Trips

What's happened air pocket? Airplane flight

January 20, 2016

From the ground it may seem that the clouds are clots of cotton wool. But only children can believe this. Clouds are actually formed by the accumulation of millions of water droplets. Sometimes even the most harmless, it would seem, cloudiness causes doubts among pilots.

Previously, flying on an airplane was completely subject to the intuition, luck and experience of the captain. Today, flight safety has become more high level due to the development of the aviation industry. However, no one, even the most experienced pilot, can insure the aircraft against falling into thunderclouds, where, as a rule, lightning, hail, and an air pocket await it. What is this phenomenon and should we be afraid of it?

What is turbulence?

Pilots call this phenomenon "chatter". Some say it's an air pocket. The plane sways from side to side, and sometimes it seems that it seems to bounce and flap its wings.

Surprisingly, turbulence can occur not only when an aircraft enters a cloudy area. There is such a thing as turbulence clear sky. But if the weather is calm, pressure and humidity are normal, then the temperature is evenly distributed in the air. These are ideal conditions for a safe flight. And if there are clouds in the sky, then this is already an indicator that there are temperature drops. Ascending and descending air currents have different pressures. When the aircraft enters such zones, it begins to shake. Especially the air pocket, or rather getting into it, is felt during a flight over mountains, oceans or the sea. But you should not be very afraid of this phenomenon, since modern aircraft were originally designed with all these points in mind.

What is the danger of turbulence?

Chatter is not a pleasant phenomenon, but it is absolutely safe for an airplane. Almost all pilots are convinced of this. But nevertheless, getting into turbulence zones, they immediately tend to leave them. As a rule, there is no accidental entry into the "chatter" zone. Pilots prepare in advance for possible difficulties in flight. Therefore, they always have a couple of additional bypass routes in stock.

You should know that this phenomenon cannot cause any harm to the aircraft. It won't break, fall apart or explode. But passengers in such an environment have a hard time. Those who, for one reason or another, did not fasten their seat belts can especially suffer. In this case, you can even be seriously injured.

Truth or myth?

Most passengers believe that getting into the turbulence zone depends entirely on the skill of the pilot. But, unfortunately, neither the skills, nor the experience, nor the qualifications of the latter can affect this in any way. The degree of shaking is influenced exclusively by atmospheric conditions, as well as the weight of the aircraft itself. Heavy machines are more protected from this phenomenon. More precisely, shaking in them is not felt so much.

Passengers should be aware that the aircraft crew always acts according to the regulations. Sometimes a decision is made to make an emergency landing of the aircraft. However, this does not mean at all that the vessel is faulty. According to safety rules, the crew has the right to land the aircraft due to adverse weather conditions.

Rules of conduct on the plane

Since turbulence is a natural occurrence during flight, and air pockets are also common during flight, it is best to know how to act correctly so as not to injure yourself. In some cases, it is impossible to influence the situation, but it is still possible to minimize the risks of serious injury.

1. Do not leave the seat when entering the turbulence zone.
2. Luggage located on the upper shelves must be well secured.
3. It is strictly forbidden to unfasten seat belts during shaking.
4. Follow all instructions from the staff.

Air funnel - what is it?

Sometimes turbulence occurs when an aircraft enters an area of ​​low pressure. Why are such phenomena dangerous?

Of course, the concept of "air pocket" is abstract. Why? There can be no holes in the air. But nevertheless, from sudden pressure drops, the plane begins to suddenly fall down. However, this is just how it feels. In fact, the aircraft is caught in a downward air current, which pulls it down with its force. This results in a decrease in the lifting speed. Then the reverse process takes place. The aircraft is caught in an updraft of air which pushes it up. Feelings from everything that is happening are extremely unpleasant. However, it is almost impossible to avoid such a phenomenon, since nature cannot be controlled. The only thing that people can do is to increase the strength of the structure, carefully check the fastenings and mechanisms so that the aircraft can adequately cope with a difficult situation.

