Thông tin chung

WELCOME FOR

PATRICK SMITH

"The top secret in the cockpit is the document so it sits in the mesh pocket behind each seat."

—David Pogue, correspondent for The New York Times and editor in chief of the PBS program

“As a stellar writer, Patrick Smith offers a laughter-filled travel in an already misunderstood industry — a trip into the world of aviation, full of intricate jargon, full of humor. and insight. "

—Christine Negroni, aviation writer and author of the book Flying Lessons

“Excellent and provides excellent knowledge. A high achievement, an indispensable book for anyone traveling by air, that is, everyone.

—James Kaplan

“Patrick Smith is extremely knowledgeable about the modern aviation industry and delivers excellent information in English, not in pilot's language. Smith is the perfect cockpit companion, companion, pen, and interpreter. "

—Alex Beam, Boston Globe

“How delightful it is to read Patrick Smith's surprisingly elegant explanations and comments. The world needs a person who writes simply and reasonably EB White on a topic that everyone is wondering about. ”

—Berke Breathed

"The fact is excellently and truly reassuring."

—Cath Urquhart, The Times (London)

“If only I could fold Patrick Smith and put him in my suitcase. He seems to know everything there is to know about the aviation industry. ”

—Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of The Economics of Humor

"Sharp and profound."

—Joe Sharkey, The New York Times

"Great."

—Rudy Maxa, the Savvy Traveler

“Ask the Pilot really makes flying a pleasure. Patrict Smith sheds light on this experience and reminds us of the magic of aviation. He also has a great sense of humor — this is very important when you get crammed into seat 14D on a regional plane. ”

—Chris Bohjalian, author of The Night Strangers and Midwives

AUTHORITIES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

KWhen I start writing this book, I intend to just turn it on into a slightly newer edition of the previous book, Ask the Pilot: Everything You Need to Know about Air

Travel, published in 2004. The more I edit, the more the book evolves and changes. In the end, it turned out to be a whole new book. The structure is the same and I have kept some chapter summarys the same, but the content of each chapter is different. Almost everything has been updated or expanded in some way, and about 70% of the book's content is entirely new.

The book's content is drawn from more than 300 articles, and the column was originally written for the online magazine Salon, starting in 2002 under the category name Ask the Pilot. The Q & A sections are mainly provided by my readers at Salon, and I am extremely grateful for their enthusiasm and encouragement over the years.

I have tried my best to ensure the timelessness of the information in the book, but please remember that the commercial aviation industry is a landscape picture — or so to speak of a gourd landscape. Heaven — full of constantly changing facts and statistics. The airlines were born and then terminated operations; aircraft can be bought and resold; flight paths were changed and removed. Sometimes tragedy happens.

A special thanks to my publishing representative, Sophia

Seidner, and to Shana Drehs at Sourcebooks. Logistic, print-editing, and creative support all belonged to Julia Petipas. Additional musical information provided by Bob Mold, Grant Hart, Greg Norton, and Jazz Butcher Conspiracy.

All thoughts and opinions expressed in this book are those of the author's own, and do not represent the thoughts or views of any airline, agency, or entity.

To read and learn more information, please visit www.askthepilot. com.

Patrick Smith

Somerville, Massachusetts

INTERPRETATION

• Perhaps when you hold this book in your hand, you can clearly realize that this is a work of general knowledge, as normal as any textbook or science handbook.

common sense. But I believe this book is more extraordinary than that.

In 1931, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote the poetic Night Flight. Most people are too familiar with the work of the Little Prince from a young age, but until recently, Vietnamese readers have been re-acquainted with the autobiographical work about this talented pilot's career life. As a person who lives and works with complex technical machines, but this pilot's soul is not dry but full of poetry. He lived as a pilot who liked to write poetry, while he was still a diligent pilot, but his life became a beautiful poem. To live by the sword and die by the sword. He chose the beautiful ending as his autobiography - a pilot who burns hard for his love of the sky. Imagine you're not just doing the simple, boring job of transporting people from point to point on the globe,

To do this, it takes more years of intense training in cockpits and dangerous experimental flights, more qualities a pilot needs, more than a cold head. and a brave heart, and

Much more than the unlucky luck. It is impossible to fully understand the above if we have never read this book.

It is strange that when society is at the height of human knowledge and the rapid rate of technological development, when people can access knowledge of all fields, from being a cart. How many wheels does a motorcycle / motorcycle need, how many engines and liters of gasoline do a car need, even how many parts does a space shuttle split when launched into space? butt, all of this we all know very well; accidentally I do not know much about the iron birds flying soaring in the blue sky and there is not much concept of those people on high are silently working regardless of distance and time / zone to connect society, remove all borders and bring cultural regions closer together.

Since 9/11 tragic events in the US when hijackers attacked the famous Twin Towers, followed by the accident of the famous Air France in the Atlantic in 2009, and most recently, plane crashes. Malaysia Airlines' tragedy in the Indian Ocean and many other consecutive aircraft accidents occurred around the world in general, and as soon as the event of the military aircraft crashing Su-30MK2 in Vietnam in particular, Many questions are raised around aviation safety, including how aircraft operate in particular and how airlines in general. Yet, despite the growing desire to fill this knowledge blind spot in our society, most of us still find it difficult to access simple, accurate and convincing answers from sources. official statement. And, as is common sense,

Seeing this, Patrick Smith, the cop with more than 25 years of flying experience, was determined to share everything he could about his job and interesting and surprising stories around his life. flying of those iron birds. The book opens up as an encyclopedia for people who are eager to learn everything about aeronautical engineering, or as the life and travel diaries of each pilot, or simply smart conversations. all that we are curious about when we fly. I believe this book will be suitable for all ages and all readers.

The author is a major active pilot in the United States, so the inevitable book sometimes delves into how American airlines operate and operate, which may be unfamiliar to most Vietnamese readers. However, aviation is a business that removes all limitations, geographical distance, space and time, so I believe that no matter what nationality you belong to and what country you come from, knowledge and the information in this book will always be helpful and practical.

The Top Secret in the Cockpit is one of the few works about the aviation industry in general international perspective, and a rare translation in terms of aviation literature and expertise from Vietnamese perspective. in particular. I am very honored to be a part of this book and have tried my best to convey the author's information and message in the most accurate and complete manner. Defects in translation, especially in scientific and technical terms, will be unavoidable. Myself, as well as the Editorial Board of Rose Book Co., Ltd very welcome the comments and contributions of all readers to make the work increasingly perfect in the next reprints.

INTRODUCTION

Paintbrush of the artist

HThanks ever, flying is the center of curiosity, like animals, anxiety, and anger. In the following chapters, I will do my best to give answers to those who are curious,

reassuring those who worry, and unexpected truths for those who are deceived.

This is not easy, and let me start with a simple premise: everything you think you know about aviation is flawed. That is an exaggeration, I hope so, but not an overly starting point when looking at what I'm dealing with. Commercial aviation is fertile ground for misinformation, and it is startling to see how deeply rooted in myths, sophistication, and conspiracy theories. Even the most knowledgeable and frequent flyers can easily misinterpret a large part of what's really going on.

This is not surprising. Flying is a complicated, inconvenient, and often frightening affair for millions of people, and at the same time it is covered in a veil of secrets. The mysteries about it are hidden behind a wall of industry jargon, the frugality of airlines, and irresponsible media. It goes without saying that airlines are not the most informative, but journalists and

Audiovisual organs love to make information simple and sensational. It is difficult to know who to believe and what to believe.

I will try my best. And in the process, yes, I'll tell you how the plane is in the air. I will go to your most fundamental concerns and deal with those unbearable rumors. However, in essence, this is not a flight guide. I'm not going to stuff the readers with the technical details of the plane. I am not writing this book for a part enthusiast or an avid aircraft enthusiast; My readers have no need to see the jet engine schematics of an aerospace engineer, and a series of technical explanations of the cockpit devices or the hydraulic system of an aircraft, will surely be very boring and tedious - especially for me. Of course, we are all curious to know how fast the plane flies, how high it can fly, can statistically how many topics about wiring and ducts. But as an author and pilot, my passion for aviation doesn't end with the plane itself, but includes the fuller, richer drama of flying from here to there - which I call the "stage" of air travel.

For most of us who grew up to be airline pilots, flying is not something we started to have an interest in after entering college. Just ask any pilot where his love for aviation originated, and the answer will almost always be from his teenage years - from a deep, incapable fascination. expressive. For me, for sure. My first crayons were of airplanes, and I learned to fly before I could fly

• bowl. Likewise, I've never met another pilot whose obsessive passions were formed like me. I

has little interest in the sky or the experience of flying itself. When I was a kid, the image of a Piper Cub didn't mean anything to me. After just five minutes watching the Blue Angels roll and roll, I was bored with tears. What fascinated me was how airlines operate: their planes and their destinations.

In fifth grade, I was able to distinguish the Boeing 727-100 from the 727-200 by the shape of the mid-engine air intake (oval, not circular). I could spend hours alone in my bedroom or at the dining table, mulling the route maps and schedules of Pan Am, Aeroflot, Lufthansa, and British Airways, memorizing the names of the capitals they flew to. Next time you get tucked into a economy seat, flip to the flight map pages at the bottom of the airline magazines. I could spend hours researching those trifles, coupled with the insane web of city couples, immersed in something like an adult story for low-end pilots. I know the logos and looks of all the famous airlines (and many not well known ones too), and can redraw them with crayons.

Therefore, I studied geography as well as studying aviation. For many pilots, the world outside the lines drawn on the flight map is forever just abstract concepts, countries and cultures are little or nothing interesting to them outside the fence. airport or hotel belt where they wait for transit. For others, like me, at some point these places become meaningful. We feel inspiration not only from the act of moving in the air, but also from the concept of going somewhere. You are not only flying, but traveling. Beautiful, complete integration between flying and traveling, traveling and flying. Aren't they the same thing? For me it is like

so. It is true that this may inspire the other, but in my spare time I would not have been traveling to so many countries - from Cambodia to Botswana, Sri Lanka to Brunei - had I not been passionate about the first aviation industry.

If ever I felt this connection, it was a night of a few years ago, during a trip to Mali in West Africa. I can write a row of pages about West African wonders and wonders, but one of the most memorable moments of that trip took place at the airport in Bamako, just seconds after their plane. I landed in Paris. Our two hundred passengers climbed the outdoor stairs down into a dark, sinister area in the middle of the night. The air was foggy and smoked like wildfire. Yellow military-style headlights beam across the apron. We parade solemnly around the area outside the plane, heading towards the tail of the plane in a wide arc towards the arrival terminal. It feels so solemn and ceremonial. I still remember walking under the towering blue-and-white tail of an Air France plane, its sub-turbine still roaring into the dark night. The feeling is very exciting, and if it is not said in a non-religious way, it is foreign. And it was that incredible plane that brought us here. In just a few hours, not less - a journey that used to take weeks by desert ship and trailer.

The lack of connection between flying and culture was for me totally unnatural, yet we have seen an almost complete rupture. Nodiv cares how you move anymore - the vehicle has been coldly detached from the target. For most people, whether on their way to Kansas or Kathmandu, the plane is still an undesirable thing to accept, accompanying the itinerary but no longer part of it. An old girlfriend

by me, an artist could easily appreciate the use of light in a 17th century Vermeer's painting, but find my point of view completely confusing. Like most people, she sees an airplane as just a tool. She believes that the sky is a canvas; an airplane can be completely removed just like an artist's brush. I disagree, because just as the brush stroke represents a moment of artistic inspiration, what would travel be without the itinerary?

We just consider aviation to be an impressive technical field, but in the end there is nothing to enjoy. I was sitting there, on a Boeing 747, and if I lightly pushed its nose up, the plane would fly up to a height equivalent to a 20-story office building. I'm at 33,000 feet (10,058 meters) above the Pacific Ocean, traveling at 600 miles per hour, going into the Far East. What are passengers doing? Complaints, angry, grimaced rattling at his laptop. The person sitting next to me is annoyed by the indentation in the ginger ale can^firstof him. This is probably the reality of a fully developed technology platform. One way or another, progress will make the extraordinary normal. But aren't we losing precious perspectives when we begin to equate the common, more or less definition, with the boring? It's not like we're losing something important by disdainfully disdaining the image of an airplane - when it might be a few hundred dollars to be able to fly halfway around the world at almost the same speed. Sound level? I know it is hard to think like that in the days of long queues, disastrous flight delays, planes overload, and children who won't stop crying. To be clear, I am not celebrating the tiny chairs or the culinary sophistication of the 15-gram combo snack package.

But believe it or not, there are still many things passengers can enjoy and enjoy when flying.

^first. Ginger-flavored carbonated soft drinks.

I hesitate to say that we have formed the thought that we should of course have rights, but it is. In addition to its technological triumphs, think about the airline's remarkable performance in terms of safety and that fares have always remained startlingly cheap, even after soaring oil prices. It is true that many years ago, passengers were served by a flight attendant in a suit to serve a five-course meal and then retreated to rest on their own bed. My first flight was in 1974: I still remember my dad in a suit, tie, with two pieces of fresh cheesecake on a 90-minute domestic flight. The problem was that it was very expensive to fly back then. Many people today cannot understand this, especially young people, but in the old days there was no college student taking a plane home for a few days on Christmas. Back then you couldn't get a $ 99 last minute ticket and fly to Las Vegas - or Mallorca or Phuket - for a long weekend. Flying was a luxury then, and people would dare to revel in it once in a while, or maybe never. In 1939, it cost you $ 750 to fly in Pan Am's Dixie Clipper for a round trip from New York to France. That fare equates to $ 11,000 today. In 1970, the fare to fly from New York to Hawaii was equivalent to $ 2,700 today. it costs $ 750 to fly on Pan Am's Dixie Clipper for a round trip from New York to France. That fare equates to $ 11,000 today. In 1970, the fare to fly from New York to Hawaii was equivalent to $ 2,700 today. it costs $ 750 to fly on Pan Am's Dixie Clipper for a round trip from New York to France. That fare equates to $ 11,000 today. In 1970, the fare to fly from New York to Hawaii was equivalent to $ 2,700 today.

The story is different. At least the aircraft was more efficient. Thanks to airplanes like the 707 and 747, long-haul travel has become affordable for the majority of the population. That is followed by the effect of deregulation, changing forever

competitive methods of airlines. Ticket prices fell deeply, passengers flocked to. Yes, flying is getting more and more uncomfortable and uncomfortable. And the fare has also become affordable for most people.

I've learned to never underestimate people's aversion to airlines and how much they hate to fly. While part of that grudge is true, much of it is unfair. Today, passengers can backpack and flip-flops, across the ocean for prices equivalent to a few cents per mile, with near absolute safety and with an 85% chance of arriving on time. . Is this really such a bad way to get around? Meanwhile, if you crave a return to the luxury of the golden age of aviation so much, you can do the same, either by buying a first-class or business-class ticket - for a lower price fifty years ago.

first.

NET DRAGON ON AIRPLANE

About wing and knot

The fundamental question: First of all, how can those giant planes still stay in the air carrying tons of cargo and hundreds of people?

• Well, this is the core question in all amateurs' curiosity about planes. Although bringing hundreds of thousands of kilograms of machinery into the sky

could be considered miraculous, if not a miracle, the way it worked was basic and surprisingly easy to illustrate. The next time you ride your Toyota on the highway, extend your hand out the window so that it is perpendicular to the car and parallel to the ground. Point your hand up a little, catch the air, what will happen? You have created a wing, and your arm is "flying." And it will continue to fly if you hold your hand at the right angle and drive at a fast enough speed. It flew because the air was supporting it. The plane is similar. Yes, you can't get the Toyota off the ground, but imagine your hands are very big and the car has enough horsepower to run very fast. The key to flying lies in creating the correct difference between the four forces exerted on the aircraft;^first. Or talk like Orville

Wright²: "The plane was in the air because it didn't have time to fall."

^first. There are four forces acting on the aircraft: the thrust of the engine in the direction of the tail to the nose of the aircraft, the drag of the air in the direction from the nose to the tail of the aircraft, the aerodynamic lift parallel to gravity in the magnetic direction. bottom to top, and gravity.

². Orville Wright, along with his brother Wilbur Wright, were the first people in the world to build and successfully test an aircraft.

