of a sudden you're overpowered. A sail, after all (at least when sailing towards the wind) acts just like a wing of a plane.