What to do if the plane got into an air pocket?

For starters, don't panic. This phenomenon is widespread, not a single flight over the mountains or Pacific Ocean. However, passengers must internally prepare for it. You should not drink alcoholic beverages before and during the flight. If possible, you should stop taking medications. During the flight, you should not read anything. It is better to drink water with lemon to cope with the feeling of nausea. The aircraft, if it hits an air pocket, will not suffer much, since according to all the rules, only fully corrected aircraft are allowed to fly. aircrafts. There are only a few cases of air crashes in the world due to an aircraft falling into a funnel, but they still exist. In this case, it is better to overcome air pockets with prayer. Catastrophes are sometimes avoided, according to eyewitnesses. But not always the pilot can cope with the control, and a real disaster happens.

How to minimize risks when flying?

Because air pocketing is to some extent weather related, it is best to learn how to minimize the risk of uncomfortable conditions before flying in an airplane.

1. The best time to fly is early in the day. As a rule, wind, storm, thunderstorm or hail in the morning is unlikely.
2. If possible, flights without intermediate stops should be chosen.
3. You need to study the weather forecast in those places through which the plane will fly.
4. Find out the hotel numbers in the cities through which the plane will fly. If suddenly there will be emergency landing, you can quickly book a room in the nearest hotel.
5. Large aircraft are less dangerous. Even with strong shaking, it is quite comfortable to be inside them. Therefore, before flying, you should study what types of aircraft are offered by certain airlines.
6. You should choose flights that often fly on the desired route. In this case, a favorable outcome is more likely if something goes wrong.

Getting on a plane, a person begins to be afraid. We are accustomed to living on the earth - a solid, stable surface. One has only to tear us away from it a little - and that's it, fear envelops us to tingling in the fingers and wetness of the hands. We are afraid of everything - so that the engine does not fail, so that nothing happens to the plane ... And then there is this turbulence and air pockets. Words are frightening with their vagueness alone. Shall we try to figure it out?

If you get out on the Internet forums dedicated to this issue - “Should we be afraid of turbulence and / or air pockets?”, Then again, we will not see anything concrete. There is no clear definition. Rather, it is given by a dictionary, but it is rather hard to hear: “ Turbulence is a phenomenon that occurs with an increase in the speed of gas flow and spontaneously generated waves". In short, the air begins to oscillate, the plane entering this stream begins to shake along with it. But this definition is of a very simple form. As experienced air travelers write, “this is a bumpy ride, where it shakes a lot and you get a lot nervous.” As for the nerves, it will be said a little further, but for now it’s worth deciding - what then is an air pocket?

Air pockets are commonly referred to as pressure drops. As the dictionary says, "This is a term for alleged pits in which there is a sudden downward fall of the aircraft, independent of the control of the aircraft." In fact, this is not a plane falling down. He just got caught in a downdraft that caused him to lower his vertical rate of ascent to, say, 15m/s instead of 20m/s. The descending air flow is followed by an ascending air flow, and everything is repeated in reverse order. The plane seems to “dives” back and forth, causing rather unpleasant sensations in the stomach and making you think about who knows what. However, you can’t argue with nature, without overcoming such streams you won’t get anywhere. Therefore, now manufacturers and mechanics simply increase the strength of the structure and fasteners, check the mechanisms more so that the aircraft comes out of this difficult situation safe and sound.

Everything seems to be clear - what is turbulence, what are air pockets ... But an unpleasant feeling somewhere in the solar plexus area still remains, you just have to think about the upcoming flight? You just need to understand the cause of this very fear and try to eliminate it yourself:

If it arose as a result of past flights, when you felt sick and dizzy, it means that your vestibular apparatus is not strong enough. There's nothing you can do about it, that's just the way the body is. Here we can only advise you not to drink alcohol during the flight, try not to read anything (because working with a source close to your eyes may cause nausea) and drink a liquid containing lemon juice - mineral water, tea. Sour has long helped to endure nausea and prevent it from ending in an inappropriate way.

