3 ms·

> I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but the suit’s pressurization had also provided physical protection from intense buffeting and g-forces What is "buffetin

• 83 4y ago
  Just wind hitting the body. If you've ever ridden a motorcycle in high winds (or high speeds) it's amazing how much force it exerts on your body. It typically "buffets" or feels like a rapid series of someone pushing or lightly hitting your body. That's at ~70mph, I can't imagine what it's like at mach 3.
• etrevino 4y ago
  Basically getting banged around. It's like a series of rapid blows. In the case of aircraft it's where everything just rapidly swings from side to side.
  • H8crilA 4y ago
    Eh, no, the pre-stall buffeting in small aviation is more like driving on small rubble, or like touching some of that vibrating paint marking the side of a highway, maybe a bit stronger than that. Some aircraft do not buffet at all when approaching critical angle of attack, which is actually worse for safety - you're deprived of a useful signal. And regardless of whether they buffet or not the standard stall warning in big aviation consists of shaking/vibrating the stick/yoke (called a "stick-shaker"). Every professional pilot is intimately familiar with that kind of feedback from their training on smaller aircraft and will instinctively push on their controls mostly without thinking. Unless they actually want to stall the plane, for example for aerobatics.
• myself248 4y ago
  I believe it's related to the phenomenon that makes whistles work. A flow instability produces an oscillation, which results in intense pressure fluctuations adjacent to a surface which then experiences corresponding mechanical forces.
• Justin_K 4y ago
  When airflow around an object is spoiled, not aerodynamic, it creates oscillations of high and low pressure. Here's an example of buffeting on a wing during a stall. https://youtu.be/6UlsArvbTeo?t=94 https://youtu.be/6UlsArvbTeo?t=94
• theideaofcoffee 4y ago
  You can experience this first-hand if you are driving: roll down one window and keep the others up while you are at highway speeds, oftentimes that feeling of the air vibrating and pulsing when you do that is the same effect. Outside air at slightly less pressure due to the movement across the car body is interacting with the cabin air, causing the whole mass to oscillate, also called wind buffeting.
  • phkahler 4y ago
    I relieve that by opening the opposite side rear window 1 to 2 inches. I hate being inside a 5hz organ pipe.
    • rzzzt 4y ago
      fub-fub-fub Remembering car rides as a kid, I think we rolled the offending window up just enough so the whole thing would happen above the ears.
• ultrarunner 4y ago
  Think of the condition of a loosely attached tarp covering a load on a trailer. The condition of the tarp after even a relatively short drive at highway speeds will be pretty rough (and the same for whatever it's beating into). This flapping around is called buffeting, or occasionally (much to my vicarious chagrin) "buffering" in motorcycle circles.