NEWS Hail damage! Which side of the storm do I pass on to avoid?

[webmaster]

Seems like recently there has been a rash of hail damage to planes in commercial aviation. AA's new 787 encountered hail after takeoff and damaged the radome (and subsequently returned to service with the funny PR campaign "Oh hail, I’m not afraid to say it: I’ve had a little work done,”).



http://time.com/money/4010408/american-airlines-dreamliner-nose-job-hail-damage/

Delta also recently had some significant damage to the plane that also damaged the front windshield dramatically. I am sure that must have been a tricky landing for the Delta crew, wonder how much visibility they had left?



https://www.rt.com/usa/312013-delta-plane-hail-damage/

How many of you have encountered weather systems with hail being reported? I have visually seen the hail being ejected out of a thunderstorm anvil. And some of the worst damage my old community (P3s) have had with hail has involved flying in Florida during the summer months.

John

 

[Pags]

Ran in to hail in the NAG. Sounded like golf balls hitting the helo. No damage afterwards though.

Can't say whether it was forecast or not since there was never a reliable forecast for the NAG.

 

[wink]

Briefly encountered hail once. MD80. Hard to believe no damage from the noise it made. Kind of damaged pictured above must have sounded like coming under point blank fire from a GAU-8.

 

[Renegade One]

• When deviating around storms, maneuver on the upwind side so wind isn't carrying the storm toward you, and to avoid hail that might spew from the anvil top. (Just as SWOs are taught to avoid the "dangerous semicircle" of a tropical storm…the side of a tropical cyclone to the right of the direction of movement of the storm in the Northern Hemisphere (to the left in the Southern Hemisphere), where the winds are stronger because the cyclone's translation speed and rotational wind field are additive.) I think I got that right.

• Avoid flying under thunderstorm cells themselves, where you may find powerful turbulence and intense rain or hail.

 

[sevenhelmet]

Thanks for the information, Renegade... I was thinking "upwind side" and clicked on this thread to check myself.

SWOs may be taught to avoid the "dangerous semicircle", but Mom seems to head straight for it in my experience...