I have never dropped a turkey when turning it and it has to be moved to a platter anyway when done.
So regardless, you are picking that turkey up. No matter what side it resides on.
There is plenty danger in the kitchen, yet we all seem to get along fairly well.
It really is not that hard to turn and I just get my wife to help me.
I could do it by myself, but since shes there, she helps me.
I believe it and I also suggest it to anyone wanting to roast a turkey.
I have been making the holiday bird for years and it was not until I served breast side down turkey that all those people that have been eating here for years, mentioned a difference and asked me what I did different.
Nothing changed except I roasted breast side down.
So, Its not imagined. Actual living people commented with no suggestion or reason.
There is something to it.
I never had issues with dry turkey. I can say the method discussed improved on an already excellent turkey.
I can counter that I've cooked turkeys for years, in the oven, and on the grill, breast side up only, and have had such juicy and tender results that I was asked to smoke a turkey on my Webber for a friend's son's wedding. The friend stated that he had never eaten such a juicy turkey. At our anual Thanksgiving Pot luck, at church, again I have become the go-to turkey cook as both the white and dark meat gush juice when you cut into them. Also, when cooking on the grill, and checking the temperature gauge when the estimated time is near, I notice hot juices bubbling happily, just under the breast skin, with the breast up. The skin holds in the juice until a hole is place in it, and then the juices start gushing out, if the turkey hasn't had time to rest properly.
Every cell in the bird is a little bubble of meat juices, and don't start releasing those juices until tightening proteins begin to squeeze them. The proteins don't do that until a temperature of about 170' F.
If it were simply a gravity thing, then juices would never gush from the top of the bird when it was pricked, or from the top of a cooking steak, or chicken, or pork roast.
However, if your way produces wonderful results for you, stick with it. Just know that my way produces wonderful results for me, and I too have witnesses, many witnesses. Just as there is not one way to cook a perfect hot dog, there is not just one way to produce a perfectly cooked turkey. And besides that, what constitutes perfection to me may not be perfection to you, and vice-versa.
There is room for many different approaches to make the perfect turkey. Some would even say to forget the turkey and roast prime rib, or ham, or goose.
My way isn't the only right way. That's all I'm saying.
Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North