[HN Gopher] Active turbulence cancellation makes bumpy flights s...
___________________________________________________________________
Active turbulence cancellation makes bumpy flights smoother
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 172 points
Date : 2023-12-12 15:19 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (newatlas.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (newatlas.com)
| robertkoss wrote:
| Sounds like a perfect setup to replicate the MCAS disaster.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuvering_Characteristics_Au...
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| the counterpoint is that this is a system that would only be
| engaged at cruising altitudes, and which would probably be
| manually turned on. the problem with mcas (aside from using a
| single sensor for flight control) was that it had large effects
| at low speed and problems near the ground don't give you time
| to react
| metabagel wrote:
| You might not have time to react to a failure in this system,
| given how quickly it alters the wing geometry.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Is this now the default comment for any improvement in airline
| technology?
| tekla wrote:
| Of course. It makes people feel better about a system they
| know nothing about
| duped wrote:
| If you're advocating against the existence of feedback control
| systems in aerospace, you're going to have a bad time.
| l33tman wrote:
| The issue with the MCAS-fiasco was that it (by design) was not
| communicated to the pilots, so when it failed, they didn't know
| immediately what to do. If they had known, they would have cut
| out the trim motor and left it off and trimmed manually until
| landing. In the accident flight, the crew repeatedly turned on
| and off the electric trim and never figured out why it started
| moving the trim every time they turned it on again (though,
| yeah, it's an open question why they did this more than one
| cycle....)
| toast0 wrote:
| The second accident flight shows knowledge of the system
| wasn't enough. On that flight, they did turn off electric
| trim, but weren't able to manually trim because the force
| required to manually trim from the limit was too much. So
| they turned electric trim back on, and shortly after they
| stopped touching the electric trim inputs, MCAS resumed
| setting the wrong trim.
|
| IMHO, the second accident had a better chance of survival,
| but it wasn't enough. IIRC, the flight before the first
| accident also had erroneous MCAS activation, and the flight
| crew did turn off electric trim and did it manual, but it
| wasn't treated as a must fix maintenance item, because MCAS
| was hidden.
|
| There really should have been a separate shutoff for MCAS
| apart from the electric trim switches. Limited activation
| authority will hopefully be sufficient, but doesn't satisfy
| my airchair aerospace engineering demands.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| counterpoint: the primary problem wasn't that mcas was hard
| to turn off well. it was that it was a critical system
| without any redundancy and therefore failed about 100x too
| often. if mcas had been based off of 3 sensors like it
| obviously needed to be it would have failed (and known that
| it failed so it could turn itself off instead of pitching
| down the plane) one a decade or so rather than a few times
| a year.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > on long pole masts that placed them some 2.65 m (8.69 ft)
| forward of the leading edges. At cruise speed, that's enough to
| give the system a tenth of a second's worth of advance warning
| before turbulence hits
|
| 2.65m */ 0.1 seconds = 60 mph.
|
| Airliners fly about 500 mph, so something about this math is far
| off...
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| I would guess that it gives them enough advance notice to
| _predict_ turbulence, based on the delta between forces on the
| plane and forces on the poles. If there 's a sharp gradient in
| forces, that gradient seems likely to increase, in a partially
| predictable direction.
| sgc wrote:
| > The company says it'll have a system commercially available
| for light aircraft in 2024. It's looking into a version for
| eVTOL air taxis by 2026, and hoping to have a system relevant
| to commercial airliners by 2030. Godspeed, team, the world's
| airline passengers - not to mention cleaning crews - need you
| to succeed.
|
| They are not targeting airliners for the current generation.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> They are not targeting airliners for the current
| generation._
|
| Like someone else said in the comments, (if true) this tech
| seems to have already been used in military bombers for a
| long time now, so to me it's weird it hasn't made it to
| civilian aircrafts already from the civilian arms of military
| contractors, and instead needs to be reinvented by a start-
| up.
| post_break wrote:
| So it has to be 72 feet long by your math.
| Ekaros wrote:
| So start making holes in front of gates? That would be cool,
| but maybe slightly impractical...
| sp332 wrote:
| The distance is measured from the leading edge of the wing.
| The nose of an Airbus A330 is almost far enough away
| already.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I hope it's retractable!
