Ok fine, I'll agree to that :)

I have and I like playing the game" don't spill your drink". Ok, after 20 min or so, quicker if you finish your drink, even quicker if you loss the game, it get boring.

Not wanting to nitpick but you're describing either light or moderate turbulence. If it had been extreme there's NO WAY you'd be holding on to your glass. :D

There are four well-defined classifications of turbulence:
light
moderate
severe
extreme

An encounter with extreme turbulence could well mean a diversion to the nearest suitable airport because of concern over structural damage to the airplane and because of injuries in the cabin and, quite possibly, fatalities.

I've never gotten extreme turbulence. 2 interesting flights come into mind.

I've had carts (2) knocked over, FA falling into my lap while she was pouring wine. (I saved the wine bottle she was pouring, too).

On another flight a guy who did not 'kept his seat-belt fastened at all times while seated' pop up and smash his head on the overhead bin.

Would those be considered moderate or severe?

Severe turbulence definition:

"Turbulence that causes large, abrupt changes in altitude and/or attitude. It usually causes large variations in indicated airspeed. Aircraft may be momentarily out of control."

What you describe sounds like moderate. When a turbulence event gets reported on the evening news ("plane plunges 2000 ft, passengers pray for their lives"), that's severe turbulence.

If you ever get the opportunity for a cockpit ride you'll notice how much of the chatter between pilots and ATC is the exchange of ride reports. ATC and pilots really do a fantastic job of finding the smoothest altitudes or deviating from planned routes to give passengers a smooth ride.

I'd pay a large sum to fly in the jump seat. Please tell me how one can do that post 2001.

I would concur with you definition of moderate, but I can tell you that the look on the FA's face said it was bigger than the usual 'big' stuff. I had hun.

I would disagree with the 2000 ft. in terms of turbulence. That would be escalated to an all out flight incident, I believe.

I remember reading a book called: "Cockpit Confidentiel :Everything You Need to Know About Air Travel... by Patrick Smith. He recalls an incident over the North Atlantic suddenly out of nowhere (no chatter) and lasted several minutes bad enough to knock over carts.

He says "During the worst of it, to the sound of crashing plates, I recalled an email. A reader had asked me about displacement of altitude during times like this. How many feet is the plane actually moving up or down, and side to side? I kept a close watch on the altimeter. Fewer than 40 feet either way, is what I saw. Ten or twenty feet, if that, most of the time. Any change in heading...was all but undetectable."

I guess forty feet is still a storey and a half, so in a few seconds, its enough to knock things around for sure.

If you'd really pay a "large sum" then that's very easy to arrange. Take a private flight.


You're right of course. I think "turbulence" might be the wrong word for a 2000 ft altitude excursion. :)

Well to be fair, that's not a "large sum", that's an "astronomical sum". ;) Even multi billionaires (cue the sharks/dragons) fly paid J. Either they can't afford it or they know how to spend their money wisely (which is probably what got them rich in the first place) But the point is that private aviation is out of the reach of most individual people. Now, a corporate private jet is a different thing...

Well...to be fair, there are a LOT of things money can't buy. True love no, making out, yes. (cue mastercard commercial)

Ok, in all seriousness, what i'm about to write sounds absurd, because it is. Last year I was flying YYZ to either YEG or YYC, and they had just introduced those buy on board sushi things (mmmm, sushiii), and I was in J. I wanted one, the SD said no. I said, I don't think you get me, I want one, and I'm willing to pay for it. I was expecting the SD to go...well in that case...

But no. He said that I was not permitted to buy anything from the Y cabin as those are reserved for Y pax, just like the J lav is reserved for the J pax. I then asked...so you're saying I can't use the Y lav, and he said no.

2 hours into the flight, somebody from Y uses the J lav right in front of him. He didn't say a word.

Here's the kicker. A few pax bought the leftover hot meal thing onboard, and I was like......?

I think he HATED J pax. Suffice it to say, I wrote in and complained. Ridiculous. Thankfully, it was a one off.

Money can't buy everything on AC. Which is ridiculous. He put the "superangry" in superangrypenguin that's for sure! Thankfully he did one thing right - continual top up of my gin and tonic - which first made me angrier, then it calmed me down, until I was a DrunkPenguin :)

You're wrong. Private flights are much more affordable than you think. The cost becomes more "astronomical" if you want to do overseas flights (goes up exponentially with aircraft range) but 500-1500 mile flights are not that much.

80-ish% of my NA flying is private. I'm definitely not a multi billionaire :D

I have had severe turbulence and have sat in the cockpit during severe turbulence(911 has taken a lot of fun out of flying). The flight crew reported the turbulence, ran of few tests and we talked about it. A plane never plunges 2000ft. I would give you maybe 100 ft, but more than that, I think you would be looking at a 30000 ft drop.

You're absolutely right (although be careful with "never"). 2000 ft "plunge" is the sort of nonsense you hear on news reports.

Unless you stalled the aircraft and fell out of the sky...:P then it would be a plunge...ish.

I remember a pax telling me about his adventure in LHR weather.

He said they had intense turbulence, and had dropped about 40ft.

He said people in the cabin screamed, and the O2 masks dropped.

I wonder what a 2000ft drop would feel like. My guess is that you would probably hear "the roar".

I wanted to start a "your worse/first turbulence experience thread".

Maybe the mods can use this opportunity to move posts from here and start it, while keeping the integrity of the original topic

I can't imagine a structurally intact aircraft dropping 2000 feet unless it was stalled.

I remember one time flying a glider where I just couldn't get the damn thing down (so a pretty fun day), and I was really tired (and had to pee), so I opened the spoilers and put the thing in a spin. That dropped a couple thousand feet pretty quickly, and was fun :)

But it was "controlled" (maybe "intentional" is a better word), so not quite the same thing.