One funny time, I was riding through the mid-western USA in the late spring and there was a team of rodeo bull riders on our plane. Our flight was dodging several high thunderstorms and every time the plane would bounce or drop they would yell "yeeee haaa" or "ride 'em hard folks, weeeee"! They actually made the ride fun and took many passengers' minds off of the moderate turbulence we were experiencing.
+Saud Siddiqui Well. Not every country have so cheap pilot training, dreadfully cheap aviation fuel and so wastly huge plains without restricted airspaces where you can get enough pilot skills. I started with airplane simulators during 90s. How can you encourage young pilots first? Books? Aero clubs? In 7-10years? Really? We have 21st century. Also be aware that FSX is one of the worst sims ever.
It's very common for even moderate thunderstorms to reach 40,000 ft... The more severe ones (with large hail & tornadoes) are usually around 50-60K+ ft.
The route is indeed chosen for cost-effectiveness, of which fuel-effectiveness is a factor. However, oxygen content does NOT vary with altitude (not in the altitude range between the ground and where aircraft fly). It's rougly 21% of the air down here, and still 21% at 40,000ft. It is indeed air density that is the crucial factor. The optimum altitude for flight is a careful balance between air resistance, lift and engine performance. All affected by air density.
@jm45d The buttons are normally on the fwd attendents panel. It is a tape reproducer that has a list of all the emergency messages is all the languages required on a normal flight. No button in the cockpit other than to make the ding dong noise.
I don't remember what make and model the plane was as my flight was on Eastern Airlines going to Phoenix back in 1990, but I do remember the captain announcing that we were flying at 41,000ft.
On my way to Ca last week we had the same announcement. This cloud, however, had well defined borders, rose about 5,000 feet (or more) above our plane, and as our pilot approached the large cloud formation, he turned slightly to the left, and went around it. I have never seen such a large cloud formation so high.
I was fortunate enough to witness a large storm movement in the Midwest while my family and i were traveling over Texas/Oklahoma back home from a vacation in mexico. It was at night, and the lighting was literally dancing off of the tops of the clouds below us... A true amazing experience that once has to be there to understand.
I was once on a flight over the the Canadian plains in June, and there was an outbreak of tornadoes, The plane was at 42,000 ft and the storm tops were hitting nearly 70,000 ft that the pilot had to dodge these tornadic supercell thunderstorms! The anvil was overhead despite being at 42,000 ft Found out later that Alberta and Saskatchewan Canada had alot of damage from the storms and tornadoes! The pilot came on the PA and said we are at 42k and a helicopter pilot down below at 433ft was reporting the base of the same storm just 670ft off the ground with a rotating lowering at just 500ft!
This happened to me on a return flight home from Orlando, Florida going over the state of Texas in the summer of 2009. The captain had to suspend beverage service due to considerable turbulence and also asked the flight attendants to take their seats. When it hit, it was pretty rough for a while. But the captain lowered altitude to go underneath the roughest part of it. It was pretty tense for a bit.
Hey hugbear27, I believe you when you say that this took place at 40,000 feet. The dark blue color of the sky that we catch brief glimpses of at the very top of the picture indicates an altitude of roughly 40,000 feet. You don't see that dark blue color in the troposphere, where thick clouds are usually spotted.
depends on where, the cumulonimbus clouds can reach vertically up to something called the "tropopause", after the tropopause the temperature doesn't decrease with increased height. At the north and south poles the tropopause is usually around 6-8km high, at the equator sometimes 14-16km (45,000 to 51,000ft)
I can understand why there's a move towards PRA's (prerecorded announcement) to ensure consistency in the message. Those who complain about 'personal service' that lacks from it is mute. The interaction when you walk on board, say hello, during beverage/meal service is plenty fine. I think this is professional enough.
Nice view! As for the discussion below: Most airliners have a ceiling between 38,000ft and 45,000ft. Examples: Airbus A320 39,800ft, Boeing 737 42,000ft, CRJ700 41,000ft etc... Concorde was a special case in just about any aspect you can imagine. It had a service ceiling of 60,000ft. The actual altitude for the flight depends primarily on weight. The heavier an aircraft, the lower it optimum altitude will be. Other considerations are the route (several factors here) and prevailing winds.
As an a320 pilot as this plane is, (could be an a319) the service ceiling of an a320 is 39000 feet, so it could possibly be that, but not higher. Nice Vid.
