American Airlines captain Steve often shares little-known secrets about life in the cockpit and his latest revelation really blew minds on TikTok where he boasts 398,000 followers
Flying can be fun, but it could be rather frightening when there’s turbulence on a plane. Although it’s completely normal to experience a little bump on the road, some passengers might find flying quite stressful in the first place.
Now captain Steve shared a very smart way pilots can predict weather changes along the way in a now viral post with his 398,000 TikTok followers. The American Airlines pilot claimed “one of the most important things on planes is the weather especially at take-off”. So how can pilots predict any dodgy weather? Captain Steve claimed there’s an app called WSI and it works in a genius way.
Describing the app, he said: “Right up here in the upper right-hand corner, I put my flight number in and then my entire route of flight shows up in this purple line with all the waypoints I have to check along the way.
“This is today’s flight started in London, England, went all the way to Charlotte, North Carolina. Now along the way I can push some of these buttons down, I’ve got radar I can look at and it comes up and there’s some radar weather right there.
“I’ve got satellite that I can look at, I can see the clouds everywhere. Then I can look at the RPM turbulence, this is the stuff that you’re really concerned about and me too.”
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He claimed that specific trip would be bumpy as there’s moderate turbulence along the way. “Now that’s significant meteorology,” he added.
“There’s only one today, that’s completely unusual, usually there’s a bunch more than that, and I can even look at my winds aloft, I can seen where the winds are coming from.”
Since he shared the informative clip, one person said: “Thank you Captain Steve.” Another added: “Great stuff, thanks for sharing!”
We all know how stomach-churning can feel, but in most cases it isn’t actually dangerous.
A bumpy ride might occur when the aircraft hits strong wind currents that can rock the plane ever so slightly. Most of the times pilots can detect it on radars, as Captain Steve explained, but it could also happen unexpected.
So if you don’t have your seatbelt buckled, you may get thrown around more than your fellow travellers.
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