If you are afraid that the aircraft simply will not withstand such a load, then all you need is self-persuasion and faith in the best. Equipment constantly undergoes various checks, mechanics examine the aircraft for faults. According to state standards air Transport they simply will not be allowed to transport if the slightest inaccuracy is found.

If the desire to fly somewhere disappeared after reading (listening to) scary stories about how people “flyed from Egypt / Turkey / China and got into such a storm ...”, reassure yourself that these are just emotions. Everyone tends to exaggerate the importance / significance of the events to some extent. And the mentality of a Russian person is such that he always needs to be told how bad everything was. Even if it's not true. Agree that very often in response to the question: “How are you?”, the interlocutor begins to complain about life and describe everything in the darkest colors. Look, he doesn’t have a life, but just a solid Shakespearean tragedy. And it doesn’t matter that he has a new car, and he is dressed to the nines ... So it is here - very often the same air pockets and thunderstorms experienced in flight are perceived by a participant in these events as a universal catastrophe. I want to be sure to write how hard and difficult it was, to feel like a “hero”. So the number of gloomy messages and gloomy forecasts regarding the flight is constantly growing.

We hope that we were able to sow a shadow of mistrust towards fears regarding turbulence / air pockets, explained in an accessible way what these phenomena were and were able to help dispel some of our own fears. Good luck with your flight, and remember: EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE!

When moving large air masses, a variety of phenomena occur. Very often, cold masses move down, and heated ones rise higher. In other words, downward flows are replaced by upward ones. The passenger, who is on board the aircraft at this moment, has a feeling that the winged car rushes down, as if falling into a huge hole, and then emerges from the abyss of air.

Once in the downward air flow, the liner slightly loses its rate of ascent, while the horizontal speed remains the same. The plane is still rushing forward, at the same time slightly decreasing. This is usually followed by an updraught, increasing the vertical speed. It seems that the liner takes off sharply upwards.

At such moments, a person often has very unpleasant sensations in the abdomen; Nausea rises in the throat, and for those who do not fly very often, uncontrollable fear appears.

In fact, there is no reason to panic. You just need to remember that at the moment the aircraft passes through the "air pocket" it does not fall, but only slightly decreases. This phenomenon is very common during flights, it is almost impossible to control it. Neither the aircraft nor the experience of the crew can prevent the liner from falling into such a "pit". In terms of its strength, the pressure that the aircraft experiences in such a situation is comparable to the loads that arise when driving a vehicle on an uneven road.

The cause of shaking in the air is turbulence

When an aircraft passes through an "air pocket", a physical phenomenon called turbulence occurs. It occurs when, with a change in the speed of the flow of air masses, vortexes are formed. air waves. In other words, the air is subject to fluctuations, and the aircraft, caught in the turbulence zone, begins to shake.

Sophisticated air passengers sometimes refer to this process as "chattering". When a person feels shaking, his nerves begin to play pranks in anticipation of trouble.

It helps to save your nerves by knowing that the behavior of an aircraft in turbulent air flow is a common phenomenon. The strength of the aircraft body and the design of the aircraft control system are such that passengers should not fear for their safety when passing through places where air flows change. A timely and securely fastened belt will help to avoid minor troubles during shaking.

