Are smaller (long-haul) aircraft more affected by turbulence?

[Forg]

Having little long-haul experience, and having only been in 747’s, an A380, A330’s and 777’s for international flights in the past, I recently flew from Sydney to London on an A350. It’s obviously a smaller plane than the 747’s I’ve flown in the past for such a trip, and also seems to be smaller than a 777 or 330 (is that correct? Seems so).

Dunno if this is at all affected by being in the 2nd row from the front whereas usually I’m in Cattle up the back; but it seemed the ‘plane was more affected by general turbulence. Not an alarming amount, but there was a constant light bouncing most of the way; whereas my memories of 747 flights have been that they feel pretty rock-solid almost until the fasten-seat-belts light comes on due to flying through turbulence.

I’m comparing something a couple of years old to something that’s 50 years old, and it’s hard to imagine the 50yo thing comes out ahead in a comfort-related way. There’s a whole lot of other Stuff surrounding comfort of course; I didn’t need to turn-on noise-cancelling on my headphones, for example, whereas Y travel on a 747 involves barely being able to make-out what’s being in a movie said due to the engine noise. And I managed to catch my first cold in about a year, the day before a long-haul flight; yet had no compression/decompression affects at all in the A350.

But; are we going to be bounced-around more as airlines continue down the path of smaller long-haul (non-)metal like 787’s & A350’s?

 

[Mattg]

This might be a good question for the Ask the Pilot thread.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

It may be the case that smaller planes feel the effects of turbulence, it probably is a question for a pilot who will have been in different planes for the same type of turbulence. For a passenger it could be rather hard to know as you'd need to know the exact intensity of the turbulence and be able to accurately replicate that on different planes.

As for light chop - had the same in a 747. For extended periods. So I'm not sure about that as 'proof'.

 

[UP4014]

The less mass the more susceptible to outside effects.

 

[Forg]

The less mass the more susceptible to outside effects.

That seems sensible, hence me asking the question in the first place; but also possibly simplistic given technology advances since the 50’s or whenever 747 design began (I mean ... it’s not totally unlike a passenger B52 when you get down to it ... hmm, would be convenient if they could just drop me on my house rather than going through all the rigmorole of landing at the airport, disembarking, going through security, getting home etc ... but I digress).
Ocean liners have all sorts of whacky stuff, for example, to make ‘em more stable than massively bigger freighters/tankers.

But anyhoo; as suggested, question has gone over to suggested Ask The Pilot thread.