The following factors should be taken into consideration during adverse weather operations

Speed: Considerable fluctuations of the air sped indicators are to be expected due to yawing
and head on gusts which may be encountered in turbulent air. Use the recommended
Turbulence Air Speed specified in the Aircraft Flight Manual (AFM) as target speed, but do not
purposely aim at flying on the lower side of this figure.

Attitude: Attitude should be controlled by keeping wings level and relatively rapid and large
aileron control inputs may be required to accomplish this. Use only minimum to moderate
control inputs to the elevator. This is especially important in severe – to – extreme turbulence
to avoid over-controlling or overstressing the aircraft structure. Pitch attitude should be
controlled with the elevator.

Power Setting : Once the proper power setting for the recommended turbulence speed is set, it
is generally undesirable to make changes during severe turbulence conditions. Large variations
in airspeed and altitude are almost certain to occur in severe turbulence, and it is difficult to
find a rule of thumb for setting power for all altitudes and weights.

Altitude : Because of very high velocity up/down draughts in severe turbulence regions, large
variations in altitude are almost certain to occur. Too much concern about these variations will
only lead to excessive control movements, causing large g-load variations. Altitude should
therefore be allowed to vary within reasonable limits. Do not chase altitude as it is much more
important to maintain proper attitude, than a particular altitude. Keep maneuvering margins
both for low speed and high speed buffeting. The higher the altitude, the narrower the buffet –
free range will be. For aircraft at high altitude, turbulence may produce high speed buffeting.
Should high speed buffeting be encountered in unexpected severe turbulence, avoid climbing
for recovery, since any such action might aggravate the buffet situation by increasing the Mach
number. The tendency to encounter high or low speed buffeting in severe turbulence increases
with increasing altitude. It is therefore apparent that an attempt to climb to avoid an area of
expected severe turbulence could lead to buffeting difficulties, if the turbulent region cannot
be completely topped.

Compasses: In thunderstorm activity, a lightning strike may result in an erroneous indication in

magnetic heading information supplied by the magnetic compass system, if the magnetic
heading appears to be unreliable, or the magnetic heading is no longer valid due to some type
of component failure, a shift to the DG (free gyro) mode will provide a gyro heading signal.