In the tropics where the suns energy is strongest, thunderstorms rise much higher than in temperate climates. There's no "flying over" big thunderstorms that easily exceed 60 thousand feet. Fortunately, they are always scattered and easy to fly around by sight during the day, and by radar at night.
femanvate As a meteorologist who specializes in severe weather, The Great Plains of Canada and the United States have had supercell thunderstorms reach 70,000 ft, though rare, it does happen! That is higher than a category 5 hurricane top near the eye wall! Most tropical thunderstorms are pulse type thunderstorms that have downdrafts falling through updrafts! While the CAPE is high almost all the time in the tropics, the highest they will reach is 52,000 at the highest! Whereas on the Plains of Canada and America, there is wind shear that titlts the updraft enough to allow the updraft and downdraft to separate allowing the storm to build as high as the Instability allows! The dynamics on the Great Plains allow thunderstorms to grow to massive scales not seen anywhere else on earth, hence why Tornadoes are so frequent on the Plains!
On some flights i went on throughout vietnam, singapore and darwin there was like massive thunder storms and there whould be lightning like every half a second.
All turbulence can be scary and disconcerting. One of the worst ones I ever experienced was clear air turbulence, endless dips and belly wrenching falls and rises in clear air and it lasted for more than five minutes over Greenland in pure blue skies.
you are right, lightnings can be formed in towering cumulus and other types of heavy clouds without being Cumulunimbus clouds, and yes, most aircraft that cruise aboce 37 000 ft avoid most the bad weather, However, in tropical areas, such as South East Asia, South America and even in Florida, it is common to see CBs climbing up to 50 000 ft, which would be the ultimate end of any airplane flying in such one.
Spectacular footage, thanks for sharing. I encountered similar weather flying at 37,000 near Chicago. it was very turbulent but very scenic as well, after we broke through the tops - I'll share the vid as a reply
yeah, it happened to me on the way from houston to guatemala, and the turbulance was so severe, poeple was throwing up. thing is that we went through the end of a hurricane, and you couldn't see anything. everything was just black and so bumpy. it lasted for about 20 minutes, and the captain said that he was speeding up to go through it faster. it was awful.
well with the exception of the no longer operating concorde, you're right. IIRC the max altitude of todays airliners tops off at about 48,00 or so feet, but there are exceptions for other planes...
The 777, 767-400ER, and the new 787-8/9 and 747-8 feature raked wing tips instead of winglets. These provide greater aerodynamic efficiency than winglets, however they increase the aircrafts wingspan, approx 10%. Raked wing tips also provide additional lift, on top of reducing drag (winglets do not). The 737NG will eventually feature raked wing tips (under development) instead of winglets as they have better icing performance. The US Navy's new Boeing P8's will feature raked wing tips as well.
On a flight to DTW (Detroit) Jun 2008 - Southwest Pilots did an excellent job dodging the huge thunder clouds on descent into Detroit - very little turbulence, and you can see how the pilot maneuvered around the clouds - Great Work SOUTHWEST!
The a320's operating ceiling is 39,000ft - and they rarely go that high. Even in long-haul flights in a340's or 747's the captain rarely takes the plane above that (38,000 - 40,000).
@Celticbhoy18881916 To answer your question, yes. Normally they like to stay at anywhere from around 30000 to 40000 depending on weather, traffic, and even direction of flight. I do believe the traveling passenger jet was concord which could travel as high as 60000ft at a speed of Mach 2.
@connza1995 They can go even higher then that! I remember last year on my way to PHX we had to fly around a massive thunderstorm, with an anvil shape cloud towering far above the height of our plane. The pilot made an announcement that the top of the cloud was at around 52,000 feet, we were traveling at 37,000 ft
It can't be 40,000 ft. In the video you can clearly see the cirriform clouds (cirrus, cirrocumulus, contrails etc.) still high in the sky, at 40k ft they would be flying a lot closer and even above them. However they could be stratospheric or mesospheric clouds but that's unlikely since the those clouds are visible during twilight time in the polar regions. Those "overshooting tops" are most likely "towering cumulus".
On a flight this length you would tend to see pilots flying at 35,000 to 37,000. Aircraft in Australia above 28,000 feet that are flying south are required to fly at odd flight levels e.g 35,000feet. Hence 40,000 feet is not a possible altitude to be cruising at. This rule is known as RVSM(Reduced Vertical Separation Minima) That and the a320 series max flight level is 39,000 ft.
and for maximum fuel efficiency, depending on winds, weight, etc, as well. Which is usually the biggest consideration for airlines when making a flight plan. Different altitudes cause the engines to use more fuel because of lack of oxygen and air density.
39,000 in a a320 in the u.s from la to orlando the max operating on a a319/320/321 is between 39 and 41,000 ffeet depending on engine package- pilot american airlines based out of dallas
Flying to Paris we flew over some really high clouds, we were like cloud surfing. It was pretty cool. But we were at our max ceiling of 41,000 so there were still some clouds we had to fly into.