There is also the Bernoulli Principle, named after the 18th century Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli, who had not seen any aircraft in his life. When passing through the narrow gap or on a curved surface, the fluid accelerates and at the same time its pressure will decrease. In this case the fluid is air, which travels more quickly above the curved surface of the wing (lower pressure), than the air traveling on the lower surface of the plane with a flatter surface productivity). This creates a thrust that makes the wings appear to be hovering over a high-pressure pad.

I would be blamed for giving a very simple explanation but that is the nature of the problem: Bernoulli's pressure difference principle, along with the pure diversion of gas molecules as shown in the wallet For example, reaching out the window of the car, it creates an indispensable part of flight action: lift force.

Loss of lift is called a loss of lift. Again, this basic concept is easily illustrated on the highway: tilt your hand a little too much or brake the Toyota under a certain speed, and your arm stops flying.

But just a quick glance at the details on the wings of the plane, I see that there must be more to it.

Obviously so. Your arm can fly - even a brick can fly if you provide enough air below - but it won't fly very high. Jet wing³needs to fly very well. The aircraft wing achieves optimum performance when flying by. This happens at extremely high altitudes and almost crosses the sound barrier for most aircraft of this type. But they also need to achieve high performance in both high and low speed situations. This is a conundrum for engineers and their windtunnel. The cross-section of the wing around which air operates is called the airfoil, and it is meticulously designed. Not just the section but also the wingspan - shape and thickness vary from front to back and from base to tip, following aerodynamic calculations that neither you nor I can fully understand the tip industry is.

³. Jetliner: Today's passenger airplanes use a jet engine called the jet engine, which is a type of combustion engine that produces an air jet that pushes quickly backwards, pushing the aircraft forward in compliance. Newton's third law of motion. When it comes to the general jet engine (reaction engine), there is also the jet engine just mentioned, the rocket engine and other types of engines, using the principle in the rule of 3 mentioned. From now on, if you do not have any further comments, readers understand that a jet aircraft or an aircraft in general is a type of aircraft using jet engine type - ND.

The wing is designed to consist of a series of appendages - namely the rear flaps, the front flaps, and the dorsal flaps. The rear flaps move back and down, increasing the curvature of the wing profile to ensure stability and safety when flying at speed.

lower. (Civil aircraft extend the rear flaps during takeoff and landing, however the exact operation will depend on the type of aircraft.) There are rear flaps mounted inside and outside, version the div can be horizontally separated. The front flaps roll forward from the front edge of the main wing and perform the same function. The flaps are rectangles protruding from the top of the main wing. The back wing, when turned on, will prevent the air flow from moving on the corresponding main wing surface, destroying the lift force and also greatly increasing the air resistance. During flight, they are used to speed up landing; Once landed, they aid in deceleration.

I remember one of my first flights on a plane, sitting in a window seat on a 727, just behind the wing, and how the wing seemed to detach itself during landing. The large rear flaps of three joints began to roll down, the back flaps were fluttering, the front flaps were released into position. Almost miraculous, you can see through the middle of the plane's wings, as if you can see through the skeleton of some bony animal, with houses and trees looming in places. wings separated.

You may have noticed that aircraft powered by jet engines have rear-facing wings. As the wing cuts across the sky, gas molecules accelerate on its curved surface. When the acceleration of gas molecules reaches the speed of sound, shock waves form on the surface, capable of canceling out the lift. Tilting the wing to the back helps the air flow to move along the wingspan in a more reasonable way. In higher speed aircraft, the angle of inclination can be more than 40 degrees; the slowest aircraft has almost no such angle. Meanwhile, the wings are also tilted upwards compared to the base of the wing, against rotation and lateral movement called direction movement.

(yaw⁴). This angle, most easily visible when viewed from in front of the nose of the plane, is called the dihedral mode.⁵). And the Soviets (old) always go against the trend, they used to apply an opposing version called anhedral, which bends the aircraft wings downwards. Aircraft wings are everything. An airplane is assembled on top of its wings, just like an automobile is assembled on a chassis or a bicycle on a chassis. The large wings provide great lift - capable of lifting a 747 at maximum payload, or nearly a million pounds, off the ground at about 170 knots (314.84 km / h).

⁴. Planes can perform three types of movements: roll, pitch, and yaw. Roll or roll is the tilt movement when one wing is thrown and the other flings up, this movement takes place around the x-axis (the vertical axis of the fuselage). Pitch is the upright motion when the nose of the plane is raised and bent, the movement taking place around the y-axis (the vertical axis of the plane's wing). Yaw is the horizontal swing of the plane, or the directional movement when the nose of the plane is turned left or right, the movement takes place around the z-axis (the vertical axis, parallel to gravity, perpendicular to the fuselage).

⁵. Dihedral - views of the wings. This term refers to the angle produced by the tip of the wing higher than the center of the wing. The wings are V-shaped. Trainers often have dihedral wings. The effect of the dihedral is to help balance forces and keep the wings level or return the wings to a level position.

What is a knot?

In his article "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again", by David Foster Wallace⁶ While on my yacht, and constantly wondering when I heard the word "knot," it couldn't be helped

Guess what they are. I think he meant to cheat. Wallace is the math boss, and the answer is pretty easy: one knot is one mile per hour, commonly used in both navigation and aviation. The thing here is a sea-nautical mile, not an ordinary mile. The sea mile is slightly longer (6,082 feet vs. 5,280 feet⁷).

⁶. David Foster Wallace: famous American writer.

⁷. 1 foot (feet) = 0.3048 meters. 1 mile (statute mile) = 5,280 feet =

1609 meters. 1 nautical mile = 1,852 meters ≈ 6,076 feet.

Therefore, 100 knots is a little faster than 100 knots per hour. The origin of the word comes from the time when people counted the number of knots on a piece of rope thrown from a boat into the water to measure distance. One nautical mile is equivalent to 1/60 of a longitude along the equator. With 60 nautical miles equivalent to one degree, we calculate the circumference of the Earth's equator of 360 degrees and 21,600 nautical miles (40,003.2 km).

Besides the front flaps and the rear flaps, I still do not understand the other moving parts on the outside of the aircraft. I saw the panels moving up and down, and the panels on the tail of the plane moving sideways ...

When a bird needs navigation, it does this by rotating its wings and tail, which the first pilots reimagined by introducing the wing-breaking structure into the early aircraft. But today's aircraft are made of aluminum and high-strength composite materials, not wood, fabric, or feathers. Driven by water, electricity, and / or manually controlled via cables, various mobile parts are fitted together to help us increase altitude, decrease altitude, and navigate.

Just above the fuselage end is the fuselage, or

also known as the vertical stabilizer wing, which functions exactly as it looks - straightening the plane. Connected to the rear hinge of the tail is the tail wheel. The tail wheel is complementary, not the directional change; Its main function is to stabilize, restrain the traverse movement, also known as directional movement. Several tail wings are divided into separate or together moving parts, depending on the speed of the aircraft. The pilot makes the tail wheel move with the foot pedals, although having a device called the yaw damper automatically handles much of this task.

Below the stern, or sometimes attached to the tail, are two small wings. These are the horizontal stabilizers, and the movable parts at their rear edges are known as the altitude rudders. The altitude steering wheel controls the upward / downward motion of the nose of the aircraft, as the pilot pulls the lever forward or backward.

The pitcher, located on the rear edge of the main wing, is responsible for changing directions. The pilots steered with a rudder or joystick, controlling the flaps to fold up or down. They are joined together and opposing forces are applied: when the left flap folds up, the flap must fold down. A raised flap reduces that side's lift, causing the corresponding main wing to drop, while a downward pitch has the opposite effect. Just a small movement of the pitcher causes the plane to change direction greatly, so you won't always see them in motion. It felt like the plane was tilted away without anything moving, but in reality the flying wings accomplished their job, albeit only briefly. Large airplanes have two flaps on each main wing, inside and outside, operated in pairs or individually, depending on the speed. The pitcher is usually connected with the flaps mentioned above,

somewhat supports redirection.

So you can see that even a single movement requires a series of moving aircraft parts. But if you're imagining an unlucky pilot kicking his feet wildly and frantically grabbing the levers, remember that the individual parts are all interconnected. Simply controlling the steering wheel or the steering column induces a variety of outward motions.

Adding to this mess is the fact that the tail, altitude rudder and wing spoiler all have smaller flaps, and they function independently of the main surface. These "trim" tabs fine-tune the forward, tilt, and turn movements.

If you are still keeping up with what I have just presented, and before you memorize it all, you will shiver to learn that there are specific variations of most of what I just described. One plane I used to fly had flaps that were only used after landing, another had flaps reversed direction, and another had flaps used to slow down during flight. Some Boeing models are equipped with not only the rear flaps on the rear flaps as usual, but also the front flaps, as well as the front flaps. The Concorde had no horizontal stabilizer wings, and therefore had no altitude rudder. But it has an "elevon"⁸. " We will learn about it and the “flaperon⁹"On another occasion.

⁸. elevon: the mobile parts outside the plane.

⁹. Flaperon: Combines both uses: Aileron (wing) - helps aircraft tilt its wings to change direction, and Flap (flap) - increases lift or decreases the ability to take off easier

(shorter momentum) while landing more slowly. Normally the flaps are visible as the largest flap, the flaperon is the smallest flap, and the flap is near the ends. The flaperon is launched only at takeoff and landing, when it is retracted in the wings.

Many planes have tiny fins that rise up towards the end of the main wings. What do they do?

• the edge of the wing, the higher pressure below the wing, meets the lower pressure above the wing, creating a turbulent airflow. The wing tips, or affectionately known as small wings, help to alleviate this turbulence, reduce air resistance, thereby improving range and performance. Since different planes have different aerodynamic properties, the wing tip is not always necessary or cost effective. The 747-400 and A340 have a wingtip, for example, and the 777 does not, although it is also a long-haul wide-div aircraft. Since fuel economy was not a top priority in the past, and since the right-wing advantages were only recently understood, they were not included in the design of previous aircraft. here. With these aircraft - including the 757 and 767 - the wing tips exist only as an option or support. The airline company considers whether the long-term fuel savings are worth the installation costs, sometimes in the millions of dollars per aircraft. This depends on the purpose of the flight. In Japan, Boeing has sold a number of 747 aircraft, dedicated to short domestic flights with large capacity, with the wing tips removed. The wing tips only help improve performance to a minimum on shorter flights, and eliminating them means the aircraft will be lighter and easier to maintain. This depends on the purpose of the flight. In Japan, Boeing has sold a number of 747 aircraft, dedicated to short domestic flights with large capacity, with the wing tips removed. The wing tips only help improve performance to a minimum on shorter flights, and eliminating them means the aircraft will be lighter and easier to maintain. This depends on the purpose of the flight. In Japan, Boeing has sold a number of 747 aircraft, dedicated to short domestic flights with large capacity, with the wing tips removed. The wing tips only help improve performance to a minimum on shorter flights, and eliminating them means the aircraft will be lighter and easier to maintain.

Cosmetology is personal. I find the wingtips on some very nice planes, like the A340, but clumsy on others, like the 767. They come in a variety of styles. Some are big and fun, while others are just a little tweak. With the "blended winglet", the wing is curved gradually without any hard corners. Airplanes like the 787 and Airbus A350 use a more integrated design, sometimes referred to as a "raked winglet."

What are the long canoe-shaped tubes that protrude underneath the wings?

They are just panels - aerodynamic devices called fairing. Although they aid in reducing the formation of high-speed shock waves, their main purpose is quite normal: regulating the air flow around the rear flap extension mechanism in the interior.

Not long ago there was a case in which a group of passengers panicked to notice the plane was missing one of the panels. They refused to board the flight because - according to media reports about the incident - "part of the wing was lost." In fact, it had been disassembled earlier for repair after it was damaged by a food truck in the parking lot. Flying without the fairing can lead to a slight disadvantage in terms of fuel loss, but the aircraft is still fully maneuverable. (For whether or not an aircraft is allowed to lack any parts, and what disadvantage it might lead to, see Aircraft Configuration Deviation List [page 64]).

Can jets do aerobatics in the air? The 747 can fly acrobatic or fly backwards^tenis not?

^ten. The fuselage was reversed 180 degrees from normal.

In theory, any plane can perform most movements, from acrobatics to spin rolls as well as a reversal flight to change direction and height Immelman.¹¹. (In an aircraft demonstration in the late 1950s, a Boeing 707 was intentionally flipped upside down.) However, if the aircraft was able to do so, it would be largely solely due to the extra thrust. either by engine or horsepower, and commercial airplanes generally lack an engine powerful enough to match their weight. Anyway, that's not a good idea. Civil aircraft components are not designed to perform acrobatics, and could suffer damage - or worse. Furthermore, the cleaning staff will have to stay up all night to clean coffee stains and vomit.

¹¹. This is a special term in the air force for a particular type of combat flight originating from World War I, named after Max Immelmann, the first German fighter pilot in the war, who also made the light. Create flight techniques.

Perhaps that will make you wonder, how can any plane fly upside down when, as I said above, the wings are curved on the top and flat on the bottom, leading to disparities Pressure deflection creates lift? If flying upside down, wouldn't the lift have an effect in the opposite direction, pushing the plane to the ground? In a way it is true. But as we've seen, the wings of an airplane create lift in two ways, and Bernoulli's pressure difference principle is a less critical one. Simple redirects are much more important. All pilots need to do is keep the right angle,

sufficiently deflect the gas molecules, then the negative lift from the plane's wings upside down is easily compensated for by the kite effect.

He has written that his task is not to cram the reader with expert wording. "Talking about how jet engines work is definitely not interesting," he said. If you don't mind, how does the jet engine work?

Imagine the anatomy of this engine as a collection of concurrently assembled rotating discs - compressors and turbines. Air is drawn in and passed through rotating compressors. It was pressed tightly, mixed with the vaporized kerosene, and then burned. This burned gas then flared to the back. Before they are released, a series of rotating turbines absorb some of the energy. The turbines drive the compressors and the large fan is in front of the engine housing.

Older engines derive their thrust primarily directly from exploding hot air currents. In modern engines, it is the large front fan that does most of that, and you can think of the motor as a single-core, spinning fan of turbines and compressors. Rolls-Royce, General Electric, and Pratt & Whitney's most powerful engines generate more than 100,000 pounds (444,822 Newton) thrust. Thrust is transmitted and supplied to electrical, hydraulic, pressurized, and icebreaker systems. Hence, the jet engine is often referred to as the "power plant."

What is a turboprop (or turboprop engine)?

All modern commercial aircraft with propellers are powered by propeller-jet engines. In essence, this is a jet plane. In this case, aim

To achieve higher efficiency at lower altitudes and on shorter flight distances, the compressors and turbines drive the propeller instead of the exhaust fan. In a nutshell, it is a propeller powered by a jet engine. There are no pistons in a propeller jet engine, and don't confuse “turbo” in an automotive word for turbocharging because they are different. Propeller-propeller jets are more durable than plunger motors and offer much more advantageous power and weight ratios.

The jet engine and the propeller jet engine both use jet fuel or the aviation turbine fuel.

• ATF) is, essentially, refined kerosene - a permutation of the oil found in camping lanterns. It is manufactured to different standards, but the one that airlines use is called Jet-A. While it looks like fireballs on television, the fuel is surprisingly stable and harder to ignite than you might think.

especially until it is granulated^twelfth. Even if you throw a half-burnt match into a puddle of oil, it won't catch fire. (Neither Patrick Smith nor the publisher will be liable for any injury or damage incurred in connection with this claim.)

^twelfth. Fuel Atomization: In an internal combustion engine, the fuel is mixed with air or some other oxidizing agent inside the engine so that the burning of the fuel occurs instantaneously and completely. When the fuel is in granular form, the efficiency of the mixing process is highest. Particle generation is done with a jet nozzle.

I noticed a hole under the tail of the plane emitting some sort of exhaust smoke. What is that hole?

That is the APU¹³(auxiliary power supply), a small jet engine used to supply electricity and air conditioning when the main engines are not running, or to replenish electricity and air conditioning when the main engines are running. All modern civilian aircraft have an APU, and are usually located at the rear of the fuselage and under the tail. If you get on an airplane on an old-fashioned outdoor ladder and hear a squeaking jet engine sound equivalent to the sound of ten thousand hairdryers, it's the APU.

