Apparatus and associated methods relate to detecting turbulence of an airstream over an airfoil surface of an aircraft using a sequence of acoustic transducers attached to the airfoil surface of the aircraft along a path. Each of the sequence of acoustic transducers is configured to detect acoustic waves indicative of airstream condition proximate the acoustic transducer. A processor is configured to determine, for each of the sequence of acoustic transducers, a level of turbulence of the airstream proximate the acoustic transducer.