Bombardier Global Express 5000-8000 - Service Ceiling 51,000ft. CONCORDE had a service ceiling of 60,000ft. Dassault Falcon 900 & X - Service Ceiling 51,000ft. Even if they are business jets, Concorde was a commercial aircraft and didn't stall above 42,000ft. You need to seriously research more...
We use metres(notice the dif spelling too) for pretty much everything but aviation. We use Feet and Knots in aviation, but our standard units of measurement is the metric system. centimetres, metres, kilometres etc.
The height an aircraft can fly at depends on the particular model, When the tanks are full, It requires denser air to maintain level flight. It may only fly at 33,000ft without being in danger of stalling or working to hard to maintain that altitude, later in the flight, with much of it's fuel spent, It may safely fly at 36,000 or 37,000 ft. This is a common practice, especially in longer flights. If they can fly at a higher altitude safely, their more efficient in thinner air.
@jaronee No, they are seriously 40,000 feet above the ground. I was flying frontier, and the have the channel on their tv's showing us where they are, how fast they are going, and the altitude. We were 39,500 feet above the ground, and we hit clouds just like this. NO JOKE.
Air Transat and Thomas Cook operate a range of small to medium airbus and boeing aircraft which are A310, A320, A321, A330, B737, B757, B767 all of these aircraft have a MAXIMUM cruising altitudes between 39,000 and 43,000 feet.
@edmfflyer Got to agree with you, it is rare that the top of the clouds reach FL400, but it happens. If it would be a thunderstorm, the crew would have gone around it. There is no situation where they are allowed to fly into the weather.
the air moves across the wings in a smooth sweeping motion but without the winglets at the tip of the wing it caused a swirling vortex which is bad for the airspace around the wing, they created this idea of a breed of eagle that tilts the ends of its wings whilst fliying for maximum control during flight! hope this helps :)
Concorde regularly cruised at altitudes of around 60 000 feet. Just because the absolute ceiling of an aircraft is 50-55 thousand feet that doesnt mean they have to cruise their all the time. They usually cruise at a lower altitude 36-37 thousand feet due to passenger comfort and also safety precautions
It all depends on the load. A 738 with 10,000 kilo's of fueld and a full pax load can cruise at FL410. Although I don't know of any company that flies over FL400.
@fube432 Some business jets can fly at 55,000 feet, so could the Concorde....so im not entirely sure if it's legal or not. Even if it is illegal though, most commercial airliners cannot physically climb higher than around 42,000 feet! The thing that worries me is that if lets say at 55,000 feet if there is a cabin depressurization, you only have a few seconds to react while at lower altitudes you would have slightly longer.
I was going by what I saw on the radar. There were a number of supercell storms in the area, they flew straight into the largest one. Also, the pilots reported severe turbulence just before contact was lost. Does'nt that mean that they are at risk of losing control or breaking up? Im only going by what I have read.
@connza1995 Certainly not 10,000. That would be pretty low for a jet engine. It burns lots of gas and you don't go very fast. More typical is between 25,000 and 38,000. 40,000 is doable but usually only when lighter (after burning off fuel, etc). This also very much depends on the aircraft. The engines will continue to work well beyond 40,000 but depending on the aircraft and weight, the stall speed gets too close to the max speed for normal operations so the book limits you to lower altitudes.
@connza1995 As a pilot I'm not sure how you determined that you were at 40,000 feet. That's a bit high for most airline operations. However, you can certainly get thunderstorms well above 40,000.
Completely avoided. You could see the line (more like a wall) of clouds just off the right wing for about three hours then we just went around the leading edge and came back South into Atlanta. I don't remember the flight being rough at all.
as the poster below says having clouds that high is not unusual in that area of the world its not undeard of them towering up to 50-60000 feet in some of the more severe tropic storms. pretty impressive though great video
If there's anyone now arguing about the service ceilings of passenger jets, look up the live flight tracking map on FlightAware(dot)com It has realtime altitudes of hundreds of planes in the air right now. All bickering will then be immediately rendered null and void. Works like a charm.
Everyone here pretending to be an expert, most of you have no idea. The height at which an aircraft cruises at depends on where on the world it is, hence the height of certain weather phenomenons, such as height of tropopause and jet streams, also the weight of the aircraft, as it reduces the aircraft will fly higher. All you saying a planes cruises at 37,000 or 39,000 are showing how much you know. Also a planes ceiling is not its cruising ALT! It is often much higher. Recources - Pilot
well buddy experienced jet star pilot told us that we were at 35,000 then told us we were climbing up to 40,000 to try and clear the clouds, i have done internet research and use to fly myself and was surprised, so theres no disputing this fact
wow I remember on a trip from Greece the cabin crew had to sit down the turbulence then was unbelievable but I love that would be awesome flying in that plane to.
