Nasty severe to extreme turbulence event tomorrow morning west of Denver

[GeeBee]

I am sure it is a lot more than 200 now. Delta specs all new aircraft with the capability.  Occultation, now there is a cocktail party word.

[carusoam]

I tried to read the abstract for the occultation paper…

I will need another decade of reading help to make that happen…. 

Try it… it might be fun…

Best regards,

-a-

[Scott Dennstaedt, PhD]

18 hours ago, GeeBee said:

I am sure it is a lot more than 200 now. Delta specs all new aircraft with the capability.  Occultation, now there is a cocktail party word.

There has been some shuffling of aircraft, but in the end we still have about 200 aircraft that we have access to for this data. These are mostly from SWA and DAL.  However, there are many more aircraft (at least another 200) that use the in situ EDR onboard algorithm, but we do not have access to that data.  Industry is trying to rectify this (after all, shouldn't a severe report be available to everyone?), and the probable avenue is through IATA, who is developing a world wide dataset of EDR data. Of course, most of this data is in the upper flight levels. 

[GeeBee]

The reality is, if you have "severe" you have injuries that will require an emergency declaration. It will get out very fast.

 

[Scott Dennstaedt, PhD]

2 minutes ago, GeeBee said:

The reality is, if you have "severe" you have injuries that will require an emergency declaration. It will get out very fast.

 

Understood, but an EDR value of 38 is considered moderate for an aircraft like a B737, but that is in the severe category for a M20R. No injuries in the B737, possible injuries in a M20R.  

[GeeBee]

Possible, but less likely. The in the M20R, everyone will be strapped in where as the chance of every passenger and everything strapped down in a B737 is nil to none. You always have someone "in the lav". What most Captains fail to consider is if a flight attendant gets hurt enough she has to sit down, say a sprain, that is an automatic NTSB 830 report because a "flight crew member" is unable to perform their duties. On the other hand if I take a divit out of my head in the M20R, but I am able to land, despite a bleeding scalp, it is not.

[Scott Dennstaedt, PhD]

14 hours ago, GeeBee said:

Possible, but less likely. The in the M20R, everyone will be strapped in where as the chance of every passenger and everything strapped down in a B737 is nil to none. You always have someone "in the lav". What most Captains fail to consider is if a flight attendant gets hurt enough she has to sit down, say a sprain, that is an automatic NTSB 830 report because a "flight crew member" is unable to perform their duties. On the other hand if I take a divit out of my head in the M20R, but I am able to land, despite a bleeding scalp, it is not.

Sure.  The point is that with the same EDR values the different airframes the passengers and crew are likely to experience turbulence in a different way.  So, while it won't be easy to drink your coffee without spilling some in seat 14B with an EDR value of 38 in the B737 (moderate), most of the coffee would likely end up on you in the M20R (severe).   

[GeeBee]

I guess my point is that yes, while aircraft size is pertinant in perceived turbulence, seat belt usage is a far greater factor in injury and survivability. There is an old maritime saying, "The boat can take more than you". Indeed the sail boat in Perfect Storm was later found fully afloat. Ditto airplanes. With the exception of a few bathtub spar Beechcrafts, and the JAL Dc-8 over Mt Fuji it is very rare for turbulence to pick apart an airplane. The airplane can usually take more than you. Equally so an FAR 23 is far more robust than a Part 25 airframe. A properly flown and maintained airframe can take just about any turbulence encounter and survivability for everyone on board is based mostly on seatbelts.