¹³. APU: stands for Auxiliary Power Unit.

It also provides high-pressure airflow to start main engines. The battery systems inside large aircraft are not powerful enough to spin the engine's compressors. Instead, they are rotated by the air pumped in from the APU. The first commercial aircraft equipped with the APU as standard equipment was the Boeing 727, which entered service in 1964. Before that time, an external gas source, called an "air vehicle" or " huffer ”, which is attached to the steam duct system of the aircraft. Today you can see that car when the plane was about to take off and the APU was idle, used to start the first engine. That first engine operates and becomes the source of the gas for the other engine (s).

Most propeller jet engines are started by electricity instead of compressed air. Without an APU and the plane's battery system isn't powerful enough, there's something called a GPU¹⁴(ground supply unit) will replace. Pulled by a small rickshaw, the GPU looks like one of the generators used at roadside constructions.

¹⁴. GPU: stands for Ground Power Unit.

If the APU is to supply ground power, why do we often see motors running while planes are waiting at the station doors?

You can't see that. Planes almost never run their engines at the terminal door. What you see is the wind that rotates the primary rotor. Just a normal air flow can make that fan spin quite quickly. If this seems impossible because the plane is parked in a hidden corner of a building or is turning in the other direction, it's because the wind is blowing from behind. In new engines, most of the incoming air is blown around the core consisting of compressors and turbines, so it can be applied directly to the propellers from behind.

So exactly how much is a civil aircraft worth?

Do you believe it costs $ 200 million for a brand new Airbus A330 or Boeing 777? Or $ 70 million for a new 737? Even regional jet planes¹⁵Tiny machines that most of you can't stand are also machines worth millions of dollars. A $ 20 million price tag is normal for a high-end regional or propeller airplane (and you can keep this in mind so the next time you get on the plane and flutter your spins. rubberband). The price of used aircraft fluctuates significantly depending on the age of the aircraft, upgrades and maintenance times. Much of the price depends on the engines, each of which is sold separately for millions of dollars, and maintenance: when is the next overhaul, and how is the overhaul? A used 737 based on it can sell for $ 2 million or $ 20 million.

¹⁵. Regional jet: a jet with short (less than 3 hours, short-haul) and medium flight lengths (from 3 to 6 hours, medium-

haul)

Airlines do not actually own all of their aircraft, or sometimes even do not own any aircraft. They rent them from banks and aircraft rental companies, and pay them in installments just like how you buy a car. There is no other way to afford such airplanes.

Is there a quality difference between Boeing and Airbus aircraft? I find it cheaper to make Airbus aircraft.

I hate this question, and it comes out all the time in various awkward forms. The expression "made cheaper" is to underestimate the complexity of a civil aircraft, regardless of who is the manufacturer. No aircraft is produced cheaply. Boeing and Airbus aircraft are of course different in many respects. They are manufactured according to different construction and operating philosophies, and each has different comfort or discomfort. And sometimes it's controversial: Airbus has been criticized for relying on automatic controls that in some cases pilots are unable to intervene. Boeing, for its part, was also troubled by a tail-wing malfunction that led to at least two fatal 737 crashes in the 1990s. There are still no statistics on safety differences worth invoking here, and the views on which plane is "better" must be based on the basic details of the systems - what the details will be. make you (and I) yawn and yawn, and they don't make any explosions, click, squeak, or any other sound that passengers can hear by themselves. For pilots, the key is personal preference and, in a sense, style, rather than quality or lack of quality. It's not much different from comparing Apple to PC For pilots, the key is personal preference and, in a sense, style, rather than quality or lack of quality. It's not much different from comparing Apple to PC For pilots, the key is personal preference and, in a sense, style, rather than quality or lack of quality. It's not much different from comparing Apple to PC¹⁶; Each type has someone who hates the loved one.

¹⁶. PC (Personal Computer): personal computers, often used to mean personal computers with Intel x86-series processors, which typically run (but not limited to) Windows operating systems, as opposed to with the Apple Macintosh line.

Should I choose a certain type of aircraft to move faster?

The speed above is indicated by Mach number. Mach is the speed of sound (named after Ernst Mach¹⁷), and Mach number is the percentage of that speed. Long-haul planes fly slightly faster than short-haul planes. The 747, A380, or 777 will fly at a speed of Mach 0.84 to 0.88 (84% to 88% of the speed of sound). For smaller planes like the 737 or A320, the speed is between Mach 0.74 and 0.80. In the 767 that I flew, the speed when the plane reached a steady altitude was between 0.77 and Mach 0.82. The optimal speed for each flight is different. If the aircraft is on time, or if fuel consumption is a factor then we will plan the flight

• any Mach number with the best fuel efficiency. If we were late and as long as the fuel wasn't an issue then maybe we'd fly a little faster. The recommended Mach number is adopted as part of the flight plan.

¹⁷. Ernst Mach (1838 - 1916): Austrian physicist and philosopher. He performed important studies of motion at supersonic speeds.

For a 13-hour flight from New York to Tokyo these differences are very important. A slightly larger Mach number will save several minutes of flight. But with short flights, the savings are negligible, and there is no reason to choose one aircraft over another just to be on time. In

In all cases, the air traffic control (ATC) constraints are a key determinant of the aircraft's speed rather than capacity. Especially for short flights, the control staff frequently asks the pilot to speed up or slow down.

The line between subsonic and supersonic, which is the speed at which most airplanes close to reach, is not about aerodynamic gossip. In a simplified version of Einstein's axiom about the speed of light, the energy dissipated dramatically increases when the sound barrier is crossed. While not entirely a physical drawback, this is a huge budget problem. Supersonic flight requires a completely different type of aircraft wings, and fuel consumption increases dramatically. Do you remember the Concorde? Not exactly the catastrophic crash near Paris in 2000 that hastened the decision to stop the aircraft, but rather its terrible operating costs. For these reasons, Despite all the other technological advancements we've seen, the cruising speed of commercial aircraft hasn't changed much since its early days. Even the 21st century civilian jet flies a bit slower than a plane 30 years ago.

Which planes have the longest flight range?

The Boeing 777-200LR has the longest flight time of all commercial aircraft - about 20 hours, travels about 9,000 nautical miles (16,668 km) and then adds a few knots without refueling. Almost every pair of major cities in the world is connected by this incredible plane (see longest flights section, page 316). Second is the A340-500, operated by Emirates and Singapore Airlines first. The A380, 777, and 747 variants have the same capacity, but slightly less.

It should be understood that endurance, that is, hours in the sky, is a more accurate measure of flight distance, not nautical miles, and that endurance is dependent on altitude, cruising speed, and other another factor. Also, the size of an aircraft is not always an indicator of how long (or how far) the aircraft can fly. The most obvious example is probably the previous Airbus A300, which was specifically designed for short or medium flights even though it could accommodate up to 250 people. Meanwhile, the nine-seat jet can fly continuously for 11 hours. It is also unfair to simply conclude that one aircraft has a longer range than another. Does the Airbus A340 fly further than the Boeing 747? Some do, some don't. Technical options such as the engine type and the number of auxiliary fuel tanks contribute to the endurance. Note the numbers after the dash. There's not just one type of A340; whose list includes A340-200, -300, -500, and -600. Boeing has -200, -400, -800, -LR (long range), -ER (extended range), and more. And the bigger number is not everything. The A340-500 is smaller than the A340-600, but can fly longer distances. The 777-200LR lasts longer than the significantly larger 777-300ER. Are you still understanding what I'm saying? If you like graphs and charts full of tiny asterisks and print, please visit the manufacturer's website and feel free to explore and more. And the bigger number is not everything. The A340-500 is smaller than the A340-600, but can fly longer distances. The 777-200LR lasts longer than the significantly larger 777-300ER. Are you still understanding what I'm saying? If you like graphs and charts full of tiny asterisks and print, please visit the manufacturer's website and feel free to explore and more. And the bigger number is not everything. The A340-500 is smaller than the A340-600, but can fly longer distances. The 777-200LR lasts longer than the significantly larger 777-300ER. Are you still understanding what I'm saying? If you like graphs and charts full of tiny asterisks and print, please visit the manufacturer's website and feel free to explore

How much does the plane weigh?

There are load limits for different modes of operation, including limits for rolling, taking off, and landing. The maximum take-off weight of the Airbus A380 is more than one million pounds¹⁸(453 tons). The Boeing 747 can reach a maximum weight of 875,000 pounds (397 tons). With the 757 it's 250,000 pounds (113 tons), and with the A320 or 737 it's about 170,000 pounds (77

ton). A single propeller or zone aircraft accommodating 50 passengers can reach a maximum weight of approximately 60,000 pounds (27 tons). Those are the maximum numbers. The actual take-off weight will depend on weather, runway length, and other factors.

¹⁸. 1 pound (1 pound) is a traditional unit of weight for the UK, US, and several other countries. Currently the correct internationally recognized value is: 1 pound = 0.45359237 kg

Of course, passengers don't have to disclose their waist measurements, so airlines instead apply the standard estimation for passengers and baggage. Figures - 190 pounds (86 kg) per person (including carry-on baggage) and 30 pounds (13.5 kg) per piece of checked baggage - are adjusted for a bit taller in winter as more more clothes (please don't ask me about flights between two different climates). The weight of passengers and boarding baggage is added to another number called BOW-basic operating weight, which is a fixed number that represents the weight of the aircraft itself. , including all equipment, fixtures, consumables, and crew. After adding fuel and cargo, the result is the total “on the field” or rolling weight.

You might be surprised to learn that in the case of a full-seat 747, 400 passengers and their luggage - roughly 75,000 pounds (about 34 tons) in total - make up only about 10% of the total payload of the flight. It is not the passengers and their belongings but the fuel that dominates, sometimes accounting for a third of the total aircraft payload or more. Because

So, pilots calculate the weight of the fuel in pounds, not gallons¹⁹. All stages from initial fuel refueling to fuel consumption during flight are added or subtracted by weight, not by volume.

¹⁹. Gallon: A measurement of liquid volume mainly used in the US and also commonly used in many other English-speaking countries. 1 gallon is equivalent to 3.78 liters in the US.

Both weight and load distribution are important. The aircraft's center of gravity changes as fuel is consumed, calculated prior to flight and must be kept within limits for takeoff and landing. Pilots are trained in load and balancing knowledge, but the toughest work is done by payload planners and operators.

One day we flew from Phoenix and the highest temperature was 40.5 degrees Celsius. A few passengers were left behind. The airline told us that it was too hot for the plane to fly with full seats.

Hot air is thinner than cold air, negatively affecting both lift force and engine performance. Take off on a tarmac will take longer, the flight angle will be lower, and during very high temperatures the aircraft may no longer meet the safety limits of a given runway - degree parameters ramps up²⁰and the distance required to stop if take off. The maximum weight allowed per takeoff is determined by the weather and runway length. Short-haul on limited fuel will not be an issue, but full or heavy-duty fuel tanks can exceed limits, so cargo or passengers sometimes have to be left behind.

²⁰. Climb gradient is the ratio of the obtained altitude and

the horizontal length moved to reach that height. A flying slope of 6% means that for every 1m altitude the plane has traveled over 100m of the runway. Civil jets need a minimum slope to take off or land. If not perform procedures to cancel takeoff.

Additionally, some aircraft have the maximum operating temperatures specified in their flight instructions. To a certain threshold, the aerodynamic disadvantages become excessive and parts begin to overheat. These limits are usually quite high, around 50 degrees C (122 degrees F) but sometimes the aircraft must land immediately.

In addition to the temperature there is also a high degree. The higher the air is thinner, reducing the efficiency and aerodynamic capacity of the engine. Highland airports often take the pay-off disadvantage into consideration. Mexico City is located at 7,400 feet (2,255tkm) and is a heavyweight contender, as is Denver²¹, Bogota²², Cuzco²³, and many other airports. For years, before the advent of more efficient aircraft, South African Airways New York - Johannesburg was able to fly uninterruptedly in one direction, and this is part of the reason. In the east, from JFK Airport, the runway takes advantage of the long runway that is at sea level. On the return side, the 5,500 feet (1,676tkm) altitude of Johannesburg's sea level becomes a disadvantage. Filling up fuel tanks means leaving passengers or cargo behind, so the flight will require refueling in the island nation of Cape Verde.²⁴ or Dakar²⁵.

²¹. Denver: capital of the state of Colorado, USA, located at high altitude

1,610 meters above sea level.

²². Bogota: the capital of Columbia, is the third highest capital in South America with an altitude of 2670 meters above sea level.

²³. Cuzco: a city located in southeastern Peru, 3400 meters above sea level.

²⁴. Cape Verde (Cap-Ve or Blue Cape): an archipelago of 10 atolls located in the center of the Atlantic Ocean.

²⁵. Dakar: capital of Senegal.

Once in the air, the aircraft can initially be too heavy to reach the highest fuel efficiency altitude and will "step climb" as the fuel gradually burns. How high a plane can fly at any given moment depends not only on what altitude the physical ability can reach, but also on maintaining the limits of failure when it reaches that altitude. .

Why do some planes leave white streaks in the sky?

Vapor trails are formed when exhaust fumes from a jet engine solidify into ice crystals in a high, cold, dry atmosphere - unlike the thin smoke you release on cold days. It can be said that these air streaks are cloud. It may sound strange, but streaks of steam are a byproduct of the internal combustion of jet engines, from where the moisture is released. Whether or not a vapor trail is formed depends on the altitude and texture of the surrounding atmosphere - mainly the temperature and a further part called the steam pressure.

I refuse to spend precious pages discussing conspiracy theories called "chemical vapor streaks." If you understand what I am talking about and would like to discuss it please email me. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, please don't worry.

There is a lot of controversy about the environmental impact of air travel, especially on emissions. Is it possible to reconcile the flight frequency and the sense of environmental protection?

This is a difficult question for me. I'm probably one of the most environmentalists, doing my best to follow the 3T rule: reduce, reuse, recycle. I don't own a car, and most of the furniture in my apartment is collected from the sidewalk and refurbished. I replaced incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps. Then I went to work and put hundreds of tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Am I a hypocrite or something?

The commercial aviation industry is increasingly under attack for what one observes about its lack of environmental friendliness. Especially in Europe, powerful voices are lobbying to cut air travel, propose higher tariffs and other deterrent measures to curb industry growth. not and prevent people from using air transport. (People have a very offensive English phrase "binge flyer"²⁶to describe Europeans who take advantage of ultra-low-cost airline tickets for continuous short-term travel.) It is yet to be concluded how much fair this objection is and how much is actually just for the sake of defame the airline industry. Airlines are easily targeted today, but in relation to environmental threats they have probably been charged with a bit of injustice.

²⁶. Those who love to fly, addicted to fly - ND.

I was the first to agree that airlines should be responsible for their share of the ecological impact they cause,

But that's the problem: Globally, the commercial aviation industry accounts for only 2 percent of total fossil fuel emissions. Commercial buildings, which emit a much greater percentage of the pollutants that cause climate change than commercial planes, can be counted, yet there is little objection or dissent. organized movement to ask them to be more environmentally friendly. It is the same with cars. Americans have a very serious habit of depending on cars, but they rarely feel guilty about it. American airlines have increased fuel efficiency by 70% over the past 30 years, only 35% since 2001, largely through cessation of fuel-efficient aircraft. While,

The key issue, however, is that the best measure of the airline's impact on the environment is not just the numbers. Aircraft emissions - not only carbon dyoxide but also nitrogen oxides, soot, and sulfate-based particles - are brought into the troposphere, where their effects are not fully understood. . On the other hand, experts believe that the presence of the vapor streaks mentioned in the previous section replicates the stratum formation. It can be said that clouds produce clouds, and the amount of cloud cover increases by 20% in certain flight corridors, thereby controlling temperature and precipitation.²⁷. According to experience, experts propose to multiply 2% of fossil fuels mentioned above by 21⁄2 to get a more accurate figure of the total contribution rate of the whole industry to the amount of greenhouse gases. According to this formula, airlines now contribute about 5% to the problem.

²⁷. The precipitation includes all condensation water

water vapor in the atmosphere, caused by rain, drizzle, frost, sleet, snow, hail, etc.

This number is still not large, but the commercial aviation industry is growing rapidly worldwide. China alone is planning to build more than 40 major airports.