To the question What are the "air pockets" into which aircraft fall during flight? given by the author *@ Catherine @ * the best answer is Thermal - ascending air currents in the Earth's atmosphere, caused by the heating of the surface layer of air under the influence of the sun's rays or other factors.
As you know from the school physics course, air expands when heated, while maintaining its mass. At the same time, the air density decreases and the heated air rises up under the action of the Archimedean force. The sun's rays, passing through the air, are partially absorbed by the molecules that make up the air. As a result of this absorption, the air is heated, but the magnitude of this heating cannot be compared with the heating of the Earth's surface by the sun's rays. The darker the surface, the more sunlight it will absorb, and the more it will heat up. Therefore, arable land and an asphalt road heat up most of all, rocks and buildings heat up a little less, and forest and water heat up much weaker. Snow and ice practically do not heat up, reflecting almost all sunlight.
It turns out the following picture - the sun's rays heat the surface of the Earth, the surface of the Earth heats the surface layer of air, the heated layer of air rises, cold air flows in place of the heated air and everything repeats. But the surface of the Earth is not uniform and it heats up in different ways, respectively, and the air heats up in different ways - somewhere stronger, somewhere weaker. Warmer air rises faster and forms an updraft region.
In the morning, when the first rays of the sun have heated an area of ​​the Earth's surface with a greater absorbing capacity, such as a rock in a field, a layer of air around it begins to heat up. After a while, this part of the air will fly up in the form of a bubble of warm air. In shape, it exactly resembles an air bubble in water, floating up.
When the sun has warmed up a piece of the Earth well, the air begins to warm up very quickly and the air bubbles merge into one continuous stream of air directed upwards. It turns out an invisible pipe in which the air rises to a height of several hundred meters to several kilometers. At this height, the air is much colder than near the ground, and the rising warm air, mixing with the cold, quickly cools. This causes the formation of fog - the condensation of water vapor, which we see as a cloud that has appeared in a clear sky.
The air cooled at a height loses its buoyancy and begins to descend, forming an annular layer of descending air around the ascending air flow. As it descends, the cold air heats up again. The result was a solar-powered air pump that pumps air from the ground up and back. Moreover, it also works after sunset, as long as the piece of land remains heated.
This phenomenon, operating on the phenomenon of air convention, is called THERMIC in aviation. When an aircraft enters a thermal, the aircraft experiences aerodynamic forces that create an overload. Passengers perceive this overload as pushes up and down, which they explain by the presence of "air pockets" in the air.
Birds and glider pilots use thermals as a kind of lift that lifts them up without expending energy. To do this, you just need to find an invisible jet of air in the air, determine where its center is and start spinning around this invisible center of the jet.

Many people are afraid of flying. Psychologists say that there is even such a thing as "aerophobia". Patients with this diagnosis experience real horror at the mere thought of taking to the air. The strongest negative emotions are caused by air pockets and turbulence. Such moments are unpleasant even for those who do not experience fear of flying. However, the pilots claim that in fact this is quite a common natural phenomenon that can be explained in scientific language, and it will not bring any trouble to the passengers of the airliner. Today we decided to tell you what an air pocket really is, and whether it is worth being afraid of.

Term Explanation

It is quite difficult for an ordinary person to understand what an air pocket actually is. Everyone understands that there are no highways and pavements in the sky, and therefore there can be no holes. For example, when it comes to driving a car, it is absolutely clear to anyone that there may be an obstacle or a hole on the road that an experienced driver can cut. But what if you get into an air pocket? Can it be bypassed? And how dangerous is she? We will answer all these questions in the following sections of the article. But let's understand this difficult topic gradually.

Scientists have long known that air currents are not uniform. They have different directions, temperatures and even densities. All this affects airliners following certain routes. In the case when the plane encounters streams of lower temperature on its way, a complete illusion of a short-term fall is created. Then we usually say that the ship has fallen into an air pocket. However, in reality, this is just an illusion that can be easily explained with the help of modern science.

Downstream and Upstream

To understand how air pockets form, it is necessary to have a complete understanding of the movement of air currents. According to the laws of physics, heated air always rises, and cooled air falls down. Warm currents are called ascending, they always tend upward. And cold air is considered to be descending, and like a funnel it pulls down everything that comes in its way.

It is because of the movement of these flows that air pockets so unloved by passengers are formed during the flight. They make travelers experience very unpleasant sensations that many cannot forget for a long time.

