This happened a little bit ago, heading East. We never climbed above 19k, and if I remember rightly, for part of it we were at around 13k. I am sure the answer is some combination of “wind” and “turbulence,” but the weather wasn’t unusual at either of the terminal cities and it wasn’t an especially bumpy flight. What combination of atmospheric (or traffic control?) circumstances would lead to such a low altitude flight plan?
First of all, the weather at your origin and destination cities are unlikely to have much, if any, effect on the weather conditions/flight level en route.
Second, jets are much less efficient, and therefore burn more fuel, and therefore are more expensive/less profitable at 19,000 feet vs. the higher altitudes, so rest assured that if you were flying that low it was for a good reason.
It is possible that the weather at higher altitudes was worse than at lower, which may very well account for why you were relatively low, and why the ride wasn’t particularly bumpy - flying lower to avoid the weather worked.
I am not enough of a weather expert to venture a guess as to what causes differences in weather at different altitudes, but yes, it is entirely possible for the air to be turbulent and “bumpy” at one altitude and pretty smooth at another.
I seriously doubt you were at 19K feet all the way across the Atlantic. Are you sure you were not at 13k meters? I’ve cruised at 29-31k feet for a short while at the start of some very long flights (Sydney to Dubai, LA to Hong Kong), but 19k is very odd.
How do you know what height you were at?
Were you looking at the flight info display? Maybe it was acting up and giving you incorrect information.
Very easy – the in-flight entertainment system had one of those flight-tracking, time-temperature-height-distance to destination screens, and I like checking those out. (I first checked it out during that flight because I had a distinct sense it had been a short climbout – I know roughly how long it takes to get to 10k, because I’m used to waiting for the beep that usually comes on at that point, and it definitely felt like we levelled not very long at all after that).
Some newer planes have a neat little display which shows your location, airspeed and altitude that’s part of the built-in inflight entertainment system.
Imagine a 747-full of backseat drivers. Now you know why the pilots want locks on the cockpit.
You drop a pebble out the window and count: one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two,…
I vote for the “faulty flight info” display theory. I’ve *never *flown that low on any long-haul flight.
Almost certainly because of the Jet Stream.
Your pilot will have been at this altitude to avoid the Jet Stream to save time and fuel.
Unlikely. If you’re heading east across the Atlantic, the jet stream is where you *want *to be. There are times when there’s clear-air turbulence near the jet stream that you’d want to avoid, but not for an entire transatlantic flight.
Doubtful. Flying at 19,000 feet is also a big drag on fuel. The Jet Stream doesn’t cover the entire planet, it’s actually pretty narrow. Flights typically try to cut it at a perpendicular to minimize time spent there, or fly parallel to avoid it altogether. And in this case, since it’s an eastbound trip, you actually want to be right in the Jet Stream to get that nice tailwind.
I vote for malfunctioning display in this case. I’ve seen some weird shit on those displays, though admittedly not for the entire trip. Could an airliner even make that entire trip at 19,000 feet without running dangerously low on fuel?
Is the visual flight display not drawing from the same basic data set that the pilots use? I have to hope the main altimeter was not that badly busted.
N.B. my comment that it was a perceptively short climb to level flight – I would have noticed it even without checking the display, there’s no way we climbed as long as a typical ascent to 35k; I’ve done that enough times to know about how long it should take.
My intuitive guess is that that flight systems are so mission-critical that they’re probably completely isolated from in-flight entertainment systems. Both systems may very likely be getting inputs from the same GPS satellites, but they’re doing entirely different things with that data.
global warming
You had a female pilot and she had to stay below the glass ceiling.
If it was so, at least it was at an odd thousand as is proper…
I’m just spitballing here, but maybe it was a malfunction in the jet itself, like maybe the pressurization system. Something not critical enough to make them turn back, but just enough to keep them lower instead of way up at 35k.
:smack::smack: You are, of course, correct. I somehow got my East and West mixed up.
Probably because it took off from a conveyor belt .
I know, I know …