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Turbulent Experience
Fri Feb 21, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton for The Weather Notebook. Today, Robin White finds out what it's like to
fly in extreme turbulence.
Most of us have experienced bumpy rides in planes, but few experience turbulence so severe
that the plane loses control. Pilot Rich Caviness has. It was a routine trip in a California
blue sky, then suddenly:
RC: It was an upward move and the sensation was just like a big hand lifted the airplane,
just threw it up in the air and tossed it like you were ... nothing.
The turbulence was caused by wind moving over the mountains. Imagine water moving over rocks
and how it creates bumps and waves in a river. It's the same with air and in this case the
wind caused a standing wave which took the plane on a wild ride.
RC: The altimeter, the air speed, those things you can't even read ‘em you're being shook so
fast, so you just try to keep the airplane under control until you get out of it and then you
see how many thousands of feet you have moved .
In only a few minutes, Caviness'plane was 6,000 feet higher.
RC: It seems like a long time when you're out of control.
White Caviness knew about the turbulence: a small plane had reported it shortly before. But
air traffic control had told him the choppy air wouldn't affect a 300,000 pound MD-11 cargo
plane such as the one he was flying.
Even after a safe landing, such an incident requires that the plane be inspected before flying
again. And for pilots, that inspection turns inward.
Caviness You feel like you're in a big heavy jet, going fast and doing something and then the
weather will come along and make you feel very small.
For The Weather Notebook, I'm Robin White.
The Weather Notebook is produced at the Mount Washington Observatory, with help from Subaru of
America, and the National Science Foundation.
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