• The US, the annual passenger volume, which is already close to one million, is expected to double by 2025, a time when aircraft greenhouse gases will increase five times from current levels. . If we really get to work on cutting our carbon emissions from other sources as long as we have promised, the percentage of emissions from the aviation industry will skyrocket.

The reason for all these growth numbers is that flying is cheap and easy. This is subject to change. Air travel will always be the necessary option to save money, but the flight patterns we have just become accustomed to may not always be viable if oil prices rise sharply as many predict. We will still have planes, but when plane tickets go up in price, flight enthusiasts will no longer exist.

Some airlines are experimenting with options to use biofuel instead of jet fuel today. Air Canada, Qantas, United, and All Nippon Airways are among the airlines that have fully or partially operated flights using biofuel. Meanwhile, many airlines allow passengers to buy carbon emissions²⁸low cost when booking online. Or for a small fee, third-party organizations will sell CO emissions₂ Make estimates for your flight and invest the proceeds in sustainable energy projects.

²⁸. Emissions trading: Under the Kyoto Protocol, this is a measure to reduce carbon emissions to prevent global climate change. Each country / organization has a certain "cap" of carbon emissions. A country / organization whose carbon emissions are below the allowable limit may sell the "balance" to another.

For now, let's forget about emissions and let's talk about other types of pollution:

One thing that has always shocked me is the amount of solid waste - including plastic bags, paper, Styrofoam insulation foam, and aluminum - is generated by airlines and their customers. Just calculate the number of trays, mugs, cans, confectionery wrappers, and books left behind with every regular flight, and multiply by about 40,000 daily commercial flights worldwide.

Simple measures have a long-term effect on savings and reuse. For example, why not give passengers the option of taking the cup to go with their drink? My can of soda or fruit juice always comes with a cup placed on my tray before I can refuse, although drinking straight from the can is perfectly acceptable. And packing plane food (which still remains to this day) is nothing but extremely wasteful. A regular meal or an in-flight snack contains more kerosene-based plastic than the actual food supply.

Not all airlines ignore the garbage problem. Virgin Atlantic's in-flight recycling program asks passengers to return their glass bottles and cans, and leave newspapers on their seats for recycling. With American Airlines, the cans are recycled, and the proceeds go to charity, while the garbage from domestic flights is sorted and recycled.

after landing. Delta recycles all aluminum, plastic, and paper products from flights at its Atlanta international transit port, with proceeds going to Habitat for Humanity. However, although a few firms are pioneering this movement, most of the industry's efforts are quite half-hearted.

Aircraft in Art, Music, and Cinema

Air travel is a very intuitive thing. At some point, look at the famous photograph of the Wright Brothers' first flight in 1903. The picture was taken by an outsider named John T. Daniels and has since been reproduced by millions. times, perhaps the best shot of 20th century iconography. Daniels was commissioned by Orville Wright to operate a cloth-covered 5 x 7-lens box camera on the Outer Banks beach.²⁹. He was instructed to hold the shutter shut if "something interesting" happened. The camera pointed to the air - if it could be called a 3-4 meter altitude - there, if it went according to plan, the Wright brothers' plane, the Flyer, would fly into the air for the first time.

²⁹. It is a chain of peninsula and barrier islands 200km long off the edge of North Carolina's coast and part of Virginia. The place where the Wright brothers took their historic flight was at Kill Devil Hills, near the coastal town of Kitty Hawk.

Everything really went according to plan. The grotesque machine appeared in view and Daniels tightened his squeeze. We see Orville as just a black wooden stick, surrendering its fate to the plane rather than piloting it. Below him, Wilbur followed suit, as if to capture or tame the strange machine in case it decided to pitch or plunge to the ground. We can't see their faces; The beauty of the photo is mainly not needed

set that. The photo is full of promise and at the same time evokes a sense of extreme loneliness. The full potential of the aviation industry was summed up in that shutter flash; But we also see in the photo are really just two excited brothers in a world as if it were empty, one flying, the other watching. We see centuries of imagination - longing for flight - when it comes to fruition, lonely and almost completely anonymous.

I have a lot of books written about airplanes. Admittedly, the aerospace publishing industry is at a lower level of aestheticism than what you might find in the bookshelves of art or science. The books are filled with beautiful images: shots of the landing gear, tail and wings in captivating angles. The same goes for cars, motorcycles, and firearms - a kind of sexual fixation for mechanical items. It's easy and cheap, and completely in the wrong direction. Unfortunately so far, the respect for the plane has not surpassed this big new idol.

In my opinion, what the airline industry needs is a certain intersection of belief. The Concorde and 747, with their clever fusion of left and right brain perceptions, were close to achieving that. Still, we will not see any framed lithographs of the 747 in the attics of SoHo.³⁰ or the rich house in Boston, hanging beside the romantic pictures of the Chrysler Building or the Brooklyn Bridge^{thirty first}. And I won't be underestimated until commercial aviation gets a 10-episode documentary with Ken Burns' sepia tone.³².

³⁰. “South of Houston Street” is the neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, City

New York Street, in contemporary history, is noticed by the public because it is home to many apartments as well as artist galleries, today is home to many shops and chain stores selling goods. domestic and international fashion brands.

^{thirty first}. The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. Completed in 1883, the bridge connecting the two sections of New York City, Manhattan and Brooklyn, is separated by the East River. With a main span of 486 meters, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world until 1903 and was the first suspension bridge made of steel. Since its opening, it has become an iconic part of New York. The bridge was designated a National Historic Site in 1964.

³². Kenneth Lauren “Ken” Burns (1953) is an American documentary film producer and director, known for his style of using raw footage and pre-existing images, he was twice nominated for an Oscar. and won the EMMY award and many other summarys.

Nowadays, when it comes to popular culture, cinema is the first thing we mention. The dawn of the Jet Age parallels with Hollywood's newly discovered potential in the 1950s - the CinemaScope turbine and lens³³are promising prototype tools. Decades after the intimate symbiosis persists: lots of movies are shown on planes, and planes appear in so many films. The plane crash is still a simple scenario and of course, and more than 30 years later we still laugh at Leslie Nielsen's lines.³⁴ in the movie Airplane³⁵. But I've never liked airplane movies. For most of us, the plane is still just a means of achieving our purpose, and often a means of engaging, damaging, or engaging journeys.

otherwise, it is also life-changing trips that we engage in. And it's sneaky, random glimpses that best capture this - more reminiscent of any blockbuster disaster movie scenario: the propeller plane drops the spy on a battlefield evil. paralysis, or take the ambassador and his family to flee the battle; The beauty of the B-52's tail plunge into the riverbank in Apocalypse Now³⁶; Air ticket book Air Afrique in the hands of young actor Jack Nicholson³⁷ in The Passenger³⁸; Poland's Tupolev planes roared in the The IV movie background scene³⁹ by Krzysztof Kieslowski⁴⁰.

³³. CinemaScope is a line of anamorphic lenses used from 1953-1967 for widescreen filming, theoretically allowing images with an aspect ratio of 2.66: 1.

³⁴. Leslie William Nielsen (1926 - 2010) is a Canadian comedian and film producer. He has played more than 220 characters in more than 100 movies and 150 TV shows, especially known through the film The Airplane and the Naked Gun series. He is marked on the Walk of Fame of Hollywood and Canada.

³⁵. 'Airplane' is a comedy parody of disaster film written and directed by two brothers Zucker and Jim Abrahams and released by Paramount Films. The film was voted by Empire magazine as one of the 500 Greatest Films of All Time.

³⁶. Apocalypse Now is an American film set in the context of the Vietnam War, won the Cannes Film Festival's Golden Palm Award and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Film and Golden Globe Award for Best Drama.

³⁷. John Joseph Nicholson (1937) is one of the best actors in Hollywood history and is known for playing characters with mental or psychological problems. He was nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor Oscar 12 times and won 3 times. Nicholson is best known for his role in the movies Flying on the Cuckoo's Nest, Batman.

³⁸. The 1975 film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, about an English-American journalist disguised as a businessman who died while making a documentary in Chad, did not expect that the dead person was an arms dealer. Contact the rebels during a civil war.

39. Part 4 in a four-part series that is related to the fourth of the 10 Catholic commandments: "Honor your parents."

⁴⁰. Krzysztof Kieslowski (1941 - 1996) is an influential Polish art-filmmaker and screenwriter who is known worldwide and has received numerous awards from the Cannes Film Festival, Venice, Berlin and many other summarys.

⁴¹. George Gershwin (1898 - 1937) was an American composer and also a pianist. George Gershwin's works span both popular and classical music, and his melodies are widely known. His works were applied to numerous films and television television sets, and many of them have become the jazz standards recorded with different styles of expression. Many singers and musicians have used Gershwin's songs.

Moving on to music, I think of a United Airlines ad that was broadcast on TV sometime in the mid-1990s - showcasing their new destinations in Latin America. Actors in

this trailer is a parrot pecking on a piano key within seconds of George Gershwin41's "Rhapsody in Blue". "Rhapsody" is so far United's promotional music, an epic accompaniment to the footage of a 777 spreading its wings in the sky.

We should not forget that the late artist Joe Strummer⁴²I mentioned the Douglas DC-10 in the song "Spanish Bombs" by the band The Clash, but it was Boeing that had a more musical inclination. I can think of at least four songs that mention the 747 (my favorite is "So It Goes" by Nick Lowe.⁴³).

⁴². John Graham Mellor (1952 - 2002), born in Turkey, is a British composer, songwriter, singer and actor, co-founder, lyricist, guitarist and lead vocalist of the band. punk rock is called The Clash, founded in 1976 and is part of the first movement of punk rock in the UK. He is one of the symbols of the punk movement in England. Strummer and The Clash team entered the Rock & Roll Walk of Fame in January 2003.

⁴³. Nicholas Drain “Nick” Lowe (1949) is an English singer, songwriter and producer, an image of pub rock, power pop and new wave with many highly regarded solo albums.

Somehow the Airbus brand is not suitable for the lyrics, although Kinito Mendes, a musician of the Merengue genre, in 1996 wrote the Airbus A300 song "El Avion" as a sad omen. “How delighted it would be to fly 587,” Mendez sang, making the popular American Airlines morning flight from New York to Santo Domingo immortal. In November 2001, the flight met

accident after taking off from Kennedy airport, killing 265 people.

The shaping years of my music began in the unorthodox rock between 1981 and 1986. It didn't seem like a particularly rich genre for years to be able to unravel. link with the airline industry, but it's actually much easier than it might seem. "The planes are falling out of the sky ..." Grant Hart⁴⁴singing like that in a song from Hüsker Dü's 1984 masterpiece Zen Arcade album, and three albums later, another band member, Bob Mold, screamed about a man "sucked out the window. first class cabin! ”. And also the album cover. On the back cover of Hüsker Dü's Land Speed ​​Record album is a Douglas DC-8. On the front cover of English Beat's 1982 Special Beat Service album, the band members walked under the wings of British Airways VC-10 (it was the Vickers VC-10, the 60's most recognizable jet because There are four mounted motors

• tail plane). Beastie Boys' 1986 album Licensed to Ill had a spray paint on an old 727 by American Airlines.

⁴⁴. Grantzberg Vernon Hart (1961) is an American musician, drummer and co-writer for the influential hardcore punk and alternative rock band Hüsker Dü.

Columbia Granger's Poetry Directory contains no less than 20 songs in the "airplanes" category, another 14 in the "air travel," and at least five more in the "airports," which contain poems. by Frost⁴⁵ and Sandburg^{forty six}. John Updike's Americana and Other Poems⁴⁷was rated by Kirkus as "a relentless praise for the airports and great beauty of America." Getting readers to read my own aviation poetry

Probably a bad idea, but I also have to confess that I have written a few articles that you can risk your life Google to read. Perhaps it was the cockpit checklists that inspired me to create these non-rhyming masterpieces:

The blade angle is stable, normal

APU transmitter, turned off

Isolator valve, closed

Automatic brake ... max!

⁴⁵. Robert Lee Frost (1874 - 1963) renowned American poet once received

Four Pulitzer prizes for Poetry and many other noble honors.

^{forty six}. Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967), poet, editor and author, won the Pulitzer Prize three times, twice for poetry and once for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. He was regarded by his contemporaries as a pillar of contemporary literature.

⁴⁷. John Hoyer Updike (1932 - 2009) is an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic and literary critic. Updike is one of three writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for more than once

2.

FIRE FACTORS

CARRY

Disturbances, Wind Break, Weather, and Concerns

HIGH-CLASS ART: HISTORY, TRAVEL, AND THE WORLD'S LARGEST PLANTS

VIn the mid-1960s, the aerodynamics of the Boeing faces an important task. Their responsibility: to build the largest commercial jet to date - one of the fold size and capacity

pair any existing aircraft - and make it beautiful. So where to start?

Well, to be specific, you start from the front and the back. Architectural critic Paul Goldberger explains in The New Yorker: “Most architects who design skyscrapers focus on two aesthetic issues. That is how to touch the ground and how to make a skyscraper - in other words top and bottom. ” Imagine a jet as a horizontal skyscraper, we see that its beauty is gained or lost mainly in the design of the nose and tail of the plane. The engineers at Boeing understood Goldberger exactly what they meant and created the iconic 747 as a worthy competitor in terms of aesthetics.

America with the most imposing skyscraper in Manhattan.

This can be seen through the fact that, to this day, only from my memory, with a pencil and a lifetime of flying, I was able to sketch the head and tail parts of the 747 with ease. Amazingly easy and accurate. This isn't to show off my drawing skills, trust me. Instead, the key is in a very natural illustration of the elegance, like a stream of organic matter in the shape of an airplane. The tail of the aircraft is over 60 feet (18 meters) tall. Although it is actually just a six-story aluminum panel, the tilted tail has something of a charm, like the angled bow sail on a sailboat. From the front, it's hard to see the 747 without focusing on the plane's most prominent feature - the luxurious attic upstairs. The 747 has often been described very unfairly as a "bubble head" or "humpback." In fact, the upper deck is designed in smooth harmony with the fuselage, tapering forward, creating an majestic and decisive nose. This aircraft looks more like a classic ocean liner QE2 than a civilian jet. Even its name has something of a poetic and proud vibe - the deflection in the angle of the number 7 and the lyrical, proportionate sound: seven-four-seven.

The 747 was built for a market that didn't exist at the time - the need for large, long-distance capacity. By the late 1960s, there was no shortage of people yearning for the opportunity to fly directly to distant destinations, but there were no aircraft large enough or long enough to travel so expensive. Boeing's 707, which may be called a miniature version of the 747, ushered in the Jet Age several years earlier, but its economies of scale were still limited. Juan Trippe, the visionary leader of the

Pan Am, the pioneer in the 707 project, convinced Boeing that a plane with twice the capacity of the 707 would be possible - and a revolution in wait.

He was right, even though pioneering is not easy. Boeing tried his luck and built a super-jet for Trippe, which in the process was nearly bankrupt. Early engine problems are a shame, at a hefty cost, and initial sales are alarmingly low. But on 21 January 1970, Pan Am's Clipper Victor (see Tenerife story, p. 263) made its first flight on the New York – London route, from which the movement of Airway across the globe has changed forever. It is not an exaggeration to consider the arrival of the 747 as the most pivotal turning point in the history of civil aviation. For the first time ever, millions of passengers were able to travel enormous distances at tremendous speeds - at affordable fares. Fast-forward to 40 years later, The 747 remains one of the most expensive aircraft of all time. Of all the passenger jets still in production, only its younger brother, the 737, sold more.

In second grade, my two favorite toys were two 747s. The first was an inflatable model, like some unique balloons bought at parades, with rubber wings collapsed. down so deviated from the real plane's wings that I stuck them in place. To a seven-year-old the toy is huge, like a parade Macy's bubble^firstmy own. The second dish is a plastic model about 30 centimeters long. Like a balloon, it also wears the iconic Pan Am suit. One side of the fuselage is made of clear polystyrene, through which it is possible

see the entire interior of each row. Up to now I can still accurately imagine the pastel colors of the tiny green and red chairs.

^first. The US retail chain Macy's holds its annual Thanksgiving parades. In these parades often show giant balloons with images of famous characters, loved by children and adults alike.

