Yeah, the NWS issues convective SIGMETS just for the fun of it. Nothing to worry about, just fly right through those thunderstorms. There are a number of meteorological phenomena that can threaten the structural integrity of an aircraft, or cause loss of control, or both (often the second followed by the first). Aside from thunderstorms, the rotor under a strong mountain wave is capable of swatting any aircraft type from the sky if it’s strong enough, as just one additional example.
Of course, there are exceptions, such as hurricane hunter C-130s, but they don’t just plow straight into a hurricane. If they did, they would most likely also experience a rapid unplanned disassembly. These aircraft fly carefully planned entry and exit paths designed to gradually spiral into the bands of the storm by flying with the direction of rotation to reduce the effect of the high winds and avoiding the most intense embedded thunderstorms. As for normal civilian and even military aircraft, they avoid flying through thunderstorms when at all possible. If you think otherwise, you’re going to have to cite the normal everyday military aircraft (not uniquely designed and operated research flights) that just ignores thunderstorms and plows right through them on a routine basis. Hint: There is no such aircraft. As the original poster said, EVERY aircraft type in existence is highly vulnerable to destruction or loss of control if it ventures directly into a strong enough thunderstorm.
Thanks, it only took 63 posts for thunderstorm reality to finally come out.
Pilots with half a brain do not intentionally fly into or even near, thunderstorms. It isn’t healthy and we have known for many years. I’d go so far as to say it’s in military regulations how far away you are to remain from a thunderstorm.
There is a side issue here as yet unmentioned and that is the F-22 vs F35. We pay a great deal for stealth and the ability to integrate the battlefield. I regarded the F-22 as the better aircraft of the two, and we could have had many more of them for the price, but stealth and that battlefield integration thing won out. Won out to the point we bought fewer F-22’s than we originally were going to.
We were driving east to Champaign,Il one Sunday morning and a very impressive roll cloud came by. A family was planning on dropping their daughter off in Florida at a week long volley ball camp leaving from Rantoul, about 10 miles north. Don’t know the plane, but I had the impression that it was some kind of powerful single engine or maybe even a two engine. They left the runway about a minute or two too late and that was the end of them. Tore them right out of the sky.
Don’t fly anything in or near a roll cloud.
I am sure that a roll cloud at 100 ft would be kind of disconcerting to any pilot.
Time lapse weather radar of that area during the flight time mignt be interesting.