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Flying through a turbulent/nimbus cloud

Asked by: 2055 views Weather

Hi,

 

A months ago we fly through a turbulent rain cloud cause there is no way we can avoid it and I have a few question about it.

 

Okay so what I did was decreased the airspeed to VA, keep the wings straight and ride the wave. First encounter was updraft w/ 600-800 ft per min, I was riding that updraft and saw the airspeed was about to reach the stalling speed so I pushed the yoke down. Weird thing that happened was even if I pushed the yoke down it was still dropping airspeed and VSI is still climbing. What my instructor did was he reduced the power then drop the nose. Luckily we reached the downdraft stage of the rain cloud and got out of there safely.

So my question is, why when I pushed the yoke it was still climbing and losing airspeed? I reduced the throttle and the aircraft was at or below VA, we have an updraft of 600-800ft/min and the VSI was still climbing and airspeed was dropping to stalling speed.

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1 Answers



  1. Bryan Kutcher on Aug 23, 2018

    In short, the tall rain cloud was taking you for a ride. In most cases I remember, there’s an initial airspeed increase and it is important to keep wings level and fly an attitude. The airplane may momentarily stall (accelerated stall) at points through turbulence and you’ll mainly feel this and hear the stall horn chirp.

    I believe that the main takeaway might be how powerful even some rain clouds can be, why we should avoid them, and the actual/real lack of power of our airplanes compared to nature.

    Great learning experience, stay safe, fly with weather avoidance and be sure to speak up to controllers when you feel it necessary and deviate as necessary. I would be highly concerned if you have no other “outs” other than to fly through quite a turbulent cloud.

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