• Near the tip of the toy plane is a perfectly miniature, simulated blue spiral staircase. Early versions of the 747 were fitted with spiral steps connecting the main deck to the upper deck. This allows the entrance to get the view and feel of the lobby, like money

monumental hall of a cruise ship². In 1982, on my first flight in a real 747, I was thrilled to see that spiral staircase for the first time. Those stairs are ingrained in my blood - a helix like a genetic code leading up to the pilot's nirvana. (Alas, later versions of the 747 used the traditional staircase.) In the 1990s, Boeing ran a magazine advertisement for its 747. The ad occupies two pages, with a silhouette captured in backlight and a close-up of the plane's nose against the dim sunset sky. "This plane / take you / to where?" Boeing's questions staggered on the middle two pages of the magazine. Under this dreamy line is the text: “A stone-built monastery in the shadow of the Himalayas.

². Cruise ship: cruise ship or cruise ship is a very large passenger ship used on cruises, both to bring visitors to the sights, and to reward guests.

breathtaking services and amenities aboard.

A cluster of tents on the Serengeti plain³spread. The Boeing 747 is made for such venues. Faraway locations full of adventure, romance, and exploration. ” I sympathize with this sweet PR that I cut it from the magazine and keep it in a folder. Whenever I get the feeling that my career is going nowhere (which happens quite often), I pull out this ad and look at it.

³. The Serengeti grassland is one of the seven natural wonders of Africa and one of the ten wonders of the world with a giant migratory mammal colony every year. The Serengeti Meadow is also famous for its large numbers of lions and is one of the best destinations for those who want to admire life in their wildlife. Here, Tanzania has established the Serengeti National Park and a few other protected areas.

Nature and travel author Barry Lopez once wrote an article in which, from the inside of an empty 747 cargo plane, he compared the plane to the quintessential symbol of an era. another - the Gothic cathedral of 12th-century Europe. He wrote: "Stand in the main compartment, where the 'nave' meets 'the crossbar,' and look up at the pilots '' pavilion. ... This machine is so magnificent, beautiful, and intricate, the unmistakable echoes of quadratic equations. "

No other plane can elicit such a comparison. The 747 is perhaps the most impressive work of art - you could call it industrial art if you want it - the most impressive and inspirational ever produced in commercial aviation.

✰✰✰

On the other side of the Atlantic, however, designers seem to be thinking the other way around. “Aviation without design” is a claim that a few years ago was attributed to an engineer at Airbus, a European conglomerate and a major rival to Boeing. True or false, he has aimed at the fact that modern aircraft designs have become so blurred and lack of inspiration that it is almost impossible to distinguish between different aircraft types. In addition to the 747, Jet Era nostalgicists still remember the provocative curves of the Caravelle, the outstanding refinement of the Concorde, the gothic confidence of the 727. The aircraft is no longer there. looks like that too. They are much less different. And they tell us that for efficiency and savings they should be.

But is that true, or is Airbus just being lazy? The 747 is one of the few good-looking jets to have launched from Boeing since the 1970s, and Airbus has come up with just one design that makes you look at it.

- the long-haul A340. They have produced a line of aircraft with very sophisticated technology but on the surface it is tasteless. It seems that the Airbus philosophy hinges on its belief that not enough people are bored traveling by air. (What a quirky cultural analogy - the quintessential and elegant American that beats out a bunch of Europeans. Who knows?)

One time I was standing in the waiting room of a plane when a group of young girls sitting by the window giggled while watching a passenger plane pass by. "Looks funny plane yet," said one of them. That is the Airbus A319, and

Admittedly, it looks a bit short - as if rolling out of an Airbus vending machine or hatching from an egg.

That would be bad enough, but the culmination of aesthetic defiance was when Airbus unveiled its biggest and most buzzing work: the giant two-story A380. With a maximum takeoff weight of over one million pounds (453 tons), the Airbus A380 is the largest, most powerful, and most expensive commercial aircraft in history.

And probably the ugliest too. The front of the A380 resembles a ridiculously humanoid, its forehead suddenly rising, reminiscent of a white whale. The entire rest of this plane was puffy, swollen, and rude. It was big just to be big, but at the same time, it seemed to be squatting down and lacking in impetus, as if embarrassed by its oversized size. It is the most unnatural looking plane I've ever seen.

And is it really that big? When the 747 debuted in 1970, it was more than twice the size and payload of its close competitor. The Airbus A380 is only about 30% heavier than the 747. Meanwhile, the capacity limit they are actively promoting of more than 800 passengers is probably only feasible for those with a passenger seat arrangement. Rare high density only. For airlines that focus on first-class and business-class comfort, most A380s are designed to accommodate only about 500 passengers - a little more than most 747s. The A380 is huge; but there is nothing called a breakthrough revolution.

However, you wouldn't know this from just listening to the media. The splash screen starts on

spring 2005 when the A380 spread its wings in the sky on its maiden test flight. "The most anticipated flight since the Concorde took off in 1969," exclaimed one newspaper. "Straight into history," said another article about the "superjumbo."⁴these two giant floors. Oh, human beings. On the Airbus website is an image of Neil Armstrong⁵ People are invited to listen to "the first impressions of the captain of the flight test pilot Jacques Rosay."

⁴. Nickname for the A380.

⁵. Neil Armstrong (1930-2012) was the first American astronaut to set foot on the Moon on July 20, 1969.

✰✰✰

And the future? While the A380 is immersed in champagne and winged acclaim, the 747 has entered its fourth decade of service. The all-new flaunting Airbus was nothing to see, but it was filled with high-tech equipment and had miles of operating costs.⁶lowest so far. The most recent major design change for the 747 was in 1989, and over the course of its history it is rapidly becoming obsolete. Will it not be long before the A380 will be the only full-size passenger jet?

⁶. The Cost per Available Seat Mile is used to compare airline performance, which is the ratio of the airline's operating costs to the number of available seat miles. The lower the number, the higher its efficiency and profitability.

Finally in November 2005, as if to be your soul

Teaching Juan Trippe (he died in 1981), Boeing also took the step that should have been taken earlier, announcing that after a few mistaken starts, they would go into production of an improved 747. denoted 747-8. (The nomenclature differs from the usual Boeing suffixes of -100, -200, -300, ... but is intended to target Asia, which is expected to be a major source of revenue. and is also where the number eight is considered a lucky number.) The aircraft entered service early 2012. Freight version by Cargolux (in Luxembourg) launched for the first time. Following that, Lufthansa released a passenger version that same year.

The passenger 747-8 has an increased div length of 12 feet (3.7 meters) and enough space to accommodate an additional 35 seats. Those are the extra extensions, but the extra seats are secondary. Boeing's real mission is to upgrade the aircraft's interior architecture to state-of-the-art standards based on the improvements made on the 777 and 787. Airlines can expect performance gains. 12% fuel and a respectable cost benefit of 22% compared to Airbus.

However, the big question is whether there will be enough room for two full-sized passenger jets. It remains to be seen whether the 747 and A380 can coexist in an industry where long-haul markets have gradually segmented, targeting smaller, rather than larger, aircraft. There is still a need to use a super large capacity aircraft, but not as much as before.

Boeing has prepared in advance by presenting the cargo plan from the beginning. Usually, the freight versions come after, not before. The 747 has long had a reputation for being an excellent cargo plane, and this would be a cushioning option to help increase

revenue in the event of a troubled passenger version. What if both versions fail? Boeing has invested approximately $ 4 billion in the 747-8, with much of the research and product development based on previously invested projects. Airbus spent three times that amount to build the A380 out of nothing.

But in my opinion, the best thing about the new 747 is clear: its looks. The standout improvements are the era-forward tilting wing profile, the expansive upper deck, and clamshell engine housings shielding the engine and reducing noise, but from any angle it retains. original appearance. It even looks better than before.

When I was a child, when I saw a whole generation of aircraft transforming ugly right in front of my eyes, I often wondered: why no one takes a classic airplane, plastic surgery a little bit of gas dynamics, bathe it with the latest in technology, and give it a new life? Not a retro novel project, but to make it a viable and profitable civilian aircraft. The 747-8 is that plane. Boeing's return-to-future bet may or may not be profitable, but it's a clever move no matter what.

• Toulouse, Airbus swear their A380 is not a white elephant. How can we disagree? Look at that forehead once more; It doesn't deserve to be compared with the elegance of an elephant. Aviation has given way to the design? Maybe that's the wrong question because it obviously takes a bit of imagination and effort.

✰✰✰

Epilogue: A friend of mine, not me, was the first pilot I knew to fly a 747 on the way to Shanghai and Sydney, and I flew to Hartford and Harrisburg. The only chance I've ever had was to sit upstairs from time to time. Upstairs is a cozy domed room that looks like the inside of a miniature hangar. I lay back on it, drowning in the complacency that I had climbed that spiral staircase, at least one way.

I used to sit upstairs on a British Airways flight to Nairobi. Before the plane moves onto the tarmac, I wandered into the cockpit for an unannounced look, sure that the people of them would find it interesting to know that there was another pilot on the plane. But not. I interrupted the pre-flight check, then they asked me to leave and slammed the door. "Yes, we do," the second cop⁷ Speak in the same voice as Graham Chapman⁸.

⁷. Most aircraft before 1980, added a third position in the cockpit for flight engineer, or commonly referred to as the second officer (second officer). Basically, flight engineers are trained as pilots, but on a regular flight, they don't fly an airplane.

⁸. Comedian, one of six members of the famous comedy group Monty Python in the UK.

What Plane Is That? A Beginning Lesson About Fleets

Virtually every jetliner sold in the world today ships from one of two places: the Boeing Company in the story above, founded in Seattle in 1916, or the young Airbus venture. a lot of age

Europe. It wasn't always like that before. For years, we have McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed, and a bunch of sporadic products from North America and other countries: Convair, British Aerospace, Fokker. All of those companies are now shut down.

And we must not ignore the Russians. It is quieter now, but in the past, for decades, the experimental design bureaus (OKB⁹At Antonov, Ilyushin, and Tupolev have assembled tens of thousands of aircraft. Although most of these were destroyed by the West and turned to waste during the Cold War, hundreds of aircraft are still in service, and several newer prototypes have been released.

⁹. Abbreviation of the Russian word Опытное конструкторское бюро (Opytnoye Konstruktorskoye Buro), ie the Experimental Design Bureau.

The first US jet plane was the Boeing 707, the third to appear in the commercial service industry after the miserable British Comet and the (former) Soviet Tu-104. The 707 made its first flight from Idlewild to Orly (New York to Paris) for Pan Am in 1959. Since then, Boeing has shipped from 727 to 787. The numbering is simple. is in chronological order, not related to size. There is also a short-div 707, named 720. The designation 717 (see below) was reserved for the military version of the 707 but was never used in that function.

The first Airbus product, the A300, was released until 1974. Subsequent models range from small twin-engine A320s to long-haul wide-div jets such as the A330 and A340. The numbers have the same rules as Boeing's, but sometimes they leapfrog and don't follow chronological order.

The A350, for example, is still in development while the A380 has been in service since 2007. The names A360 and A370 are completely ignored; not sure why?

The small variations in the Airbus numbering system are enough to piss off those who want to learn how to recognize planes. The A300-600 is actually just the extended A310. The A319 is nothing more (or less) than the smaller A320. It was further shortened in the A318, then extended again to the A321. Such messy numbering, in the discretion of this traditional cultist, makes it all cheap. Each model simply has to add the suffix "dash", but that's not good, it's annoying. On this side of the ocean, 737-900 is still 737s.

But then when Boeing acquired McDonnell Douglas and took over the company's production line, they took the MD-95, which was just a refurbishment of the MD-90, which was just a refurbishment of the MD- 80, which was just a modification of the DC-9, and named it Boeing 717. The DC-9 that first flew in 1965, is now brand new under the 717 name. As for McDonnell Douglas, they abandoned their famous DC prefix for MD, and in addition turned the numbers upside down. Everyone has heard of the DC-9, but what the hell is the MD-80, MD-83, and the MD-88? The answer: is the more modern DC-9. Everyone knows the DC-10, but what is the MD-11? The answer: is a more modern DC-10.

Many older airplanes carry the numberless symbol. In other words, it's the name. Most of them are fine, humble, and noble choices: the Constellation^ten, Trident¹¹, Vanguard^twelfth - and most memorable is Concorde¹³. There was something provocative in reading the name: Concorde. It portrays this plane perfectly: smooth, fast, elegant, a little haughty, and probably out of our reach. Other firms put names in combination with numbers,

such as Lockheed's L-1011 TriStar. There is also a British Aerospace One-Eleven, which, if written fully, is both a name and a number (BAC-111 or BAC 1-11).

^ten. Constellation.

¹¹. The trident of the sea god Poseidon.

^twelfth. The vanguard.

¹³. (in French): harmony.

The 787 belongs to the name-number combination group, but I don't really like the way the “Dreamliner” designation is¹⁴"Very much. For some reason that image is a bit too wobbly and dizzy. Passengers don't want their planes to doze off. But that is not too bad. In 2003, before Boeing made a decision, the name Dreamliner had to compete with three other options. These are: Global Cruiser, Stratoclimber, and eLiner. The Global Cruiser sounds like a yacht or an extremely large SUV. Stratoclimber sounds like an action movie hero, and the eLiner has nothing to say - sounds like "iPlane".

¹⁴. Temporary translation: Dream of flying.

Most of the regional aircraft (hereinafter referred to as RJ) are manufactured by Bombardier of Canada and Embraer of Brazil. China, Russia, and Japan have also recently entered the sector. Oddly enough, the US manufacturers that are very competent in the large aircraft market have never developed a single RJ. Old regional airplanes, including some turboprop models, have been exported from Canada (de Havilland), Sweden (Saab), the Netherlands (Fokker), and the United Kingdom (British Aerospace). , Germany (Dornier), Spain (CASA), and Indonesia

(IPTN). Even the Czech Republic (LET) produced a popular 17-seater.

The disturbance made me scared to death. Do I have any reason to be afraid?

Disturbance¹⁵: the culprit spilled coffee, pushed the luggage, filled the vomit bag, caused nervous excitement. But did it cause two planes to crash? Looking at the reactions of many passengers on the flight, one would think so; Noise is still the number one concern for anxious passengers. Intuitively this is understandable. Anyone who gets on a plane is somewhat anxious, and there is no more poignant reminder of the precarious nature of flight than a fierce shake at 37,000 feet. (11,278 km). It is easy to imagine the plane as a helpless canoe amidst a storm. Boats sometimes sink, capsize, or bump into reefs when facing rough seas, so are planes. It's just danger.

¹⁵. A "turbulence" is an area with a thinner air density than the surrounding area. While flying in the normal air zone into thinner air, thrust is suddenly lost, the aircraft loses lift. From there, the plane wobbled or lost its balance, and could fall freely for a while.

However, except in the rarest of situations, in all cases that is not true. No matter what it is, the plane cannot turn upside down, spiral to the ground when its tail is spinning, or be thrown out of the sky even when encountering gusts of wind or holes. air pocket the most intense. Discomfort and discomfort can occur, but the plane will not fall. Noise

Dynamic is a frustrating nuisance for everyone, including the crew, but also normal (for lack of better terminology to describe). From the pilot's perspective, this is inherently considered a matter of convenience rather than a safety issue. As planes change altitude in search of quieter flight conditions, these are ultimately just for comfort. The pilots were not worried that the wings would fall; they're just trying to make their passengers comfortable and keep coffee in its place. The planes themselves are designed to withstand a considerable amount of torture, and they must meet the stress limits even if the acceleration of gravity is negative or positive.

- or the most frequent pilot - will also not be encountered during his or her traveling life.

The flight altitude, wing tilt, and pitch movement of the plane's nose will only change slightly when there is disturbance - in the cockpit we only see the dials on the altimeter jerking slightly - and in the design of civilian aircraft there is an inherent feature that in the language of the pilot's name is called "positive stability." If the aircraft is ejected from its position in space, it will naturally return to its position. I remember one night on my way to Europe when I encountered a strong gust of gas as I crossed the half-Atlantic. That is the disturbance that people will tell their friends. It appeared suddenly and lasted a few minutes, severe enough to shove the food cart in the kitchen compartment. At the most horrible moment, in the crash of the disc, I recall an email. One reader asked me about the degree of elevation displacement during times like this. How many meters was the plane actually moved up, down, or sideways. I carefully watched the altimeter. Less than 40 feet (12 meters) in any direction

Come on, as far as I can see. Most are 10 or 20 feet (3 or 6 meters). No change of direction was detected - that is, the direction to which the nose was directed. I imagine some passengers looking at the situation completely differently, estimating the degree of excessive intensity based on intensity. "We fell to 3,000 feet (914.4 meters) in two seconds!"