Ok, I am a meteorologist and aviation enthusiast. You cannot assume the tops are at 40k unless that is the plane's cruising altitude. Some CB tops can reach 70k and can be as low as 10k to, more likely, 20k.
it does not kill you, and pilots fly through thunderstorms quite often, although they prefer to avoid them, tf lightning hits the aircraft, the plane acts as a faraday cage and the electricity flows aroud you, not through you, the only risk is damage to electrical/navigation equipment
I think that some planes can pull up their winglets... If the fligt is smooth or not, it depends on the weather. Airbus make their airplanes with winglets, I now that. Try to google it. But I've seen on tv, that the winglets reduces the sternturbulence.
It looks like he was climbing. I was on a Dash-8 earlier today and they climbed to 23,000 feet to avoid turbulence due to rain clouds ... your vid looks like you're about 21,000 and ascending.
yeah but that storm looked really big stretched for kilometers but yeah ryan787 is right because that may have been close to the destination and or hard to avoid.
Just thought i would add a comment. The ceiling of an aircraft isnt certified by the manufacturer. The Aerodynamic ceiling is the main factor where stall speed reaches maximum speed and the aircraft reaches it highest point. This depends on the air pressure, and overall mass of the aircraft. An A320 can reach 40000 feet if it has a light load. Your right that A320's mostly fly at 39000 as this is the optimum altitude most of the time for this aircraft, above this increases fuel consumption.
@edmfflyer Maybe if you knew more about clouds you would know there are 4 types of clouds. Low, middle, high, and clouds with extensive vertical development. Clouds from sfc to 6,500 are stratus, middle are from 6,500 to 20,000 and they are alto, and high are cirrus. Clouds with extensive vert dev are cumulous. That being said there is nothing called a "normal cloud layer"...
Very few clouds get that high, but if it is a supercell, the clouds can reach 70k feet. : ) Though, it's pretty obvious that they're flying next to a smaller, more run of the mill thunderstorm probably at about 35k to 40k feet.
One funny time, I was riding through the mid-western USA in the late spring and there was a team of rodeo bull riders on our plane. Our flight was dodging several high thunderstorms and every time the plane would bounce or drop they would yell "yeeee haaa" or "ride 'em hard folks, weeeee"! They actually made the ride fun and took many passengers' minds off of the moderate turbulence we were experiencing.
I guess we all do get a little nervous when it comes to flying in planes.
lol, americans have such a FUNNY sense of humour....may god bless them somehow....
dale dibu I'm Aussie...but same to you.
as you could read, i was referring to amrcns...., not australians..., i dont know much about Australia, but somehow have kind of a respect about it
Like
Damn son if youre at 40k feet and you see clouds youre in for one hell of a ride
Reflex if it's cirrus it could mean jetstreams? depending on where you're flying?
Bro thunderstorms at 40000 feet aren't even that strong. I've seen em at over 55000 feet
ItsDraconix In FSX right ur dumbass?
missing ID Go do some research kid.
@@ShaneR-Wx you need to do some research because you clearly don't know what you are talking about.
This definitely looks like it was filmed in 2007.
That is because it was filmed in 2007!!! haven’t you seen the description of the video
Weather Isawesome no shit!!!!
Affan Jamsari obviously!!! You speak sarcasm but you can't read it... Shocking....
Anyone who flies over India, or the equator during certain times of the year knows this to be true.
Especially in August because of Asia Monsoon season, its the worst
i know it in over South East Asia (Singapore and jakarta) and its true. Trust me. so fucking horrible
Synapse Education during Manson seasons
Douglas Crets and the Midwest, central, southern, and eastern USA.
It's funny reading all the FSX Captain Wannabe comments.
lol
+bagelboi66 haha
+Saud Siddiqui Well. Not every country have so cheap pilot training, dreadfully cheap aviation fuel and so wastly huge plains without restricted airspaces where you can get enough pilot skills. I started with airplane simulators during 90s. How can you encourage young pilots first? Books? Aero clubs? In 7-10years? Really? We have 21st century. Also be aware that FSX is one of the worst sims ever.
It's better than being someone who has no clue what so ever.
All the
It's very common for even moderate thunderstorms to reach 40,000 ft... The more severe ones (with large hail & tornadoes) are usually around 50-60K+ ft.
The route is indeed chosen for cost-effectiveness, of which fuel-effectiveness is a factor.
However, oxygen content does NOT vary with altitude (not in the altitude range between the ground and where aircraft fly). It's rougly 21% of the air down here, and still 21% at 40,000ft.
It is indeed air density that is the crucial factor. The optimum altitude for flight is a careful balance between air resistance, lift and engine performance. All affected by air density.
