Turbulence

dfx-

I'm not sure where to put this, but I gathered I'm in the right place.

Flying down to South Africa from London Heathrow a few times, there was no real turbulence in the A340-600/747-400 except for over the Sahara Desert - which I presume is the heat escaping in the night-time air.

Yet last September, flying over France there was very strong turbulence that caused the cabin crew to stop serving for a long while...and coming back tonight from Rome in an A320 some very strong headwinds caused more turbulence, though not as strong and from speaking to others, it's the not the first time this has happened on the same flight where the plane would hit pockets of air every few minutes..

Is there anything particular about the atmosphere or weather patterns over France that causes it? I've never noticed before flying back from Spain or flying back from South Africa. Really surprised by the strength of it - especially to knock an A340-600 about. Flown at 46,000ft and it appeared to be a clear night tonight?

TheGreenGiant

dfx- wrote: »

I'm not sure where to put this, but I gathered I'm in the right place.

Flying down to South Africa from London Heathrow a few times, there was no real turbulence in the A340-600/747-400 except for over the Sahara Desert - which I presume is the heat escaping in the night-time air.

Yet last September, flying over France there was very strong turbulence that caused the cabin crew to stop serving for a long while...and coming back tonight from Rome in an A320 some very strong headwinds caused more turbulence, though not as strong and from speaking to others, it's the not the first time this has happened on the same flight where the plane would hit pockets of air every few minutes..

Is there anything particular about the atmosphere or weather patterns over France that causes it? I've never noticed before flying back from Spain or flying back from South Africa. Really surprised by the strength of it - especially to knock an A340-600 about. Flown at 46,000ft and it appeared to be a clear night tonight?

Thats a good question there mate. From my own experiance,I remember coming home to Ireland from Prague in the first week of November 2008. Remeber heavy turbulance for most of the flight, until we were flying over England when it finally subsided. The pilot told us it was due to very strong winds in ther upper atmosphere due to the jet stream. This is where rapidly changing wind speeds with height can combine with an unstable air layer to cause "waves" of up and down motion in this air layer. Alot of the time turbulance is caused by strong winds from squall lines and convective clouds. If an airplane must fly through a thunderstorm, these updrafts and downdrafts can be very strong. But from what you were saying in your post, I would say itwasdue to the jet stream. Hope this answers your question:)

TheGreenGiant

Just as a visual aid, when I got home and looked at what caused the air turbulence, the chart was similar to the one below. Only difference was the low was lower in that it was sitting over Scotland and drawing very stong winds of the Atlantic and into cental Europe

Darwin

I've flown from the South-East of France on numerous occasions in the last three years. Any of the bumpy flights have been on the return leg. Last year I noticed the return flight in the summer was bumpier than usual - the jetstream was sitting on a more southerly track (over Northern France/southern England). The pilot mentioned that changing altitude wouldn't help, so we would have to put up with the 30 minutes or so of chop. Check out the jet stream forecasts for your next flight here - it might go some way to explaining the turbulence you experience. The other possibility is as GreenGiant mentions, updraft from storms, or perhaps even flying over a high mountain range can cause problems.

Pangea

Exactly ,I was flying home from spain a few weeks ago and the plane got very rocky , not sure was that after we flew over france or during it but it certaintly was a bit frightening.