At times like these, the pilot lowers the specified “turbulence penetration rate” to ensure high speed vibration (don't ask questions) and prevents the airframe from being damaged. However, this is roughly the same speed as the flat cruising speed, so you won't notice the slowdown in the passenger seat. We may also suggest flying at a lower or higher altitude, or request a route adjustment. You would have imagined the pilots sweating: the captain shouted commanding, his hands clutching the rudder while the ship swayed from side to side. Nothing can be further from the truth. The crew wasn't struggling with the beast, but were just flying over there. Indeed, one of the worst things a pilot can do in a huge turbulence is to fight it. Some autopilot programs have a special flight mode for these situations. Instead of increasing the amount of input to correct it, it does the opposite, which is to "anesthetize" the system.

In the cockpit, the conversation could go like this:

Pilot 1: "Well, why don't we slow down?" [Press a lower Mach number on the speed selector controller]

Pilot 2: "Oh my goodness, my orange juice has been poured into the cup holder."

Pilot 1: “Let's see what new reports from the guys flying before them

I don't. " [reach for the microphone and check the frequency]

Pilot 2: "Do you have any napkins over there?"

Notice will also be given to the passengers and crew in the cabin to ensure they are seated. Pilots often ask the flight attendants to sit in their seats if things go badly.

Predicting where and when turbulence occurs and its strength is more art than science. We get signals from weather graphs, radar signals, and most effectively, live information from other planes. Some meteorological signals are more reliable than others. For example, the rumbling cotton cumulus clouds - especially the anvil-shaped clouds accompanied by thunderstorms - are always bumpy potholes. Flights over certain ridges or forward boundaries will also cause cabin bells to roar, as well as when crossing a narrow airflow boundary. But sometimes it's also unpredictable. When we were shaken on our way to Europe that night, information we received earlier said there was no more precaution needed than a ripple of wind. Later, in an area that was predicted to have stronger noise, we flew smoothly. Can't predict anything.

When we broadcast the announcements to the other crew members, the disturbance ranged from "light" to "extreme." The worst encounters were just to the point where the technical maintenance team had to do an inspection after the flight. There are different definitions for each level, but in practice they are classified subjectively.

I have never experienced any extreme disturbances, but have experienced quite a lot of moderate and a few serious times

important.

One of those serious incidents happened in July 1992, when I was the captain of a propeller plane carrying 15 passengers. Of all the flights, it's a 25-minute ride from Boston to Portland, Maine. It was very hot that day, and in the early evening a forest of accumulating cloud towers piled across eastern New England. Short shaped clouds - about 8,000 feet (914 meters) at the top, with beauty deceiving people. As the sun sets, it is one of the most magnificent skies I've ever seen, with the cumulative clouds spreading in all directions forming a garden of red coral columns that spread across the horizon. They were beautiful and turned out to be violent too - tiny volcanoes spewing invisible streams of gas. We started to be hurled violently until it felt like we were trapped in an upside-down avalanche. Even with the seat belt on, I remember I still put one hand over my head, fearing that my head would hit the ceiling of the cockpit. A few minutes later, we landed safely in Portland. No damage, no injuries.

In order not to be accused of understatement, I admit that strong turbulence has caused occasional damage to the aircraft and injury to its occupants. Speaking of the latter, it is usually people who have fallen or been shoved due to not wearing seat belts. Every year in the US, about sixty people are injured by the disturbance, of which two-thirds are flight attendants. That means there will be about 20 passengers. 20 out of about 800 million people fly annually in this country.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that turbulence is becoming more common because it is a side effect of climate change. The disturbance is a symptom of the weather from which it originates, and of course when global warming causes

Increasing certain climates, experiences like those I encountered in Maine will become more common.

The distraction is so unpredictable, so I usually only give innocuous answers that frustrate others when asked about the best way to avoid it.

"Is flying at night better than day?" Sometimes.

“I should avoid flying over the Rocky Mountains¹⁶ or the Alps ¹⁷? " Hard to say. "Are small aircraft more susceptible to damage than large airplanes?" It depends. “They forecast a storm tomorrow. Will there be a lot of shaking? ” Maybe, but who knows.

¹⁶. The Rocky Mountains, which are fairly large mountains in western North America. The Rocky Mountains run longer than 4,800 km from the northernmost tip of British Columbia (Canada) to New Mexico (United States).

¹⁷. The Alps are one of Europe's largest, longest mountain ranges, stretching from Austria, Italy and Slovenia in the east, running through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west.

"Where should I sit, in the front or tail of the plane?" Well, this sentence I know. The difference isn't that big, but the quietest seats are around the wing of the plane, which is closest to the center of gravity of lift and gravity. The most shaken seats are usually the rear - the last rows are closest to the rear of the aircraft.

Tourists probably already know, US aircrews tend to be tense about seat belt problems much more than the crew of other countries. The beacon lights up long after take off, even in smooth flight, and will turn it on again as soon as there is even the slightest shock or vibration. In some respects this is one of the examples of America's overprotective habit, but they do

justified worries about legal obligations. No captain wants to be FAA¹⁸Crash your neck because the seat belt light does not come on when someone breaks an ankle and files a lawsuit. Unfortunately, sometimes it sounds like false alarms; Passengers are so accustomed to the fact that the lights keep on and off for no apparent reason, so they ignore it as well.

¹⁸. FAA (short for Federal Aviation Administration): The US Federal Aviation Administration.

Immediately after takeoff we were shaking very hard. The captain said the plane had just suffered "wake turbulence." What is it and how dangerous is it?

If you can picture a stream of water that splits in two behind a ship or boat, you understand correctly. In aircraft, this effect is much stronger because two swirling air currents are drawn from the ends of the wings. At the tops of the wings, the lower-pressure air is sucked up into the lower-pressure air above, creating a tight arc following the plane like a pair of bi-directional cyclones. serrated edges. Eddy currents are most noticeable when the plane is slow and the wings are trying to create lift. Hence, the golden time to encounter them is during the last leg of the flight or upon departure. While spinning - at speeds that could be up to 300 feet (91 meters) per second - they begin to separate and settle. If you live near an airport, try standing by near the runway and listening carefully as the plane flies over your head;

The rule is that the larger an airplane produces harmful turbulence, and the smaller an airplane is, the more susceptible it is to tail disturbance. The biggest culprit is the Boeing 757. It just

It was a mid-sized aircraft, less than a 747 or 777, but due to a monstrous aerodynamic trait, it produced out-of-the-box tail turbulence which, according to one study, was the most powerful tail turbulence. among all aircraft.

To avoid tail disturbances, air traffic control is required to increase the distance between large and small aircraft. Pilots can vary slightly in ground slope or take elevation, always keeping their position above any vortex as they settle. Another secret is to rely on the wind. Strong winds and the return air would either disrupt the vortex or otherwise push them aside. The wing tip (see wing tip, page 7) is also a factor. One way it increases the aerodynamic efficiency is to reduce the vortex strength at the wing tip. Consequently, aircraft equipped with glider wings typically produce softer tail disturbances than aircraft of the same size without the wing tip.

Regardless of all the protection options, from time to time, pilots will experience tail disturbances, whether it's a momentary collision due to the dying turbulence or a total power showdown. Such a clash may last only a few seconds but is reminiscent of a long time. I ran into something like that in Philadelphia in 1994.

It was a very long, leisurely time to land preparing for landing, heading down the 27R runway from the east, our 19-seater plane was full of passengers. Traffic is quite clear, the radio channel is almost silent. With five nautical miles (9.26 km) left, we were allowed to land. In front of us was a 757, off the runway and on the throttle. We got the air traffic control instructed to extend further, and just to be sure, we kept the altitude a bit higher than the descent. Our checklist is complete, and it's all

are normal.

When it was about 200 feet (60 meters) away, just seconds before landing, the signal lights landed just below and the huge white lines marking the landing threshold were right in front of you, then suddenly there was a shot. speedy and irregular - as if we stumbled across a pothole. Then less than a second later is the rest. Almost immediately, our 16,000-pound (7.2-ton) aircraft was only flying on one wing, tilting to the right by 45 degrees.

The driver of this section was the first deputy, but all of a sudden, four hands grabbed the steering wheel, taking all of the tank and turned to the left. Even when the opposite pitch was maximally opened - which never happened in conventional commercial flights - the plane kept tilting to the right. We are leaning in the sky; Our all attempts to force the plane in one direction, but it is bound to be in the other direction. Feeling helpless and out of control is a fundamental part of passenger anxiety. When the pilot shares that feeling of uncertainty, it was a very bad day.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, that madness ended. In less than five seconds, before we could say anything, the plane regained consciousness and tilted towards its equilibrium position.

Sometimes when planes land, I see a mist coming out of the wings. What is that?

When air flows around an aircraft wing at high speed, its temperature and pressure change. If the humidity is high enough, the core of the turbulent airflow at the top of the wing mentioned above will condense and can be seen by the naked eye, crawling behind the plane as if

the gray poisonous snakes. Moisture will also condense around other sites, such as the fairing of the rear spoiler and the engine coupling posts. You should see what looks like a stream of white smoke gushing out from the engine head as the plane takes off. It is the steam generated by invisible currents of air around the cylinder. Or sometimes in the area just above the surface of the wing suddenly appears a local white cloud. It is also the condensation formed by the right combination of humidity, temperature, and pressure.

What is wind shear?

This is one of the most common words that scare people to death. Wind break is the phenomenon of wind suddenly changing direction and / or speed. Light cutoff winds are extremely common and almost never dangerous, but if a strong wind cut is encountered during takeoff or landing, that means when the aircraft is operating at very close to the minimum speed allowed. , then there may be danger. Remember that the aircraft's aerial speed must take into account any headwinds. If that speed is suddenly lost or changes to another direction, the distance is lost. The wind break can occur vertically, horizontally, or both, as is the case in the case of low winds (also known as “rain bombs” -microbust) prior to thunderstorms. Blowing winds are very strong localized air columns that move downwards, generated by thunderstorms. When that mass of air descends, it radiates in many directions.

Breaking winds were reported a lot in the 1970s and 1980s when it was barely known. The crash of Flight 66 of Eastern Airlines in New York in 1975 is considered a landmark accident from which experts began to study this phenomenon more closely. From there, it is easy to predict and prevent blown winds. Major airports are already equipped with detection systems, and so are the planes.

Pilots are trained in evasive maneuvers and can identify weather conditions that could be dangerous for takeoffs or landings.

As we were flying across the Atlantic on a 747, we heard a loud bang, and then the plane shook. The captain notices that the engine has just stalled.

This is called a "dead air compressor." It is a phenomenon where the air flowing through the engine is temporarily interrupted. A jet or propeller air compressors have a series of rotating blades - each blade essentially resembles a tiny airplane wing - and if the air stops circulating smoothly through the blades This or reverse circulation between the next stage, the compressor stops working. This may damage the engine, but it may not be.

Engine malfunctions of all kinds, including the compressor shutdown, can sometimes be tricky. In addition to the loud bang, you can also see a long strip of fire erupting from the rear or even the front of the engine housing. It is hard to believe, but it really did not burn or explode. This is the essence of a jet engine. Every time the engine runs, fuel is burned and certain anomalies will release that burnt flow a bit more violently.

The downfall of compressors in an Alaska Airlines 737 was reported when someone's camera happened to catch a scene of a fire outbreak. That video is alarming, but this killing is completely harmless. And when this kind of situation occurs at the exit gate or during the plane rolling, passengers have voluntarily evacuated. Such a panic happened on a Delta plane in Tampa, Florida. Crowds of passengers

panicked, rushed to the exit doors, refused to listen to the flight attendant's orders. Two people were seriously injured.

If all of the plane's engines are dead, can the plane hover and land?

You will be surprised to learn that it is not unusual for a jet to land in what the pilot calls "flight idle," when the engine is back in thrust. The engine is still running and supplying power to the critical systems, just not generating thrust anymore. You have repeatedly landed like this without knowing it. This happens in almost all flights.

Obviously hovering without thrust is different from an engine stalling, but even then, gliding itself is no different. Nothing is more catastrophic than turning your car's engine off when it goes downhill. Cars are still going, and so are planes. In fact, a large jet with an engineless landing was better than a Piper or Cessna light plane. It needs to glide down at a significantly greater speed, but its distance-to-altitude ratio - about 20: 1 - is almost double. From an altitude of 30,000 feet (9,144 km), you can glide down a hundred miles.

The likelihood of all the engines shutting down is as much as the flight attendant likely volunteering to polish your shoes, even if that happens. Some of the causes are depletion of fuel, volcanic ash, and collision with birds. In some of those cases, the crew landed without a single casualty. In other cases, one or more of the motors are restarted before they land.

How is the plane pressurized and why?

Pressurization is one of the very few concepts that people understand and very much

many people are unnecessarily afraid. There is something in the word "pressurized" that makes people imagine the height above as some kind of pressure hell. I was asked, "If the plane is not pressurized, will my eyes shoot out?"

Traveling on high is not the same as sinking into the Mariana Trench¹⁹in deep sea diving bells. The cabin is pressurized not to keep your eyes in the cavity, but to allow you to breathe normally at high altitudes, where the air is thin and the oxygen level is very low. The system uses air taken from the air compressor in the engine and conditioned through the valves in the fuselage to compress dilute air at high altitudes, recreating the oxygen-rich air condition.

• sea ​​level. (Or something like that. Pressurizing the exact same sea-level condition is unnecessary and would exert excessive pressure on the airframe, so the air in the aircraft is practically kept at par with 5,000 to 8,000 feet (1,524 to 2,438 meters) altitude means you are breathing as if you were in Denver or Mexico City - without any pollution).

¹⁹. The deepest ocean trench in the world with a maximum depth of 10,971 meters, and its deepest point is the deepest part of the Earth's crust.

Pressure only that. You must be thinking, great, but what about the pressure drop: oxygen masks falling, people screaming ...

It is true that depressurized aircraft cabins are potentially dangerous. When the plane is flat, at that altitude there is a difference of about 5 to 8 pounds per square inch (about 3.4 to 5.5 Newtons per square centimeter) between the pressure inside the plane (high) and the pressure. external capacity (low). You can imagine the fuselage as a balloon, with almost 8 pounds of thrust acting on every inch of it. If there is a hole or leak there is a problem immediately. Reducing pressure means reducing oxygen, and if this happens in an explosive fashion,

Like a bomb, its impact could damage or completely destroy an aircraft.

However, the vast majority of pressure reductions are not explosive and the crew can easily handle them. There have been bizarre cases that have occurred, such as the bizarre Helios Airways crash²⁰ in 2005, but plane crashes or casualties due to pressure problems are extremely rare, even in cases where the pressure drops relatively rapidly due to a hole or a hole.

²⁰. Flight 522 on a Boeing 737 belonging to Helios Airways of the Republic of Cyprus. The ground technician team put the aircraft's pressurization system back into manual mode instead of automatic, and forgot to turn it back on to automatic. The pilot did not detect this error. Just 13 minutes after takeoff, the pressure in the plane was reduced. The pilot mistook the plane's warning signals, and then lost his sanity due to lack of oxygen so he could not handle the situation. The plane continued to rise until it ran out of fuel when it crashed into a mountain on the edge of Athens, Greece.

If the cabin pressure drops below a certain threshold, the oxygen mask will be dropped simultaneously from the cabin ceiling, placing everyone in the so-called "rubber forest." If you ever have to deal with this, try not to scream or stop your heart. Instead, put on the mask and try to relax. The plane will quickly reach safe altitude and have enough oxygen to supply everyone within minutes.

• in the front, the pilots also put on their masks and began to descend no more than 10,000 feet (3,048 km). If you get the feeling that the plane is dropping too fast to dangerously fast, it's not because the plane is falling: it's because of the astronauts.

The team is doing what they have to do. It may be a bit tense, but emergency descent at high speed is by itself nothing unsafe.