@jm45d The buttons are normally on the fwd attendents panel. It is a tape reproducer that has a list of all the emergency messages is all the languages required on a normal flight. No button in the cockpit other than to make the ding dong noise.
I've seen tops at over FL500 on radar before. So, FL400 is not that unusual. Still pretty big though considering the base is probably at 6 or 7,000.
I don't remember what make and model the plane was as my flight was on Eastern Airlines going to Phoenix back in 1990, but I do remember the captain announcing that we were flying at 41,000ft.
That looks to be an A319
+Jhawkmarine is that a joke? you use A319 from Newcastle to Melbourne? OMG?
+Trucker316
boeing 757
+Stefan Benaya Newcastle /Australia ,not UK..LOL
On my way to Ca last week we had the same announcement. This cloud, however, had well defined borders, rose about 5,000 feet (or more) above our plane, and as our pilot approached the large cloud formation, he turned slightly to the left, and went around it. I have never seen such a large cloud formation so high.
I was fortunate enough to witness a large storm movement in the Midwest while my family and i were traveling over Texas/Oklahoma back home from a vacation in mexico. It was at night, and the lighting was literally dancing off of the tops of the clouds below us... A true amazing experience that once has to be there to understand.
I was once on a flight over the the Canadian plains in June, and there was an outbreak of tornadoes, The plane was at 42,000 ft and the storm tops were hitting nearly 70,000 ft that the pilot had to dodge these tornadic supercell thunderstorms! The anvil was overhead despite being at 42,000 ft Found out later that Alberta and Saskatchewan Canada had alot of damage from the storms and tornadoes! The pilot came on the PA and said we are at 42k and a helicopter pilot down below at 433ft was reporting the base of the same storm just 670ft off the ground with a rotating lowering at just 500ft!
This happened to me on a return flight home from Orlando, Florida going over the state of Texas in the summer of 2009. The captain had to suspend beverage service due to considerable turbulence and also asked the flight attendants to take their seats. When it hit, it was pretty rough for a while. But the captain lowered altitude to go underneath the roughest part of it. It was pretty tense for a bit.
He's almost flying as high as George Micheal on a Saturday night
Hey hugbear27, I believe you when you say that this took place at 40,000 feet. The dark blue color of the sky that we catch brief glimpses of at the very top of the picture indicates an altitude of roughly 40,000 feet. You don't see that dark blue color in the troposphere, where thick clouds are usually spotted.
Usually the height of a cumulonimbus cloud is about 33,000 ft to 80,000 ft and cirrus at 33,000 ft - 38,000 ft. If it's that high, woah
concorde prior to its retirement. it flew in the 60,000ft region.
depends on where, the cumulonimbus clouds can reach vertically up to something called the "tropopause", after the tropopause the temperature doesn't decrease with increased height. At the north and south poles the tropopause is usually around 6-8km high, at the equator sometimes 14-16km (45,000 to 51,000ft)
I can understand why there's a move towards PRA's (prerecorded announcement) to ensure consistency in the message. Those who complain about 'personal service' that lacks from it is mute. The interaction when you walk on board, say hello, during beverage/meal service is plenty fine. I think this is professional enough.
Nice view!
As for the discussion below:
Most airliners have a ceiling between 38,000ft and 45,000ft. Examples: Airbus A320 39,800ft, Boeing 737 42,000ft, CRJ700 41,000ft etc...
Concorde was a special case in just about any aspect you can imagine. It had a service ceiling of 60,000ft.
The actual altitude for the flight depends primarily on weight. The heavier an aircraft, the lower it optimum altitude will be.
Other considerations are the route (several factors here) and prevailing winds.
flew from dallas to atlanta one year and had to fly 1200 miles north to go 'around' a line of thunderheads that were topping out at 70,000 feet.
If that's a genuine Cu-nimb, then the convection part is the overshooting top going into the stratosphere.
As an a320 pilot as this plane is, (could be an a319) the service ceiling of an a320 is 39000 feet, so it could possibly be that, but not higher. Nice Vid.
When flying from Fort Lauderdale FL to Cleveland OH we cruised at 41,000ft at 510 mph due to high turbulence
Spring of 92 Minneapolis had storm system top out at 70,000 feet. It looked like night at about 11am.
In the tropics where the suns energy is strongest, thunderstorms rise much higher than in temperate climates.
There's no "flying over" big thunderstorms that easily exceed 60 thousand feet. Fortunately, they are always scattered and easy to fly around by sight during the day, and by radar at night.
