Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Turbulence

Episode Date: February 20, 2019

If you’ve ever had a bumpy airplane ride, you know it’s nothing fun. But have you ever noticed that the pilots sometimes tell you ahead of time to buckle in? How do they know turbulence is ahead? Are they some kind of fortune teller? How can anyone see wind? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Mr. Chuck, and there's Ms. Jerry over there. That's M-S-T-U Sucka.

This is, like I said, short stuff. Buckle up, everyone. Yeah, for the turbulent edition of short stuff. Have you ever had a bad, like really bad turbulence? No, not really bad. No. Yeah, I haven't either. You know, there's actually a classification for that.

It's not called really bad. It's called extreme or severe, but there's three types of turbulence. There's light turbulence, you know? It's the kind that kind of shakes like your drink a little bit, and you're like, oh, this again. There's moderate, which is like your drink

is now spilling out of your cup. And then there's severe, and that is like the time where people get hurt. Sometimes very rarely die, but I saw photos of a plane ride from Santa Ana up to Seattle, I think, and it was like a Delta flight. And the drink cart was on its side. And like they had been serving drinks

and the thing, the plane just hit turbulence, took a 200 foot nose dive, and apparently one of the flight attendants and the drink cart were on the ceiling and then just came down. So it can get pretty bad, but that's very, very rare, it turns out. Yeah, so if you haven't picked up on it,

we're talking about airplane turbulence, and specifically when a pilot knows when they come on there and say, hold onto your butts, everyone. Here we go in the next 10 minutes. I've always wondered like what the deal was. Well, now we know. Now we know, and we can just bother

every passenger next to us till the end of time. You know how they realize, when they make this announcement. Yeah, if you really wanna get somebody sleeping next to you on an airplane's attention, don't just kinda elbow them. Like just slowly increase the pressure of your pointy elbow in the ribcage until they wake up.

That'll get them talking. Yeah, and regardless, like you said, of how bad it gets, it's usually not that big of a deal. As far as planes go, they're made to take it. I know sometimes if you're sitting on the wing and looking out. Oh yeah.

It can be a little distressing, seeing those things almost flapping, but they're meant to move a little. They're supposed to do that. Yeah, so don't worry. The wing is not gonna snap off, most likely. No, remember when we talked about cars and how it seems like they're made terribly today

because they come apart. But they're actually designed like that to make them easier to take a crash. Same thing with the plane. If they were just completely rigid and brittle, then the wing might actually snap off. So it's supposed to flap a little bit in turbulence. Yeah, and the other part of that is injuries.

The FAA said 44 injuries in 2016 due to turbulence, 900 plus million people flying, that is not a lot of injuries. Yeah, I think the most. It's exceedingly rare. Like there was 13 in 2013. Oddly, there was 17 in 2017. And between 1980 and 2008,

there were only three deaths from turbulence. So it is very, very rare. And one of the reasons it's not way worse and it's actually getting even better is because pilots are able to predict where the turbulence is coming because, number one, they're trained to see signs of it. But also, there are the entire network of people

on planet Earth back down on the ground who are working to let those pilots know what places to avoid and why. Yeah, so when they go to take off, there's a few types of turbulence to look out for. Convective, that is kind of the standard thunderstorm turbulence that you might expect. Yeah, like when air on the Earth's surface gets warm,

it rises and it can create clouds as it carries water vapor up and cools. And the taller the cloud, the more turbulent there is in there. That's right. Then there's mountain wave turbulence. And that's when air is just literally cresting over the top of a mountain in a wave

like you would see in the ocean. Yeah, because it's all fluid. I mean, air and water, they're both fluid, you know? So of course they would break like that. You don't wanna get your little plane caught up in a breaking air wave. No. And then finally you have the clear air turbulence.

And that's the toughest to predict because it's not like you see a big mountain range or lightning popping off in the foreground. That is just air colliding with warm air and cold air colliding with one another. Yeah, so it forms jet streams, right? And that can be problematic because the difference in the direction that the wind's moving in,

the speed it's moving in can really wreak havoc on your plane, and when you're cruising through a patch like that very quickly, all of those little bumps and jostles and turns come together to make what we think of as turbulence. That's right. So that is what turbulence is. Let's take a little break here

and we're gonna talk about how these pilots can avoid it. Let's take a little break here and we'll see you in a minute. On the podcast, HeyDude, the 90s, called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back

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Just listen up to Josh and Chuck. Stuff you should know. So, before they even take off, they have started avoiding turbulence. When they get their flight planned together, they don't just say, you know, we're flying from Atlanta to LA, so let's just, you know, take a left turn after takeoff

and fly west until we get to LA. Maybe even taken out. Yeah, it's very, you know, it's very planned out. And although they can't predict every bit of turbulence, they can certainly say, well, we know there's a mountain range here and there is a thunderstorm going on here, so we're gonna set our flight plan accordingly.