| wongarsu wrote:
| Maybe they meant the cruise speed of the test aircraft. Some
| quick googling reveals it as a Colomban MC-30 Luciole [1],
| which according to Wikipedia [2] has a cruise speed of 110 mph
| and a maximum speed of 120 mph. Mounting the long instrument
| arm to the tiny aircraft probably doesn't do it any favors
| (seriously, the aircraft looks tiny next to a Cessna), so
| cruising at 60mph sounds reasonable.
|
| [1] https://www.wildbergair.com/registrations/C/OE-CRG_1_01.htm
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colomban_MC-30_Luciole
| mathgenius wrote:
| Yeah I'm guessing these poles just get out in front of the wing
| aerodynamics enough that they can sense whats going on with the
| air so that air pockets/turbulence can be predicted. Either
| that or we are missing a decimal place, maybe they mean 10
| milliseconds?
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| The pole is on the nose, the time available to react would be
| before reaching the leading edge of the wing. You'll need to
| include the length of the front of the plane in question. At
| least as I understand it.
| woliveirajr wrote:
| If it saves fuel, it'll be promptly adopted. Economy beats
| confort every time.
| mh- wrote:
| Agree that's where the real commercial opportunity is. At
| cruise, the autopilot is ~continuously applying changes to
| control surfaces to maintain.
|
| If this can achieve more fuel-efficient adjustments, it'll be
| extremely valuable.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| >Turbulence load prediction for manned and unmanned aircraft by
| means of anticipating differential pressure measurements
|
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13272-021-00512-y
|
| https://youtu.be/9qydsN_acDs?si=IaufsLiHjRe9Rr8X
|
| https://youtu.be/4UfmsqtTGa0?si=79DpjLcNQaaYMFIz
| post_break wrote:
| I wonder how this will effect the wear rate of moving parts on an
| aircraft. Normally they are "fixed" right? And now they are going
| to be moving constantly, during the entire flight.
| stephen_g wrote:
| The control surfaces? The pilot (or autopilot) is fairly
| constantly making small corrections, so no, they're not
| 'fixed', but it's true this is a much higher frequency movement
| than normal control.
| post_break wrote:
| Yeah that's what I mean, they are moving, but nothing like
| this where the movements will be measured in hertz.
| globalise83 wrote:
| The idea of looking ahead at turbulence and preparing for it is
| good, but it has to be done with a technology that doesn't
| require placing an enormous pole in the air, e.g. laser, radar,
| etc.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Yeah that's one problem for airliners. The others are getting
| accurate predictions to happen far enough into the future that
| the contraction would work and being able to generate high
| levels of thrust into a specific direction at a moments notice
| to counteract it.
| sixothree wrote:
| The front of the airplane is very far ahead of anything that
| could possibly act on that information. Not nearly as much in
| the case for this test plane.
| ianlevesque wrote:
| That's a really good point. Napkin math on an Airbus A321
| gives about 81 milliseconds of time to react, not far off
| from the 1/10th of a second they cite for their prototype.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| Apart from the looks, is there any issue with the retractable
| pole? We already have that in few aircraft for aerial
| refueling.
| londons_explore wrote:
| The real savings come when this tech can be built into the
| airframe. The airframe can only bend and flex a certain number of
| times before it cracks and fails.
|
| Todays airframes have a lifespan measured in flight hours, and an
| estimation is done as to how much turbulence will be hit per hour
| of flight. At the lifespan limit, the plane is typically scrap.
|
| If this tech can reduce the flexing of the airframe during flight
| by 80%, you can probably get 5x the flight hours from the
| airframe before it becomes too weak to be safe (or more - half
| the flexing typically more than doubles the lifespan)
|
| Alternatively, you can make the airframe thinner and lighter for
| the same number of operating hours (and that's what is likely to
| happen, since aircraft manufacturers don't want to put themselves
| out of business). Thinner and lighter airframe saves fuel and
| makes the aircraft cheaper.
| gilbertbw wrote:
| Pressurised airframes also have a pressurisation cycle limit
| ericpauley wrote:
| This. My understanding is that airliners basically _always_
| hit the pressurization cycle limit before anything else, so
| wing turbulence cycles are not important.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| First, I don't understand what "build it into the airframe"
| means. These are sensors that are used to predict turbulence
| and then generate forces in opposition. Are you imagining small
| sci-fi rapid thrusters throughout that can generate enough
| thrust to counteract?
