Eli5: why isn’t a plane experiencing turbulence considered dangerous?
In: Engineering
It sometimes can be, because turbulence is essentially a bunch of tiny wind shear events. However, up at altitude and cruise speed, those tiny windshears don’t push the aircraft too far around the flight envelope, and so the aircraft isn’t threatened.
Even turbulence on landing is acceptable if the approach remains stabilized. If the plane’s systems call out “Windshear ahead”, then a normal go-around or a windshear escape maneuver is flown at the pilot flying’s discretion, however if the plane’s systems call out “Windshear!” or other signs of actively being in a windshear are noted (like a sudden 15kt variation in indicated airspeed either way), a windshear escape maneuver must be flown. On approach, the risk of a windshear is its unpredictability – it might trigger a sudden loss of indicated airspeed, with it a loss of airflow over the wings, and a sudden onset of a stall at an altitude too low to recover from it, and if that happens, you are having a bad day and you will not go to space today.
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