One afternoon, I was a pilot on a flight from South America to America. All was very quiet high on the Caribbean Sea, then suddenly there was a loud and loud noise that seemed out of nowhere and at the same time came from everywhere. I felt like my ears were about to explode, and yes, a glance at our devices showed we were losing pressure pretty quickly. The captain and I put on the masks, took out the book, and started troubleshooting. Part of the troubleshooting includes one of the quick drops in pitch. Starting the descent is a multi-step process: setting the 10,000 value in the elevation window; select "change flight level" from the automatic flight mode control panel; increased speed command to a level slightly above maximum; deployment of the brakes; lower the thrust lever to the idle level ... For passengers, I'm sure they felt like riding a roller coaster, but everything was carefully arranged. The autopilot is involved throughout the process and no limit is exceeded.

If a pressure drop occurs while flying over mountains or other high terrain, the pilot will follow predetermined depressurization routes, sometimes called "escape routes", allowing for gradual elevation reductions. gradually, in stages. Even when flying over the Andes or the Himalayas there will always be a chance to reach a safe altitude before the additional oxygen is depleted.

I usually fly from Louisville to New York but the only type of aircraft that serves this route is a small feeder²¹. I hesitate to fly with these jets because I feel they are not safe. Is this right?

²¹. Puddle jumper regional jet: Small aircraft from 6 to 12

Seats typically transfer passengers from small airports to an airline's main airport.

The short answer is no. No commercial plane is insecure or anything like that. The full answer is more nuanced. Whether a regional plane is to some extent less secure than a mainline is still a matter of debate. There's no practical reason anyone should avoid smaller planes altogether, but here's something worth arguing:

Correctly speaking, the size doesn't matter. I'm not talking about narrow space phobia or lack of legroom, but there's little to no connection between the size of the plane and the likelihood of it crashing. A modern propeller or regional jet (RJ) can be worth tens of millions of dollars, and if you look, that money isn't invested in servicing. eating or drinking chairs; but rather into state-of-the-art electronic controls and cockpit technical advances comparable to that of Boeing or Airbus. These planes are small, but not outdated. It should also be known that pilots are uncomfortable with the term "transfer" as well as environmental scientists are uncomfortable with the phrase "people holding trees.²². "

²². Tree hugger: people who are considered silly or annoyed because of excessive concern about environmental protection.

Of course planes are only safe if the crew can fly safely, and there have been debates about the training and experience of pilots on regional planes. With salaries and working conditions at notoriously sub-standard regional airlines, it is increasingly difficult for these companies to recruit and retain experienced pilots. There were new recruits pilots who were recruited to fly airplanes in total

Their flight times are surprisingly low. This will be discussed further in chapter four (see section on regional airline pilots, page 138).

Love it or hate it, these RJ still exist. In the US, RJ currently accounts for more than 50% of all flights. That means there are dozens of affiliates like "Express".²³ and "Connection"²⁴follow the big brands. What most passengers don't know is that these airlines operate independently from the major carriers, sharing mostly the same flight numbers and aircraft paints. They are subcontractors, with a completely separate management structure, staff structure, and training regimes.

²³. Temporarily translated as "Express".

²⁴. Temporarily translated as "Connection".

I used to travel on flights where planes kept flying around for hours before landing. How much fuel is on board for these types of situations? Are airlines cheating to save money?

If you are easily impressed by the huge numbers, then you will immediately grab a luminous pen knowing that the 747 needs a total of more than 45,000 gallons (170,344 liters) to fill the fuel tanks. It takes about 11,000 gallons (41,640 liters) to fill a 737 or A320. A 50-seat propeller airplane can require less than 1,000 gallons (3,785 liters). In comparison, not by a corner, but still enough to drive a car from Washington to California six times. Fuel is stored in the wings, in the middle fuselage, and even in the tail or horizontal stabilizers. The cargo jet I used to fly had eight separate storage tanks, and much of my job was to turn the fuel between tanks in a balanced manner.

However, planes rarely take off with a full fuel tank because carrying excess fuel would be expensive, impractical, and limit cargo or passenger tonnage. Calculating the amount of fuel you carry is somewhat scientific, with some rigid mental math rules. The crew does not have to keep looking, but roughly the amount of fuel carried like you estimate gas for a car before going away. It is the flight planning and dispatching team who have to calculate and strictly adhere to a long list of regulations. They are very complicated, especially when flying internationally, and can vary by country (the aircraft must comply with the regulations of the country where it is registered, plus any other country requirements. if they are stricter), but American domestic regulations clearly show conservatism: Sufficient fuel must always be available to bring the aircraft to the intended destination, then to the designated alternative airport (s), and then for at least 45 minutes more flight. This total minimum is non-negotiable anymore. Sometimes, if weather standards are required (very specific circumstances stated) the flight plan requires two or more alternatives, thereby increasing the amount of fuel required. If traffic problems are predicted, the amount of fuel is increased. And while the dispatcher and flight planner are the ones who calculate the numbers, the captain has the final say and can ask for more. Carrying excess fuel is expensive, but less so than the costly trouble of flying. This total minimum is non-negotiable anymore. Sometimes, if weather standards are required (very specific circumstances stated) the flight plan requires two or more alternatives, thereby increasing the amount of fuel required. If traffic problems are predicted, the amount of fuel is increased. And while the dispatcher and flight planner are the ones who calculate the numbers, the captain has the final say and can ask for more. Carrying excess fuel is expensive, but less so than the costly trouble of flying. This total minimum is non-negotiable anymore. Sometimes, if weather standards are required (very specific circumstances stated) the flight plan requires two or more alternatives, thereby increasing the amount of fuel required. If traffic problems are predicted, the amount of fuel is increased. And while the dispatcher and flight planner are the ones who calculate the numbers, the captain has the final say and can ask for more. Carrying excess fuel is expensive, but less so than the costly trouble of flying. If traffic problems are predicted, the amount of fuel is increased. And while the dispatcher and flight planner are the ones who calculate the numbers, the captain has the final say and can ask for more. Carrying excess fuel is expensive, but less so than the costly trouble of flying. If traffic problems are predicted, the amount of fuel is increased. And while the dispatcher and flight planner are the ones who calculate the numbers, the captain has the final say and can ask for more. Carrying excess fuel is expensive, but less so than the costly trouble of flying.

The pre-flight preparation included a detailed breakdown of the estimated fuel consumption, closely watched after the plane took off. The amount of fuel remaining is compared with the specified values ​​before the plane goes from one point to the next. The total fuel level is monitored by both the pilot and the dispatcher, and the operator receives the information via datalink. May

Get a firm grasp of exactly how much fuel is left to land long before landing. If for some reason this falls below or near the legal level (sudden headwinds, technical issues) there is still plenty of time to plan a waiting flight.

Are airlines cheating to save money? When you reschedule, you hear a scandal about airplanes departing that have "fuel cutoff," which is said to lead to unsafe situations when these flights get stuck or have to fly. in the air waiting to land. In a few cases, airlines reduce the amount of additional fuel an airplane carries, which is heavy and expensive to carry around. But pay attention to the complementary word. It is the amount of excess fuel that airlines are trying to reduce, not the amount of fuel required. While such cuts keep the plane from hovering in the air too much, it's not dangerous at all. The likely consequences are not plane crashes; it was going to deviate from plan sooner than expected, leading to a logistical nuisance for passengers and crew.

As such, it would be an exaggeration to fear that the jet fuel tanks would dry out. Yet a small number of fuel depletion accidents have occurred. To understand where and how they happened would take many boring pages of analysis (for both you and me) and I don't have enough room. These are risks that only account for one part per billion. Most of them happened decades ago, and just know that the cause of the accidents is much more complicated than the low-cost airline or co-pilot waking up after a nap. and exclaimed: "Oh my god, the gas is running out."

I understand that aircraft can dispose of fuel. Do that

to reduce the payload to land? Fuel can sometimes be seen flowing from the ends of aircraft wings just before they land.

People will occasionally complain to the authorities about what they think are the streams of fuel flowing behind the plane near the ground. What they saw were actually steam currents - the condensing core of eddy air currents that rolled out from the tip of the plane's wing (see tail turbulence and vortex, page 44). This is usually seen when the humidity is high. You will see stacks of $ 100 bills being thrown out of the plane before the fuel spits out for no apparent reason.

And yes, that is to reduce the payload. The maximum weight to take off is usually greater than the maximum weight for landing - for several reasons, the most obvious of which is that landing will put more pressure on the fuselage than during takeoff. . Usually a reasonable amount of fuel is consumed during flight. Now let's say something happened right after takeoff so the plane had to go back to the airport. If the problem is too urgent, the crew just landed with great weight. But there is almost always enough time to reach the landing weight limit, and instead of throwing passengers or cargo off an aircraft, the easiest way is to dispose of the fuel by pumping it through the wings. (I used to get rid of more than 100,000 pounds (45,359 tons) this way on northern Maine²⁵after engine malfunction. This process took several minutes and gave me a night stay at the Bangor Airport Hilton.) The fuel had to be disposed of at a height large enough for the kerosene to mist and dissipate long ago. before it hits the ground, and no, the engine exhaust won't burn that waste fuel.

²⁵. Maine is a state in the New England region of the United States.

To the south and east is the Atlantic Ocean, to the northeast is New Brunswick, a province of Canada.

Not all planes have this ability - only large jets. The 747, 777, A340, and A330 can dispose of fuel. The A737, A320, or the regional aircraft, are not. Smaller jets have to fly around waiting or, if necessary, land with an overload. With some planes, the limits for takeoff and landing are the same, in which case this shouldn't be an issue.

It must be understood that every nine out of ten, planes throw their fuel away and take the precautionary return measure, it is no attempt to grapple with a real emergency. The concept of "emergency landing" is used very generally by passengers and radio. The crew must formally declare a state of emergency to air traffic control and do so only when the situation is critical, there is a potential for damage or injury, or the condition of the aircraft is not clear. The majority of preventive landings, even situations where a fire truck is already waiting in line on the route, is just that: just in case.

What happens when the plane is struck by lightning?

Planes are struck by lightning more often than you think - each passenger jet is struck by lightning on average about every two years - and is designed to prepare for that. Lightning does not run across the cabin, killing passengers, but only around the aircraft's aluminum shell, which is a good conductor of electricity. Occasionally there was external damage - a slight scratch on the entrance or door - or minor damage to an aircraft's electrical systems, but usually very little or no lightning was left. vestige. In 1963, lightning blew up a wing of a 707 Pan Am airplane flying over Maryland. Later,

The FAA has implemented a number of safeguards, including tuning the fuel tank and installing discharge dischargers on the entire aircraft.

In 1993, on a 37-seater flight I was the captain, lightning from a tiny mass of cloud hit the nose of the plane. What we felt and heard was nothing but a dim flash and a thud. No alarm lights were on, no generators stopped running. We say to each other:

"What is this?"

"Do not know." [shrug]

"Lightning?"

"Probably." The mechanic then found a black stain on the front fuselage of the plane.

Not just in one flight, I have seen what looks like silver one-sided glue stuck to one part or another part of the plane. Please tell me not.

Photos of what was supposed to be patched up with cloth tape are routinely spread via email and posted on blogs, driving people crazy. The problem is always viewed worse than reality. It is not fabric tape at all but a strong aluminum tape called "speed tape".²⁶), used to patch non-essential surfaces until they are fully repaired. You will see it on the fairing of the rear flaps, wing top, case cover, and the like. Specialized tapes cost hundreds of dollars per roll and can be stretched over a range of temperatures

big.

²⁶. High speed tape is a type of aluminum tape that is very strong even when traveling at high speeds.

While flying in the middle of the ocean, I saw a 747 approach us and fly close by for a few minutes. It was right below and to our left, so close that we could see people in the other windows. I often see planes flying past each other at an alarming close range. Was it close to a collision?

This is a great illustration of what I call the PEF

Passenger Embellishment Factor, which comes with a lot of stories like planes taking off, supposedly plane crashes, etc. Bookmark this page in case you have to listen to these chilling stories next time.

It's not that I underestimate your ability to observe, but aerial distances can be difficult to predict, and passengers have an extremely common habit of underestimating the distance with other aircraft.

During cruising, planes are always at least 1,000 feet (305 meters) apart vertically or three knots (5,556 km) horizontally. Flights on transoceanic tracking systems (see large arc section, page 71) regularly meet, somewhat like you describe. That scene can be startling - the 747 is a large plane and even if it looks 1,000 feet away - it is perfectly safe and common. For takeoffs and landings, there are other rules. For example, when on a landing on parallel runways at the same time, planes can be at the same altitude and way

each other is approximately one nautical mile or less - but still under very strict air traffic control supervision and at the same time must maintain visual observation of each other.

As for everyone seeing each other through the window, this is the classic PEF I've been hearing all the time. Even if the plane was parked at the station door, only a few meters away and motionless, it would be difficult to see anyone inside. When you are up high, believe me, you have never been close enough to another plane to see the passengers inside.

Humans have a habit of exaggerating even the most basic of flying sensations. They don't always avoid that habit - especially worried passengers - but altitude, speed, and angle are always seen as more serious than reality. When there is turbulence, people get the feeling that planes are falling hundreds of feet at a time, when in reality planes rarely drop altitude more than 10 or 20 feet (3 or 6 meters) - the altimeter is only move slightly (see section disturbances, page 40). The same is true with the angle of the wing and the angle taken. Normal tilt is only about 15 degrees, strong tilt can be up to 25 degrees. The nose lift to get the steepest height is only about 20 degrees, and even when landing steep, it cannot be more than 5 or 6 degrees.

I can foresee your letters: you will say I am lying, that when you fly the plane will definitely have its nose raised at a 45 degree angle, definitely tilting its wings 60 degrees. degrees, and you've definitely seen the people through the window. You are definitely wrong. Sorry for acting so overbearing, wish I could get you into the cockpit and illustrate it. I'm going to show you what it really is to take the altitude at 45 degrees, making you blush. At an angle of 60 degrees, the acceleration of gravity can be so strong that you can barely lift your foot off your face

floor.

How dangerous is a plane hitting a bird?

Colliding with a bird is common and usually only causes minor harm or harm - unless you are from the bird's point of view. As you might think, the aircraft components are designed to be able to withstand these kind of collisions. You can go online to watch videos of shooting dead birds like in the cock shooting game to test the resistance of windshields, air intakes, etc. I have encountered a few such incidents myself and the consequences. at worst a small indentation or fold.

However, I must also mention that this kind of collision can be dangerous sometimes. This is especially true when engines are involved, as we saw in 2009 when US Airways Flight 1549 landed in the Hudson River after hitting a flock of Canadian wild geese. Propeller jets are very resilient but are also unwilling to digest foreign objects, especially those that crash into their rotating propellers at high speed. Bird does not jam the engine but can bend or break internal rotors, resulting in power failure.

The heavier the bird, the higher the risk of damage. The plane flies at 250 knots (463 km / h) - in the US, that is a maximum speed allowed under 10,000 feet, which is the space where most birds usually fly - hitting a mid-sized goose would have to subject to an impact force of more than 50,000 pounds (222,411 Newtons). Even small birds are a threat if hit in large numbers. In 1960, an Eastern Airlines propeller plane crashed in Boston after colliding with a flock of starlings.

Your next question is then why not install protective shields in front of the engine? Please, in addition to blocking one

for the air inlet, the shield should be large enough (perhaps conical) and extremely sturdy. If that fails, we have both birds and outputl pieces flying into the engine. Regardless of these incidents, the possibility of losing control of multiple engines at the same time is very rare, so the design of those grotesque shields is completely impractical.

Occasionally heard of plane freezing after the accident. How dangerous is ice and snow?

Ice or snow on an aircraft can be very dangerous, especially when mounted on the wings of an aircraft. The problem is not increasing the weight on the wings but rather because it disrupts the flow of air above and around the carefully designed wing contours, thus eliminating the lift. In addition, the runway is also slippery and has all sorts of other challenges.

On the ground:

The ice or snow piled up on an airplane parked at the gate is like snow clumping in a car. It is safe to drive by simply wiping the snow, but not with an airplane, as a single quarter-inch (6.35mm) of snow can change the airflow around the wings. in the negative direction - which is very important during take-off because then the speed is slow and the lift difference is low. To remove the ice, the aircraft is sprayed with a hot mixture of water and glycol alcohol.