|
| Secondly, the turbulence prediction is extremely hard for an
| airliner because it's traveling so fast - you'd need sensors
| extended comically far forward and at that point you've got
| real risk of them breaking off mid flight meaning you would
| have to add significant amounts of weight to strengthen them
| (assuming you could). You've also got the problem that you need
| to retract this stuff on landing probably which adds more
| weight and complexity. Adding even more problems, generating
| sudden thrusts to counteract turbulence for a commercial
| airliner seems really difficult since that's not how the
| engines work (eg you probably can't generate a countervailing
| force quickly enough).
|
| This is a neat concept but keep in mind this is a PoC on a very
| lightweight craft going relatively slow. It's not clear how
| big/fast an aircraft it can scale up to. An easier turbulence
| reduction would be to mount the passenger area in something
| that could actively mechanically stabilize like optical image
| sensors. If you could decouple things so that the airframe
| could be repaired/replaced cheaply independent you everything
| else in the aircraft, that would be much more cost effective.
| However I suspect the mechanical stabilization itself would add
| a lot of weight/also need replacement and you wouldn't see fuel
| savings I think, just a more comfortable ride.
| lagrange77 wrote:
| > Are you imagining small sci-fi rapid thrusters throughout
| that can generate enough thrust to counteract?
|
| That's exactly, what i imagined, at least.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Yeah unfortunately I don't think such tech exists and at
| our current tech level I wouldn't imagine it would work and
| could present real safety issues - you'd have fuel
| pipelines running throughout the airframe which is likely a
| significant amount of really serious fire risk, all of this
| adds a significant amount of weight and maintenance cost, I
| don't believe such adjustment thrusters exist but I could
| be wrong, and I'm sure you would still get things wrong in
| your prediction which means your thrusters would add wear
| and tear on the airframe as well.
|
| This article is about a PoC where they put sensors extended
| out of the airframe of a small slow moving aircraft and
| demonstrated a 60% prediction accuracy for a 10% fuel
| savings. It's unlikely this approach would scale up to an
| airliner. The sensor problem might be but I have big
| questions about the adjustments an airliner moving at
| 600-900 mph can make to successfully counteract the
| prediction.
| swells34 wrote:
| Doppler radar systems can detect airflow vectors in
| arbitrarily large areas, so I imagine that we have the
| tech for that portion, but I too am concerned about
| trying to take something with that large a mass and
| surface area and counteract turbulent forces with it.
| That's also going to stress the airframe and avionics,
| cause maintenance schedule changes, etc...
| lagrange77 wrote:
| Yeah, i was joking. Those thrusters would have to be
| insanely powerful to accelerate such a big mass fast
| enough to counteract the rapidly changing forces, caused
| by turbulence.
| capnrefsmmat wrote:
| These problems are hard, but have already been solved. The
| B-1 Lancer has active turbulence reduction built into the
| airframe, via the small canards on its nose.
| https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19840005129
|
| It's designed to work at Mach 0.85, and was meant to increase
| the lifespan of the airframe during low-altitude penetration
| flights where lots of turbulence could be expected.
| mlyle wrote:
| I think the real idea is to have surfaces or controls
| distributed that could unload turbulence from individual
| surfaces nearly instantly.
|
| This could be a few extra control surfaces, like a canard or
| actuated slat, or it could be through something like Active
| Flow Control --
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-next-
| darpa-x-... -- where puffs of bleed air or electrostatics
| adjusts airflow rapidly.
|
| I think systems-- like the B-1 Lancer highlighted by a
| sibling comment-- show it's not completely impractical for
| larger aircraft.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Neat. The best way to learn something is to post something
| wrong on a forum and wait for experts to correct you :). I
| hadn't considered using puffs of air. I do still think
| adapting it for a commercial airliner may be tricky but it
| would be neat if one day a bunch of tech came together to
| realize this.
| ben_w wrote:
| This may be equally scifi, but for sensors I'm imagining
| small jet powered drones flying in formation a few hundred
| metres ahead of the passenger plane.
|
| Given how slow and cautious the industry is (and for good
| reason), even if someone has been working on this for a
| decade already, I don't expect to see anything like that
| before 2030.
