I’ve been sailing on the ocean (done a few major trans ocean passages) and I have vast respect for “mere” thunderstorms. I’ve been hit by line squalls with 60+mph wind at the deck that went from zero to sixty plus in bare seconds, driving white water in front. I assume this is the result of a microburst hitting the ocean surface, or something similar. Hail, twisting shifting wind blasts, etc.
The winds at 35,000’ must be even worse. What can a pilot do if confronted with a line of storms hundreds of miles across, and over 50K’ high? Look for a “sucker hole?” Go hundreds of miles around?
If flying straight into one of those walls of storms, I would not rule out ANYTHING, including flying directly into up and down drafts of over 100 knots, accompanied by golfball sized hail and lightning.
I think that sometimes, modern transoceanic jets are just going to fly into something that can destroy anything with wings.
Just an ocean sailors opinion. At those times that I’ve experienced this type of “out of nowhere” storm fury from “mere” thunderstorms, I’ve been mighty glad I was in a 48’ steel-hulled vessel, and not up in the sky in an aluminum or carbon fiber tube.
God bless the pilots who must wrestle with such monsters. They can kill you, don’t doubt it.
Indeed. As a real fair weather sailor with limited eperience I have only been caught in one bad open water storm and that was in a RHIB in the persian gulf long ago.
Weatheris a killer at all levels. Wonder why the pilots weather radar didn’t warn him ?
Just a look at such would be enough to divert the flight plan to smoother skies or return to Brazil
My dad flew through thunderheads at Mach I.5 or better as a USAF fighter jock before decent radar and described it as terrifying...he was always very cautious in our Beechcrafts later on.
That area of Northeast Brasil can be very turbulent even on clear days...the equatorial thermals and Saharan winds and dust and hot spots....a lot of disturbed air without anvil heads everywhere..
What you say is perceptive, very lucid and believable.