When Is The Best Time of The Day To
Fly?
(Copyright@2009 by Yonko Mali. All rights reserved.)
Thank you for that interesting question.
The best time of the day to fly for the smoothest flight is in the morning.
No question about that. You avoid the common afternoon thunderstorms which are
prevalent in the United States for 9 months of the year. Even without the
threat of thunderstorms, the sun heating up the atmosphere is what causes
turbulence.
When Is The Best Time Of The Year To Fly?
The best time of the year to fly is in the fall. And the worst time of
the year to fly is in the springtime. Springtime has the most
unsettled weather, including tornadoes which are most common in the springtime.
Did you know that tornadoes are very uncommon in the rest of the world? Yes the
United States is unique in its location between the two great oceans and its
terrain that tornadoes, thunderstorms and hurricanes are quite common.
As far as winter time is
concern, the biggest danger is on or near the ground. With ice and snow on
landings and takeoffs and icing on the wings at lower altitudes when airplanes
are flying slower and not generating as much heat on their wings to melt any
ice. But most winter fronts, on the other hand, are low level affairs that can
be flown over easily. You want to avoid flying through fronts or near fronts
for the most comfortable flights.
Note: Hurricanes are relatively easy to fly over. The pilot simply
has to avoid the embedded thunderstorms that are found in the “weather bands”
swirling around a hurricane. We are also lucky that the most dangerous part of
the hurricane is the northeast sector which is usually over the Atlantic Ocean.
Hurricanes make landfall most commonly with their western side when striking
the East Coast of the USA, except that New England area can really be hit hard
by a hurricane because they can be subject to the northeastern side of a
hurricane. Now Gulf hurricanes can be very dangerous to the Florida peninsular
and the southeastern states because they can be hit with the northeastern side
of the hurricane. Fortunately there are not that many hurricanes that hit the
west side of Florida and even less hurricanes that hit New England.
Which are the Best Seats to have when flying on an airplane?
Choose a seat in the middle of the airplane for the smoothest flight.
The wings will block your view but the center of the airplane’s weight is over
the center of the wings. Also remember that the flying in bigger
airplane will also give you a smoother flight.
Note: To digress for a moment about taking a boat cruise: when
taking a cruise on a boat, the smoothest rooms are in the center of the ship,
away from the window rows and on the lower levels of the ship. Again, you will
not see as much but you will not feel the rocking back and forth as much
either.
Conclusion
So yes, the best time of the day to
fly for the smoothest and most comfortable flight is in the morning most of the
time. Also be comforted by the
fact that the weather information available to the pilots in the air and the
weather information available to the controllers on the ground is so much
better nowadays. The technology available with our computers and satellites is
simply amazing.
What are the Best Weather websites to use?
Here are two excellent weather websites to use:
www.turbulenceforecast.com
www.weatherunderground.com
These sites will give you an excellent idea of what the flying weather is forecast to be as well as an estimate of the amount of turbulence you can expect when flying in the USA. Hint: avoid flights that cross over or come near the "jet streams". And watch the Winds Aloft; stronger winds usually means more chance of turbulence especially when the wind bands are "tight" together.
Another good general weather site is www.accuweather.com.
There is also another interesting website that is very interesting to
look at: www.flightaware.com.
This site tracks the flights of all commercial flights in the USA- just type in
the flight number. I find this site very useful when I am deciding when to
leave for the airport to pick up someone who is coming in because this website
gives you an accurate estimate of when the airplane will arrive at the airport.
Also if you track the airplane flights that you take the most often, you can
see the normal flight paths they take and the altitudes they fly at due to air
traffic control purposes and you can see how the airplanes avoid the bad
weather as much as they can.
Hint: by knowing what are the typical flight levels that your route
uses, then you can check the turbulence forecasts for those flight levels. For
shorter flights the flight levels are usually in the lower 20,000’s or Flight
Level 200-250. For longer flights like a flight from NY to Florida, the Flight
Level is usually in the lower 30,000’s or Flight Level 300 to 350. For cross
country flights NY to LA and international flights the Flight Levels are
usually in the high 30,000’s like Flight Level 350-390.
Here is a final tip: be more careful about weather on shorter flights because
this means you are usually flying on smaller aircraft and also because on
shorter flights, the airplanes are limited to how high they can fly for air
control purposes; hence, on shorter flights the pilots may not be able to
“climb on top of” the weather.