| ak217 wrote:
| You don't need thrusters (which would be impractical). I
| think you can get most of the benefit by sensing with tiny
| canards in the front next to pitot tubes, and using electric
| motors to adjust ailerons/flaperons/spoilerons multiple times
| a second.
| wrsh07 wrote:
| I think route optimization that this will enable (not avoiding
| certain turbulence) might be valuable (save fuel) - I'm very
| excited about the potential implications per flight that this
| might have
|
| The lighter airframe is really interesting, too, given the
| ongoing cost savings
| bobthepanda wrote:
| At least with commercial aviation, unless you can't get ahold
| of new planes they get replaced much earlier than that due to
| wanting ever more efficient planes and more stringent noise
| regulations.
|
| The old clunkers still around are mostly used in sanctioned
| countries, or where a market failure has failed to provide a
| decent equivalent (757/767)
| hef19898 wrote:
| Or they are used as a basis for freighter conversions.
|
| Not sure who still flys 757/767s so, at least for pax. Most
| shoupd have been replaced by 777/787/A350s by now.
|
| Edit: Totally forgot about Delta.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Delta operates nearly 200 of the 75s & 76s. (They are the
| largest operator of both, I'm pretty sure.)
| awad wrote:
| Delta and United both do, with Delta being the largest
| operator of both types.
| weaksauce wrote:
| I flew on a 75 on delta the other day
| BizarreByte wrote:
| > or where a market failure has failed to provide a decent
| equivalent
|
| A whole lot of weird, or just simply old planes still operate
| in Canada for this reason. Until this year you could still
| find 737-200 flights in the north.
| cm2187 wrote:
| I am not aware that the aiframe is the main reason why planes
| are taken out of service. Fuel inefficiency is typically the
| primary reason, plus increased maintenance cost. I can't
| remember an accident of a major airliner as a result of the
| airframe failing post the 1970s.
|
| Will be interesting to look at fatigue of the control surfaces
| though, if they get used many times more per flight to adjust
| for minor turbulences.
| mlyle wrote:
| > I am not aware that the aiframe is the main reason why
| planes are taken out of service
|
| This is true--- these days. We've been tending to replace
| planes before the airframe life limits are met.
|
| > I can't remember an accident of a major airliner as a
| result of the airframe failing post the 1970s.
|
| Well, on the other hand, this is mostly true because airframe
| life limits and expensive inspection programs that we
| established after horrific accidents.
|
| And things like
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243
| (1988).
|
| > Will be interesting to look at fatigue of the control
| surfaces though, if they get used many times more per flight
| to adjust for minor turbulences.
|
| Control surfaces are on bearings and have, in general, a lot
| of excess strength to minimize internal deflection. Even if
| there were a trade in wearing out control surfaces faster,
| they are a more easily inspected and replaced part of the
| airplane.
| cm2187 wrote:
| On the control surface, I mean less the surface itself than
| the mechanism behind, i.e. the moving parts.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| > " Todays airframes have a lifespan measured in flight hours"
|
| Isn't the lifespan related to the number of cabin
| pressurizations (not flight hours).
|
| Which is why long haul planes like 787 have longer lifespans
| than a 737, because 737 are doing way more quick turn trips
| (more pressurizations) than a long haul international flight
| plane.
| cabirum wrote:
| Fighting turbulence must have an impact on fuel efficiency and
| range. Additionally, pressure probes add weight and drag to the
| aircraft. Overall, I think these kind of solutions look brittle
| and error-prone.
| asdfadsfgfdda wrote:
| Pilots still fight turbulence today, usually by changing
| altitude. If this system allows the plane to stay at optimal
| (but turbulent) altitude, it could save fuel.
| partdavid wrote:
| And slowing down, which is usually the first measure and
| reduces fuel efficiency from whatever's optimal there.
| sixothree wrote:
| Remote control airplanes have been using gyros to achieve the
| same effect for some time now. It's a complete game changer and
| changes the amount of enjoyment in a huge way. Instead of telling
| the airplane what to do, you're more so telling the airplane
| where to go.
|
| I'm not suggesting gyros are the correct way to do this. But I
| can say the difference is night and day.
| wussboy wrote:
| I've occasionally thought about getting into RC planes, but the
| piloting of them always seemed too hard. I'd love some links to
| what you're talking about if you have some to recommend?