Not necessarily. They'll fly between storms in a squall line (where the radar returns are yellow or green (
femanvate As a meteorologist who specializes in severe weather, The Great Plains of Canada and the United States have had supercell thunderstorms reach 70,000 ft, though rare, it does happen! That is higher than a category 5 hurricane top near the eye wall! Most tropical thunderstorms are pulse type thunderstorms that have downdrafts falling through updrafts! While the CAPE is high almost all the time in the tropics, the highest they will reach is 52,000 at the highest! Whereas on the Plains of Canada and America, there is wind shear that titlts the updraft enough to allow the updraft and downdraft to separate allowing the storm to build as high as the Instability allows! The dynamics on the Great Plains allow thunderstorms to grow to massive scales not seen anywhere else on earth, hence why Tornadoes are so frequent on the Plains!
Tom T No! Above 70,000 ft is the bottom of the upper troposphere where There is a lack of oxygen and air! It becomes very stable at that height!
On some flights i went on throughout vietnam, singapore and darwin there was like massive thunder storms and there whould be lightning like every half a second.
All turbulence can be scary and disconcerting. One of the worst ones I ever experienced was clear air turbulence, endless dips and belly wrenching falls and rises in clear air and it lasted for more than five minutes over Greenland in pure blue skies.
you are right, lightnings can be formed in towering cumulus and other types of heavy clouds without being Cumulunimbus clouds, and yes, most aircraft that cruise aboce 37 000 ft avoid most the bad weather, However, in tropical areas, such as South East Asia, South America and even in Florida, it is common to see CBs climbing up to 50 000 ft, which would be the ultimate end of any airplane flying in such one.
Spectacular footage, thanks for sharing. I encountered similar weather flying at 37,000 near Chicago. it was very turbulent but very scenic as well, after we broke through the tops - I'll share the vid as a reply
I flew through a storm at 43,000 feet above Queensland once. Bangkok to Sydney. It was pretty bad knowing the plane couldn't fly higher.
@connza1995 you're right- it's not uncommon in spring here in the southern US to get storms that can reach near 60,000 feet!
yeah, it happened to me on the way from houston to guatemala, and the turbulance was so severe, poeple was throwing up. thing is that we went through the end of a hurricane, and you couldn't see anything. everything was just black and so bumpy. it lasted for about 20 minutes, and the captain said that he was speeding up to go through it faster. it was awful.
well with the exception of the no longer operating concorde, you're right. IIRC the max altitude of todays airliners tops off at about 48,00 or so feet, but there are exceptions for other planes...
The 777, 767-400ER, and the new 787-8/9 and 747-8 feature raked wing tips instead of winglets. These provide greater aerodynamic efficiency than winglets, however they increase the aircrafts wingspan, approx 10%. Raked wing tips also provide additional lift, on top of reducing drag (winglets do not). The 737NG will eventually feature raked wing tips (under development) instead of winglets as they have better icing performance. The US Navy's new Boeing P8's will feature raked wing tips as well.
On a flight to DTW (Detroit) Jun 2008 - Southwest Pilots did an excellent job dodging the huge thunder clouds on descent into Detroit - very little turbulence, and you can see how the pilot maneuvered around the clouds - Great Work SOUTHWEST!
The a320's operating ceiling is 39,000ft - and they rarely go that high. Even in long-haul flights in a340's or 747's the captain rarely takes the plane above that (38,000 - 40,000).
i remember flying into Johannesburg from Durban and we had to go around because lightning struck the runway just before we landed.
@Celticbhoy18881916 To answer your question, yes. Normally they like to stay at anywhere from around 30000 to 40000 depending on weather, traffic, and even direction of flight. I do believe the traveling passenger jet was concord which could travel as high as 60000ft at a speed of Mach 2.
CB's can peak at over 65,000ft with enough energy. However as has already been pointed out, the A320 is limited to 39,000.
@connza1995 They can go even higher then that! I remember last year on my way to PHX we had to fly around a massive thunderstorm, with an anvil shape cloud towering far above the height of our plane. The pilot made an announcement that the top of the cloud was at around 52,000 feet, we were traveling at 37,000 ft
Flying today I saw tops at FL450, 45,000 feet in my preflight checks. Thunderstorms have significant vertical development.
It can't be 40,000 ft. In the video you can clearly see the cirriform clouds (cirrus, cirrocumulus, contrails etc.) still high in the sky, at 40k ft they would be flying a lot closer and even above them. However they could be stratospheric or mesospheric clouds but that's unlikely since the those clouds are visible during twilight time in the polar regions. Those "overshooting tops" are most likely "towering cumulus".
On a flight this length you would tend to see pilots flying at 35,000 to 37,000. Aircraft in Australia above 28,000 feet that are flying south are required to fly at odd flight levels e.g 35,000feet. Hence 40,000 feet is not a possible altitude to be cruising at. This rule is known as RVSM(Reduced Vertical Separation Minima) That and the a320 series max flight level is 39,000 ft.
and for maximum fuel efficiency, depending on winds, weight, etc, as well. Which is usually the biggest consideration for airlines when making a flight plan. Different altitudes cause the engines to use more fuel because of lack of oxygen and air density.