Right, exactly. So they start off on the right foot. Yeah, they also have like little handy weather maps too, because storms can develop even after you've already taken off that weren't predicted, and they can also line up too, so you might have to choose what storm you actually have to go through.

Yeah, if you have to. Right, and so they have weather instrumentation that makes it real simple to choose. Like a storm up ahead that's yellow says, if you have a green alternative, choose the green one. Ones that are red, it says you're gonna have to course correct. It sounds like Doppler.

Basically. And when you course correct, you basically have to get in touch with air traffic control and say, hey, I know we weren't planning on going up an extra 10,000 feet, but I need to fly over this turbulence for a little while, and they'll say, do it, and you fly up, and you go over the turbulence, you say,

can I come back down now? And they're like, we've been waiting for you to ask, but come on back down, and you go back down to your original flight plan. Or you may not, or they may say, you know what, since you went this far out of the way to avoid this thing, why don't you just take this course instead? Right.

And you have a new flight plan after that. Exactly. You gotta be nimble up there. You gotta be quick. When you have your hands on the sticks. Right. Isn't that with a column? Yeah.

Sticks? I think so, I'll bet they do call them sticks. Can you see pilots calling them that? Sure. Ladies and gentlemen, got my hands on the sticks. I've never heard that. You haven't? Not from a pilot to a passenger.

Oh, okay. I think that doesn't leave the cockpit, you know. I got you. What happens in the cockpit? That's cockpit talk. So the mountain turbulence, that is pretty easy to predict because mountains are there, and if a pilot is driven,

if flown past the Rockies or the Andes or any big mountain range, they probably already know what to expect there and have routed their plane in such a way where they're not gonna get the worst of it. They can also tell by the clouds that are there. Sure. There's some called lenticular clouds,

which are lens shaped, but I think it actually kind of traces the contour of a wave, but in cloud form, you can be like, well, I'm gonna stay out of there because there's breaking waves of wind right there. Yeah. So yeah, there's things they can do visually.

The problem is the clear air turbulence. I mean, they don't call it clear air for nothing. The silent killer. Exactly. And I mean, it really is like, it can be really, really rough, not just because it comes out of nowhere, but because the differences in speed

between one spot and another is so pronounced that it can really jar and jostle you. Yeah, for those that think, and this is kind of cool, the thing they count on the most is talking to other pilots. There's a lot of planes up there. And chances are,

if you're flying anywhere in the United States, there's another plane on more or less your route just a few minutes ahead of you. And so they're always in touch with one another. It's not even, they share information. It's not like a Delta pilot won't be like, hey, the Southwest guy's behind us, but don't tell him what's up.

Right, exactly. This is gonna knock your socks off. So they're always warning each other about what to expect, how bad it is, whether or not you need to really alter your route or maybe just park it at a certain altitude. Right, and so when they get this info,

they'll say, ladies and gentlemen, please put your seat belts on, get out of the bathroom, flight attendants, put them carts up, I think is how they put it. That's in pilot lingo. And that's usually when somebody gets up. It's like, oh, I really need to go.

That's the moment I'm like, I have to go to the bathroom so bad. Yeah, yeah. But if you're not getting up, and even if they aren't telling you to put your seat belt on, if you're just sitting in your seat, you should always keep your seat belt on,

just because there is such a thing as clear air turbulence. I'm bad about that. That catches everybody by surprise. And then all of a sudden, you're like floating up against the ceiling, which is bad enough for you, but you can also come down on other poor unsuspecting travelers too.

It's like- How about floating? People who- More like smashing into the ceiling. Right, for a moment. Yeah. It's like people who don't wear the seat belt in the back seat.

It's like- That's me too. You're not just putting your own life in danger. When you get in a head on collision, you're flying forward past the people in the front who did have their seat belts on, and your feet and your fists and your head are taking their heads off with you.

Yeah. You know what I mean? You gotta wear your seat belt in the back seat, Chuck. So they get about, if they're talking to other pilots in the air, they get a five to 10 minute warning. If they're getting a warning from the ground, that's about 20 minutes up to 20 minutes.

So that's plenty of time. That's why it works so well. That's why you don't get more severe cases of turbulence because everyone's in contact at all times, making sure that you don't feel the worst of it. Right. Which is great. They also figured out that you can't put two planes

too close together because planes create wake, and that creates turbulence. Sure. And they figured that out the hard way. Apparently planes have crashed from following too close, coming in for a landing. Don't do it on the road either. No, certainly not.

Although apparently it does save your gas mileage. Oh, drafting? Yeah, behind like a semi or something. Yeah, I mean, that's why they do it in NASCAR. Right. But it's not safe. No, it's not. Don't do it.

You're no NASCAR driver. No. Unless you are a NASCAR driver listening to this, in which case. Draft away. You're doing what you're doing. Well, thanks for joining us on short stuff. We love you.