| thsksbd wrote:
| Rc planes are a few orders of magnitude smaller than commercial
| aircraft. They have practically no flex and therefore fatigue.
|
| A gyro large enough to counter turbulence in an airliner would
| be too heavy to fly and too the fuselage apart
| snovv_crash wrote:
| It isn't a gyroscope that physically resists rotation. It is
| an active sensor that is used to control a PID loop to
| control the actuators and reduce the disturbance.
|
| The technology in the linked article is even different, they
| put a sensor far in front of the wing and preemptively
| control the surfaces to counteract turbulence.
| 83 wrote:
| The gyros in RC are misleading. They are a sensor (gyrometer)
| which isn't using mass to counter movement, the are merely
| letting the plane know when it has shifted so it can move the
| control surfaces accordingly. Gyros have mostly been replaced
| by accelerometers at this point.
| robertsconley wrote:
| I thought Chris Kraft of NASA Apollo fame figured this out in the
| fifties.
|
| From https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/naca-the-jet-
| age...
|
| In 1951, Kraft issued NACA Technical Note 2416 that proposed a
| theoretical solution to the problem. Tests first on a modified
| DC-3 and later on a C-45 validated the theory, and by 1955 the
| system was perfected.
|
| Can be downloaded from here.
|
| https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc64927/m2/1/...
| vlovich123 wrote:
| I wonder if adding spinning wheels arranged in multiple axis
| might be simpler ways to counteract the forces. Might be too hard
| to do it in a safe/lightweight way and spin the wheels fast
| enough to counteract the forces at play.
| voldacar wrote:
| I don't think a reaction wheel can do a ton in 100 ms.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| I was thinking more of a constantly spinning wheel and
| conservation of angular momentum but maybe that doesn't help
| if most of the motion of turbulence is translational? I'm
| sure it's an impractical idea.
| tullianus wrote:
| You're describing a Control Moment Gyroscope (CMG),
| famously used on the ISS. They have very high torque output
| per unit power and mass/volume. They and reaction wheels
| (fixed axis of rotation) are convenient for spacecraft
| applications because they don't require an external medium
| to push against. Aircraft are surrounded by air, so they
| can use control surfaces instead.
| L_226 wrote:
| Hmm, I was thinking small flywheel / gyro units in the plane
| fuselage itself similar to active roll damping in boats. I guess
| active control surfaces make more sense for airplanes, without
| knowing much about how turbulence affects felt vibration in the
| fuselage.
| lawrenceduk wrote:
| I think this would effectively increase the stresses on the
| airframe leading to greater metal fatigue which probably isn't
| a good outcome
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Isn't the upto 10% fuel saving a much bigger deal? I mean
| turbulence is just a minor inconvenience...
| photochemsyn wrote:
| The projected climate-driven increase in turbulence as a
| marketing point is interesting, but there are caveats. Research
| studies do point to turbulence increases in certain seasons and
| latitudes:
|
| > "Climate modelling studies have indicated that the volume of
| airspace containing moderate-or-greater clear-air turbulence on
| transatlantic flight routes in winter will increase by 40%-170%,
| relative to pre-industrial times, when the CO2 is doubled"
|
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-017-6268-2
|
| The CO2 doubling point is expected to arrive in ~60 years at
| current fossil fuel combustion rates, but I'd expect by that time
| a very large fraction of short-distance air travel will have
| moved to (electrified) high-speed rail as it's far cheaper per
| distance traveled. Also, as others note, this technology doesn't
| seem applicable to trans-oceanic jet travel.
| SomeCollegeBro wrote:
| Whenever I'm flying on the B787, I prefer to sit right behind the
| wing to watch the flaperons do their thing. I know it's a little
| different than this, as it's more of a PID driven behavior rather
| than an active predictive system. But regardless, it's quite
| impressive to watch how they are constantly reacting despite the
| plane seemingly not moving at all. They move very delicate and
| precise, which must be difficult to do when travelling at 500mph.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> as it's more of a PID driven behavior rather than an active
| predictive system_
|
| Self tuning and active predictive PID controllers are also a
| thing aided by the _' ye olde'_ faithful Kalman-Filter. At
| least I remember reading about them in research papers.
|
| Now what exactly from those has materialized in commercial
| applications, I have no idea, since it's not like they publish
| such in depth info in the public facing spec sheet.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Am I just flying weird routes, or are newer planes already super
| smooth?