The principle of the formation of air pockets

Despite the fact that the modern aircraft industry has long equipped its new liners with an abundance of technological innovations designed to make flying comfortable and safe, so far no one has managed to save passengers from the discomfort caused by descending air masses. So, the plane got into an air pocket. What happens to him at this moment?

Even when flying in good weather conditions, an airliner can encounter cold air. Since it is descending, it begins to significantly slow down the rate of ascent of the aircraft. It is noteworthy that in a straight line it goes with the same indicators, but it loses a little height. This usually only lasts for a few moments.

The airliner then meets the updraft, which begins to push it upwards. This allows the aircraft to return to its previous altitude and continue flying normally.

Feelings of passengers

For those who have never been in air pockets, it is quite difficult to understand how the passengers of the aircraft feel. Usually people complain that they experience stomach cramps, nausea rising to the throat, and even, lasting a fraction of a second, weightlessness. All this is accompanied by the illusion of falling, which is perceived as realistic as possible. The totality of sensations leads to uncontrollable fear, which in the future does not allow most people to calmly endure flights and causes aerophobia.

Is it worth it to panic?

Unfortunately, not a single highly professional pilot will be able to get past the air pocket. It is impossible to fly around it, and even the brand and class of the aircraft will not be able to protect passengers from unpleasant experiences.

Pilots claim that the moment the plane hits the downdraft, it loses control for a while. But you should not panic because of this, such a situation lasts no more than a few seconds and, apart from unpleasant sensations, does not threaten travelers with anything.

However, you need to know that in the air pocket the airliner is under serious pressure. At this point, the plane hits "chatter" or turbulence, which, in turn, adds to the frightened passengers' discomfort.

Briefly about turbulence

This phenomenon gives travelers a lot of inconvenience, but in fact it is not dangerous and cannot lead to an airliner crash. It is believed that the loads on an airplane during turbulence are no higher than on a car that is moving on a rough road.

A turbulence zone is formed when air flows with different speeds meet. At this point, vortex waves are formed, which cause "chatter". It is noteworthy that turbulence occurs regularly on some routes. For example, when flying over mountains, the plane always shakes. Such zones are quite long, and the “chatter” can last from several minutes to half an hour.

Causes of turbulence

We have already talked about the most common reason for the appearance of "bumpiness", but, in addition to this, other factors can also cause it. For example, an air liner flying in front often contributes to the formation of vortices, and these, in turn, form a zone of turbulence.

Near the surface of the earth, the air warms up unevenly, which is why vortex flows are created, which cause turbulence.

It is noteworthy that pilots compare flying in the clouds to highway traffic with potholes and potholes. Therefore, in cloudy weather, passengers most often experience all the "charms" of a flight in a shaking plane.

The dangers of turbulence

Most passengers seriously believe that turbulence can break the cabin's airtightness and lead to a crash. But in fact, this is the safest phenomenon of all possible. The history of air transportation does not know a case when getting into a "bump" would lead to fatal consequences.

Aircraft designers always put a certain margin of safety into the body of the aircraft, which will quite calmly withstand both turbulence and thunderstorms. Of course, such a phenomenon causes anxiety, unpleasant emotions and even panic among passengers. But in fact, you just need to calmly wait out this moment, not succumbing to your own fear.

How to behave during the flight: a few simple rules

If you are very afraid of flying, and thoughts of air pockets and turbulence make you feel terrified, then try to follow a series of simple rules, which will greatly facilitate your condition:

• do not drink alcohol during the flight, it will only aggravate unpleasant emotions;
• try to drink water with lemon, it will relieve attacks of nausea when it enters the air pockets;
• before the trip, set yourself up in a positive way, otherwise you will always be tormented by forebodings and negative emotions;
• be sure to fasten your seat belts, passengers may be injured during the passage of the turbulence zone;
• if you are very afraid of flying, then choose larger aircraft models that are less sensitive to all sorts of shaking.

We hope that after reading our article, your fear of flying will become less acute, and your next air travel will be easy and enjoyable.