39,000 in a a320 in the u.s from la to orlando the max operating on a a319/320/321 is between 39 and 41,000 ffeet depending on engine package- pilot american airlines based out of dallas
Flying to Paris we flew over some really high clouds, we were like cloud surfing. It was pretty cool. But we were at our max ceiling of 41,000 so there were still some clouds we had to fly into.
Bombardier Global Express 5000-8000 - Service Ceiling 51,000ft. CONCORDE had a service ceiling of 60,000ft. Dassault Falcon 900 & X - Service Ceiling 51,000ft. Even if they are business jets, Concorde was a commercial aircraft and didn't stall above 42,000ft. You need to seriously research more...
We use metres(notice the dif spelling too) for pretty much everything but aviation. We use Feet and Knots in aviation, but our standard units of measurement is the metric system. centimetres, metres, kilometres etc.
The height an aircraft can fly at depends on the particular model, When the tanks are full, It requires denser air to maintain level flight. It may only fly at 33,000ft without being in danger of stalling or working to hard to maintain that altitude, later in the flight, with much of it's fuel spent, It may safely fly at 36,000 or 37,000 ft. This is a common practice, especially in longer flights. If they can fly at a higher altitude safely, their more efficient in thinner air.
im so scread of flying im going to sanford this weekend ARGH hope its a smooth ride!
@jaronee No, they are seriously 40,000 feet above the ground. I was flying frontier, and the have the channel on their tv's showing us where they are, how fast they are going, and the altitude. We were 39,500 feet above the ground, and we hit clouds just like this. NO JOKE.
Air Transat and Thomas Cook operate a range of small to medium airbus and boeing aircraft which are A310, A320, A321, A330, B737, B757, B767 all of these aircraft have a MAXIMUM cruising altitudes between 39,000 and 43,000 feet.
@edmfflyer Got to agree with you, it is rare that the top of the clouds reach FL400, but it happens. If it would be a thunderstorm, the crew would have gone around it. There is no situation where they are allowed to fly into the weather.
the air moves across the wings in a smooth sweeping motion but without the winglets at the tip of the wing it caused a swirling vortex which is bad for the airspace around the wing, they created this idea of a breed of eagle that tilts the ends of its wings whilst fliying for maximum control during flight! hope this helps :)
What if the plane flies below that height? lightings, icings, hails, wind shears, turbulences all coming together?
Pilots will fly around or between storms.
Concorde regularly cruised at altitudes of around 60 000 feet. Just because the absolute ceiling of an aircraft is 50-55 thousand feet that doesnt mean they have to cruise their all the time. They usually cruise at a lower altitude 36-37 thousand feet due to passenger comfort and also safety precautions
It all depends on the load. A 738 with 10,000 kilo's of fueld and a full pax load can cruise at FL410. Although I don't know of any company that flies over FL400.
@fube432
Some business jets can fly at 55,000 feet, so could the Concorde....so im not entirely sure if it's legal or not. Even if it is illegal though, most commercial airliners cannot physically climb higher than around 42,000 feet!
The thing that worries me is that if lets say at 55,000 feet if there is a cabin depressurization, you only have a few seconds to react while at lower altitudes you would have slightly longer.
I was going by what I saw on the radar. There were a number of supercell storms in the area, they flew straight into the largest one. Also, the pilots reported severe turbulence just before contact was lost. Does'nt that mean that they are at risk of losing control or breaking up? Im only going by what I have read.
@connza1995 Certainly not 10,000. That would be pretty low for a jet engine. It burns lots of gas and you don't go very fast. More typical is between 25,000 and 38,000. 40,000 is doable but usually only when lighter (after burning off fuel, etc). This also very much depends on the aircraft. The engines will continue to work well beyond 40,000 but depending on the aircraft and weight, the stall speed gets too close to the max speed for normal operations so the book limits you to lower altitudes.
@connza1995 As a pilot I'm not sure how you determined that you were at 40,000 feet. That's a bit high for most airline operations. However, you can certainly get thunderstorms well above 40,000.
Completely avoided. You could see the line (more like a wall) of clouds just off the right wing for about three hours then we just went around the leading edge and came back South into Atlanta. I don't remember the flight being rough at all.
there is a newcastle and a melbourne in australia, where we are from
I had somewhat similar experience when I was flying through the tropical depression on my way to Mauritius.