|
| I fly a ton and have only experienced bad turbulence a handful of
| times in the last 5 years.
|
| It's actually astounding to me how little turbulence there seems
| to be now.
|
| Maybe I'm just getting lucky?
| wlesieutre wrote:
| I wonder if that has more to do with the planes or with better
| monitoring of atmospheric conditions for planes to dodge it
| danans wrote:
| In recent years I've heard pilots announce that they are re-
| routing to avoid turbulence. I'm not sure what's new: the
| announcement of this, or the ability to do so.
| Scramblejams wrote:
| Probably the former. It's long been customary for pilots to
| broadcast turbulence over the radio so others can avoid it.
| tynorf wrote:
| Anecdotally, I fly round trip out of SEA ~3 times a year and
| experience very bad turbulence on about half the flights.
| Earlier this year it was bad enough to suspend drink service.
| FanaHOVA wrote:
| > Earlier this year it was bad enough to suspend drink
| service.
|
| If drink service wasn't suspended on others, it wasn't very
| bad turbulence. A rule of thumb is that if your seat belt
| isn't hurting you, it's moderate or lower intensity.
| Ocerge wrote:
| I also fly commonly out of PDX and SEA. Generally anywhere
| near mountains is going to be bumpy (Denver is a roller
| coaster every single time).
| adamredwoods wrote:
| About a decade or two ago, turbulence seemed worse. My uncle
| told of a time when he saw people hit the ceiling. I've
| rarely had issues, although plenty of smaller pockets where
| service does get suspended. I fly out of SEA, but in my
| opinion, DEN is much bumpier because of the sheer winds from
| the Rockies.
|
| My rule of thumb is if the drinks didn't fly into the air and
| spill, then turbulence is minor.
|
| Also pilots largely avoid microbursts now:
|
| https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/microbursts-the-danger-
| th...
| drak0n1c wrote:
| The 787 is far more comfortable than earlier aircraft in
| regards to vibration, sound, air quality, and lighting -
| there's a lot of internal upgrades. My mother who has had
| severe headaches and sinus issues that are extremely sensitive
| to altitude pressure when flying through the 1990s-2010s has
| had no problems since flying on the 787.
| thsksbd wrote:
| This is terrible. Turbulence is the only time on a flight where
| adults behave like adults [1]. Even their sphincters pucker
| preventing them from degassing.
|
| "Nobody likes to fly through turbulence"
|
| Thats not true! There are dozens of us! (Actually, quite a big
| more, I read a stat that we're about 5% of the fliers)
|
| [1] kids be kids, of course - as a kid I once ran up and down the
| aisle during take off, so Im cool w/ kids.
| furyofantares wrote:
| My wife has a fear of flying but she likes some mild
| turbulence. It helps her sense that flying is a physically
| sensible thing, not some magical thing that shouldn't work.
| thsksbd wrote:
| Yea, but a quick prayer on take off/landing is not
| unwarranted. Normalized by journey instead of mile, flying is
| more dangerous than driving (according to Wikipedia anyway).
| travisjungroth wrote:
| That transport comparisons table puts it at 3x per trip.
| This is like praying for your safety because you're going
| into work and stopping for groceries on the way home.
|
| There have been _five_ fatalities of US airline passengers
| in the last 10 years. That's billions of passengers. It's
| incredibly safe.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| That kind of makes sense, it's like how rock-climbing on a
| rope is scary until you actually fall (or descend) and can
| feel the tension of the rope actually supporting you.
|
| Even on a gut level, feeling the plane bounce against the
| "road" gives you a confirmation that, yes, in fact, it is
| bouncing against something (even if that something is just
| air under the wings).
| terryf wrote:
| Yes! Glad to see someone else who also enjoys the turbulence!
|
| Flights are boring, the rocking around is fun!
| chankstein38 wrote:
| I agree, turbulence can be a fun experience! It gets old but
| for a while the rush is great!
| twism wrote:
| was just wondering how pilots know ahead of time that there is
| turbulence a minute or 2 out (obviously can't see it in the
| distance) and it's the least technical way I thought possible
| Tommstein wrote:
| Am I the only one who actually likes airplane turbulence?
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| I mean, if it didn't then what would it be for?
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