Hi people turbulence can down a plane depending on how bad it is. Mich mentioned the ITCZ and severe thunderstorms that occur there. At the equator the clouds can go up to as high as 50,000 feet so even flying over is not an option. A cardinal rule for pilots is DO NOT FLY into a thunderstorm and if they really must they navigate through the regions with less turbulence. The weather radar in the cockpit of modern airliners highlights the trouble spots and it's his/her job to use that info to avoid it. I once read of a guy who had a change in altitude of 20,000 feet when flying through a storm- pretty hectic and fortunate to have lived to tell the tale. Small planes can simply disintegrate due to the stresses on the structure. Given we don't know the whole story yet but from initial info we can guess that the storm played a role in the incident. The black box(es) if found should reveal more. @David ;) About our national carrier, the biggest measure of pilot's skill is in the landings and it's sad that they fall short. By the way those short african routes if they use a 737 could be flown by junior pilots still perfecting the art, pole sana for the hard landings. few and far between, not for long.... @ steve- about dodgy airports there's this one called Port elizabeth where winds over 80 km/h are not uncommon, I remember guys clapping for the pilot after the landing! @aki- interesting that, they go through a lot of that! On 03/06/2009, Steve Obbayi <steve@sobbayi.com> wrote:
yeah but be warned. the installation with gobble up about 18GB of disk space after installation. (thats basic installation). its basically for the terrain, scenary, ground and air objects, buildings... well the whole works basically
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From: skunkworks-bounces@lists.my.co.ke [mailto:skunkworks-bounces@lists.my.co.ke] On Behalf Of aki Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 12:14 PM To: Skunkworks forum Subject: Re: [Skunkworks] Air France: Turbulence brought it down?
@ david, sorry need to make a small diversion...
@steve : maybe we find a way to put it online sometime when seacom etc is cheaper. I still have Su-27 Flanker, the only plane ever to execute a pugachev cobra! imho. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daOPK07baBw