@fube432 Sorry but your mistaken. Some commercial airliners have a ceiling of 50-55 thousand feet
30,000 feet is the ceiling for all weather. The air is minus 50 and is too dry for water vapour to to form into droplets.
as the poster below says having clouds that high is not unusual in that area of the world its not undeard of them towering up to 50-60000 feet in some of the more severe tropic storms. pretty impressive though great video
Yes, that is definitely a Cumulonimbus cloud! I study weather often and also, I saw the thunderheads.
If there's anyone now arguing about the service ceilings of passenger jets, look up the live flight tracking map on FlightAware(dot)com It has realtime altitudes of hundreds of planes in the air right now. All bickering will then be immediately rendered null and void. Works like a charm.
@mattalmel23 well was flying yesterday at 36,000 ft, so god knows who you are flying with
Everyone here pretending to be an expert, most of you have no idea. The height at which an aircraft cruises at depends on where on the world it is, hence the height of certain weather phenomenons, such as height of tropopause and jet streams, also the weight of the aircraft, as it reduces the aircraft will fly higher. All you saying a planes cruises at 37,000 or 39,000 are showing how much you know. Also a planes ceiling is not its cruising ALT! It is often much higher. Recources - Pilot
...cumulonimbus have been known to tower to 70,000 - 80,000 ft.
well buddy experienced jet star pilot told us that we were at 35,000 then told us we were climbing up to 40,000 to try and clear the clouds, i have done internet research and use to fly myself and was surprised, so theres no disputing this fact
wow I remember on a trip from Greece the cabin crew had to sit down the turbulence then was unbelievable but I love that would be awesome flying in that plane to.
Ok, I am a meteorologist and aviation enthusiast. You cannot assume the tops are at 40k unless that is the plane's cruising altitude. Some CB tops can reach 70k and can be as low as 10k to, more likely, 20k.
it does not kill you, and pilots fly through thunderstorms quite often, although they prefer to avoid them, tf lightning hits the aircraft, the plane acts as a faraday cage and the electricity flows aroud you, not through you, the only risk is damage to electrical/navigation equipment
Go to the flight deck, you might be able to see "St. Elmo's Fire." in the cockpit windshield.
was about half way through between sydney and melbourne
I think that some planes can pull up their winglets... If the fligt is smooth or not, it depends on the weather. Airbus make their airplanes with winglets, I now that. Try to google it. But I've seen on tv, that the winglets reduces the sternturbulence.
@Celticbhoy18881916 yes they can, the a330/a340 can go up to 41000ft and the a380 can go up to 43000ft
Depends if you're near the troposphere
It looks like he was climbing. I was on a Dash-8 earlier today and they climbed to 23,000 feet to avoid turbulence due to rain clouds ... your vid looks like you're about 21,000 and ascending.
FL390 is the operational limit for the single isle family.
As for the widebody familiy, A330/A340 FL410. A350 FL430. A380 FL430.
yeah but that storm looked really big stretched for kilometers but yeah ryan787 is right because that may have been close to the destination and or hard to avoid.
mid-latitude CB's can extend well above 50,000'. I've seen over 60,000'.
@edmfflyer Cumili Nimbus clouds can extend up to 60,000 ft.
Beautiful cloud surfing !
@RobertGary1 does airlines not fly between 10,000 and 40,000
Just thought i would add a comment. The ceiling of an aircraft isnt certified by the manufacturer. The Aerodynamic ceiling is the main factor where stall speed reaches maximum speed and the aircraft reaches it highest point. This depends on the air pressure, and overall mass of the aircraft. An A320 can reach 40000 feet if it has a light load. Your right that A320's mostly fly at 39000 as this is the optimum altitude most of the time for this aircraft, above this increases fuel consumption.
40.000ft is 12.000m
Above the Earth Thunderstorm
CRAZY how high
Thunderstorm cloud tops can hit 60,000 feet on a really violent day. You can find the information if you Google it very easily.
@edmfflyer Maybe if you knew more about clouds you would know there are 4 types of clouds. Low, middle, high, and clouds with extensive vertical development. Clouds from sfc to 6,500 are stratus, middle are from 6,500 to 20,000 and they are alto, and high are cirrus. Clouds with extensive vert dev are cumulous. That being said there is nothing called a "normal cloud layer"...
Wow I remember flying into a storm over Lonond in an A321, that was bloody scary!
Very few clouds get that high, but if it is a supercell, the clouds can reach 70k feet. : ) Though, it's pretty obvious that they're flying next to a smaller, more run of the mill thunderstorm probably at about 35k to 40k feet.
agreed, I've only heard of military planes and space shuttles going that high.
I always wondered why the subway operators in New York bother to make announcements. Not a single person on the train can understand them.
It is not surprising, cumuli-nimbi often arrives as high as 13-18Km (as to 50000 feet)
did you feel the turbulence