Fly Damnit

Aircraft in the rain

I was on my way back from the airport today and the weather seems fine at first. This stretch of road, from KLIA to Subang, is full of billboards. It looked awful because there is so many advertising going on at both left and right side of the road. Who is gonna look at them all?

Then out nowhere it begin to rain heavily. Everyone slowed down to 80kmph. It is almost impossible to see if we were any faster because the rain was falling at the rate faster than the wiper can handle. So any of u ever wondered what does it feel like under heavy rain in the air?

Well plane are suppose to avoid heavy rain or bad weather anyway, but even during the light rain its almost impossible to see the runway behind the walls of rain. Below is a picture taken at my flying academy during those days in MFA during navigation. It is a Piper Warrior with a single engine mounted infront of the nose.

As u can see rain is very visible. Its like a wall of dark lines with some cotton like fluffy thing coming out of the bottom. That’s the dense from the center of the rain blowing outwards.

You don’t want to be inside that thing because sometimes the cumulonimbus cloud can give a sudden downdraft called microburst which might push u down violently to the ground. This freak condition will happen because the cloud will release a mass of air downwards. Sometimes u will hit the edge where it will push u upwards, then pilots will try to pitch the nose down, then the plane might go into the downdraft path of the wind, blowing the plane down.

Another reason why pilots avoid going near big clouds is because of the turbulence which can be really annoying. It can bring the plane up/down 200ft at a time. Like a rollercoaster gone wrong. People can be thrown out of their sits and stuff.

Is it possible to land in a raining condition? Do planes have wiper?

The answer is yes and yes. If the rain is moderate and the pilots think its safe to attempt landing, then its ok. The plane’s anti-skid must be operational too. They will maybe use ILS to guide them down until they have visual with the runway. If there is no visual by the MDA (minimum decent altitude), they will commence a go-around and attempt another approach or just do a hold until the weather moves. Heavy rain usually lasts for 1 or 2 hours. If for some reason they thing the rain will last longer and there is not enough fuel for the plane, they will land at another airport.

Here is a picture of a b727’s wiper.