It looks simple to passengers, but the spraying procedure must follow the correct steps. Liquid mixtures that differ in temperature and viscosity are used depending on the conditions at that time, often in combination. Class I liquid can be sprayed onto aircraft first to remove the build-up of ice, then use a higher viscosity Type IV to avoid ice build-up.

later. Pilots follow a checklist to make sure the aircraft has been correctly configured for spraying. Usually the front and rear flaps are lowered to the takeoff position, turn on the APU to supply power and turn off the main engine. The air conditioning components are switched off so that no smoke is generated in the cabin.

Once the defrost work is complete, ground crew will notify the pilot of the liquids used, as well as the exact time when the defrosting begins. Thanks to this, we are able to keep track of what's called "holdover time." If the aircraft is unable to take off, the aircraft may need to break the ice a second time. The retention time depends on the type of liquid used, plus the rate and type of meteorology present at the time (dry snow, wet snow, small ice; light, medium, heavy). We have charts to identify these properties.

The liquid used to break the ice isn't too corrosive, but it's also not the most eco-friendly thing on earth. And it looks a lot like cider or apricot-strawberry smoothie, but if it were me I wouldn't drink it; Certain types of glycols of which are toxic. At more than $ 5 per gallon it's also very expensive. If handling and storage are included in the cost, defrosting per plane could cost a few thousand dollars. Another method is to drag aircraft into specially built hangars equipped with large capacity heating lights hanging from the ceiling. In a way, this is a greener technique even though it consumes a lot of electricity.

On the air:

Snow does not stick to the plane while it is in flight. The tape is another story. Down with the flow of air and aerodynamic forces, ice often closes on thinner and lower surfaces

not on larger areas. It will close on the front edges of the wings and tail, around the engine's air intake, and on all kinds of antennas and detectors. If left unchecked, the tape could damage the engine, unbalance the propeller assembly, and lose valuable propeller lift. In the worst case, it could lead to a total aerodynamic failure - when the wings are essentially stopped.

The good news is all affected surfaces are equipped with anti-tape devices. In propeller planes, the manual inflatable "boots" break the ice off the front edge of the main wing and the horizontal stabilizer blade. In jets, they use hot air from the air compressors inside an engine, hitting the wings, tail, and air intakes of the engine. The windshield, large propellers, and electrically kept warm detectors and sensors. These systems use redundant power sources and are separated into functional regions that are independent of each other to avoid one part failure affecting the entire aircraft.

The ice on airframe comes in three basic forms: frost, transparent, and mixed. Hoarfrost is the most common form, which looks like white fibers. The degree of freezing of the ice is classified from "low" to "severe." Severe ice cover, most commonly encountered when flying in icy rain, is extremely dangerous. This level is also quite rare and usually exists in thin strips that are easy to avoid or fly over. Overall, defrosting during flight poses a much greater threat to small noncommercial aircraft than for large passenger aircraft. Even in the most intense ice and snow conditions, small amounts of frost on passenger jets are rarely seen.

The frozen runway is of course slippery. Airports circulate so-called “braking activity reports” for each runway - even for different sections of a runway - that pilots scrutinize, along with the latest reports. about wind and weather. Together, these data help determine if it's safe enough to take off or land. Sufficient space is always required on the tarmac for the aircraft to decelerate after landing, as well as enough room to stop if take-off is canceled, therefore operation is strictly prohibited when reporting low brakes. more than a certain value or when the ice, snow, or thaw exceeds a certain thickness. Take-off and landing speeds, as well as the power settings and rear flaps that apply, generally vary in snowy versus dry conditions. And if you look closely at the runway will see that they are cut on the sides into thousands of grooves a few centimeters apart. This, coupled with the sophisticated anti-slip systems on modern aircraft, supports the traction of the tires.

I have landed many times in winter weather conditions. What has always surprised me is that fresh snow can make it difficult to see how the runway and landing in line. Under normal conditions, the runway contrasts completely with the pavement, the lawn, or anything else around it. When it snows, everything is white. The runway is equipped with a series of color-coded spotlights. Almost every time you just glance at this system of lights. But things will be different when you come out of a low, low cloud cover, only

• A few hundred feet above the ground with a view of only half a mile, and faced with a clearing of amorphous white snow. Those lights and colors suddenly became very useful.

There have been several tragedies over the years in which planes try to take off when their wings are frozen. The most recent one was the USAir incident at LaGuardia in 1991. Nine years earlier was the infamous Air Florida disaster in Washington, DC when in addition to not paying attention to the freezing on the plane's wings, the crew forgot running the engine anti-ice system, causing the detectors to freeze and give erroneous readings of thrust. On Halloween night of 1994, 68 people died on American Eagle Flight 4184, the accident attributed to design failure - which was later repaired - in the ATR-72's icebreaker system. Many other planes have slipped off the end of the snow-covered runway. The culprits included mistakes in weather or brake data, an unstable landing that continued while it should have been canceled,

I cannot promise you that there will never be any ice-related accidents again. But I can guarantee that the airlines and crew members have taken this matter a lot more seriously than before. We learned a lot - mostly through undesirable experiences - and solved it by devising specific, standardized procedures that kept the problem from happening again.

Everything in the airplane toilet bowl is released from the plane during flight, isn't it?

A few years ago, on a train from Malaysia to Thailand, I walked into the bathroom and lifted the toilet lid. I was able to see the mesmerizing scenery of gravel, earth, and railroad tracks whipping right under my feet. People who often travel around will come across this scene from time to time, and

maybe those same people imagined it and spread that crazy inference. The answer is no. Things in the toilet bowl cannot be discharged from the aircraft during flight.

• I was deliberately not. A Californian once won a case where fragments of "blue ice" fell from an airplane and crashed through a well above the roof of his yacht. A hole in the joint on the outside of the toilet bowl causes the water in the toilet to freeze, freeze, and then fall like an ice bomb - grandfather. That is not necessarily bad. A 727 has had an engine breakdown after receiving a piece of frozen waste from its own toilet, thus forming the saying "when the feces fall into the turbofan."

At the end of the flight, the blue liquid, along with what you contribute to it, is sucked into a tank in the back of the truck (This trucker's job is even more boring than the co-pilot. But he gets paid more.) Then the driver drove to the back of the airport and sneaked the waste into a ditch behind the parking lot.

Honestly I don't know what he did with it. It's time to write a new legend.

Before we boarded, we were told the flight had limited payload due to a malfunctioning system. Who makes the decision to take off when a critical part fails?

An aircraft can depart even with inactive components - usually unimportant pieces of equipment in pairs or triplets - only by following the principles in the two thick instruction manuals, the Equipment Catalog Minimum²⁷ and the Configuration Deviation List²⁸. Any constituent parts of the two books

This book, in our own words, is also "deferred" as long as the terms contained therein are met. These terms can be quite limited. One of the first things a crew member has to do after signing a flight is to read through the paperwork about things that can be delayed, taking note of the appropriate restrictions. A malfunctioning anti-skid system, for example, may require longer runways for takeoff and landing. These books are not designed to allow airlines to fly around with equipment malfunctions. As you would expect, things cannot be delayed, and any malfunctioning parts must be repaired within a certain number of days or flight hours.

²⁷. Minimum Equipment List (MEL).

²⁸. Configuration Deviation List (CDL).

I used to watch pilots go around checking planes at an apron. Inspection doesn't seem very thorough, yes.

The round-the-plane test is useful, but it's just a basic check that's not much different from checking the oil, tires, and wipers before driving a car away. The most common findings are surface dents, unlatched panels, minor leaks, and tire problems (cuts, scratches, ...). More in-depth pre-flight checks are performed inside the cockpit. When the passenger is being cornered

• On the plane's stairs, a series of cockpit devices and systems are being tested. The engineering team also performs pre- and post-flight checks, both inside and outside, requiring special review and endorsement for over-water flights. If observing an airplane on the apron, you

one or a few mechanical personnel can be seen inspecting underneath the plane while another is going up to discuss with the crew and check the route book, making sure everything is available. ready for the next departure.

I worry about flying on old planes. Do I need to worry?

If you are wondering about the equipment in the passenger compartment or the elements coming from an old engine, just complain. But according to statistics, in terms of accidents, there is almost no correlation between service time and safety level. Commercial jets are built to last forever - which is one of the reasons why they are so expensive - and generally jets can be up to 30 years or so. than.

The older the plane is, the more and more careful care is needed in the brothel, and the inspection standards are getting stricter. Factors include the total age of the aircraft, the total number of flight hours, and the total number of takeoffs and landings - known as "cycles." The FAA has recently issued rigorous new logging and inspection procedures for certain older aircraft, covering issues such as wear, outputl wear, and wiring.

Surprisingly - or not - is the average American squadron of aircraft is the oldest. Asian, European, and Middle Eastern airlines have the latest aircraft available. Many of American Airlines' MD-80s were produced in the 1980s. Delta Air Lines still maintains a few DC-9s dating back to the Bao Binh Era.²⁹ which they obtained by merging with Northwest Airlines.

²⁹. According to astrologers, an astrological age is

results of the Earth's slow precession rotation and lasts an average of 2,160 years (26,000 precession years / 12 constellations = 2,160 years). In popular culture, the Age of Bao Binh says the beginning of the New Age movement in the 1960s and 1970s.

"Stop out" is a vaguely worded expression about airplanes. Planes are sold, exchanged, or abandoned not because they are out of age or have lost parts, but because operating them is no longer economically efficient. This may be related to when they were manufactured, or not. Take Delta and American Airlines, for example, which scrapped the MD-11s, but planned to keep the significantly older MD-80 and 767 for years to come. Airplanes are designed to suit certain roles and markets, and the boundaries are thin - tiny percentages of the difference between cost and return - between profit or loss. Poor performance means getting thrown out soon. For another airline with different costs, routes, and needs, that very plane could be profitable.

Dreaming of Revere: Recollection of the homeland

Sometimes when I hear the moan of a jet engine, I think of the beach again.

I don't think you get it - unless, like me, your childhood was shaped by a passion for flying and the summers on a beach just below the road to a large airport.

In my case, it was Revere Beach, just north of Boston, between the mid and late 1970s. Back then, as it is now, Revere was a thorny place and in many ways there was no What's interesting: rows of three-storey apartment buildings and a series of two-storey lots with attached architecture

The site is adorned with decorative figures crafted by matchstick iron. (Revere is a frighteningly architectural city that cannot be repaired, it will never be more mature or trendy than other Boston suburbs.) Irish Families and

• speak in an inaudible North Shore accent that has long removed the letter R. Sweary kids drive their Camaros and Trans-Ams, old country cars, their horns reflecting on their chest hair. .

Revere Beach is the first public beach in America. Like the rest of the city, it is nothing subtle or depicted with sentimental words. The roller coaster track has been burned for a long time, and on the boulevard is dotted with motorcyclists gathering and underground bars that children never dare step into even when they need to go to the toilet urgently. Gulls swooped down and gobbled up the pile of trash that spilled out of trash cans and trucks.

But that beach had sand and water that was clean enough to swim - with low tides seemingly receding even Nahant to the horizon. We spent our summer holidays here - almost every weekend and many days of the week too. Every 10 a.m., my parents finished packing them into the car. I remember that there were folding chairs, towels, and the seemingly endless pile of Hawaiian Tropic sunscreen, the scent of coconut oil mixed with the scent of the hot sun-dried skin of the Oldsmobile.

I swim, dig a crab hole, and experience indispensable mud-throwing battles with my friends. But for me, the real joy is the planes. Revere Beach's mile-long coastline is almost completely parallel to the 22L runway of Logan International Airport, and the landing plane is constantly gliding right in front of its eyes, close enough to seem like it can be thrown.

A Michelob beer bottle, absurdly empty on the sand, hits the plane. I usually carry a notebook and jot down each plane as they howl overhead.

At first they appear as black streaks. You will see smoke - black smoke zigzagging behind the 707 or DC-8 as it emerges from the Salem or Marblehead side. Then there's the noise. The children, and so did the adults, covered their ears. Today it is not known how loud an old jets were to puncture eardrums. And they flew very low, perhaps 1,500 feet (460 meters) above the sand, going lower and lower until they disappeared behind the hill on Beachmont, just seconds before landing.

I still remember it all: the 707 and L-1011 in the old twin-div Trans World Airlines. Bow-colored bow-tie DC-8s and DC-10s from United Airlines' 70s. The DC-8 and 747 from the Flying Tigers. Allegheny's DC-9 and BAC One-Eleven. Eastern Airlines' Whisperjet 727s were not whispering at all³⁰. Braniff, Piedmont, Capitol, and Seaboard World aircrafts; TAP, North Central, Zantop, and Trans International. The term "regional aircraft" is used to refer to short- and medium-range aircraft a decade later. Instead, they were called "commuter planes." There are also Provincetown-Boston Airlines (PBA) with Cessna 402 units; Air New England's Twin Otter and FH-227; Bar Harbor's Beech-99, and firms Pilgrim, Empire, Ransome, and Downeast.

³⁰. Here the author is playing word. The name "Whisperjet" roughly translates as "Whispering Plane."

Fast-forward to 30 years later: The landing line to the 22L runway remains unchanged. It still passed right on the coast of Revere.

After I finally became a pilot, one of the things that got me excited the most was flying the plane onto the BOS 22L runway.^{thirty first}, looking down at the very beach from which I looked up to watch throughout my childhood. But other things have changed. One of them is that the city's demographics and beaches have changed. In Revere city in my childhood, almost all families were Italian, Irish, or mixed between the two races. At the beach is no different. Today, both the city and the sand are the virtual United Nations of the North Coast. In addition to difficult voices that do not have an R sound, there are now Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese, and even Khmer languages. Muscular tops, Italian horns, and clover are still there, but tanned Irish skin is now contrasted with those from Somalia, Ghana, Haiti, and Morocco.

^{thirty first}. Logan international airport code.

And on top of that, there were no longer those oil smoke clusters. Today's jets are much cleaner and quieter. And much less interesting as well. When I was 12 years old, I was able to distinguish the DC-10 from the L-1011 from 10 miles away. Each aircraft has a different appearance. Aircraft today are often indistinguishable even at close range, and the endless parade of Airbus or RJ does not make people excited, does not make people in the sun just point and talk like the 707. or the DC-8 before - with the engine roaring, the black smoke flushing the rear.

Revere herself has also accumulated and lost her personality over the years. The sky above has almost lost it.

3.

WHAT GOES UP ...

Take-off, landing, and mysterious mid-range

What's wrong with the flight decks?

"Aviation dominated the architecture and design of this century on a level that is perhaps the largest of anything else, including cars."

—John Zukowsky, in the book Building for Air Travel^first

^first. Translation: Construction For Aviation.

• For many reasons, airports are often confusing places that drive people crazy. There are many things at today's airport terminals that make passengers angry, confused, or buddha

Italy. Where should I start?

For example, please think of the common phenomenon of teenage girls carrying large fur pillows on airplanes. When did it start and how did it become such a trend? (Admittedly this is a useful idea as many airlines are no longer distributing tiny, cotton-free pillows on all flights, but only for flights. The problem is that people like me cannot imitate Adult men can't just carry giant fur pillows around

hang around in the airport, unless you want to be laughed at. We only have one choice of neck braces.) Just as odd as the Sudoku craze.²: This generation's answer is for the crossword puzzle and as far as I can tell it's the number one pastime for bored passengers. (I'm not saying this is not that difficult. But neither is jumping or swallowing a sword. A fever doesn't mean everyone has to play it.)

². Sudoku: is a kind of logic game and the way to play is to fill numbers from 1 to 9 in the empty boxes so that each vertical column, each row, each small partition (3x3 square) has enough numbers from 1 to 9 without is repeated.

However, the most alarming trend to hit airports in the past half-century has nothing to do with video games, sleeping pillows, suicide hijackers, or mechanical touches. Transportation Security Administration (TSA³). No, the most annoying thing in airports is the noise.

3. Abbreviation for Transportation Security Administration.

If US airports need to borrow an idea from colleagues in Europe and Asia, it is that passengers are not necessarily bombarded with useless and redundant general announcements on loudspeakers. the radio went on repeating nonstop. Security alerts, boarding calls, traffic directions and parking stops - all broadcast at the same time. At some airports, layers of this kind of sound are unbearable. I heard four announcements at once, making it all an incomprehensible mess in the rage of noise.

Contributing to this bombardment also included parts of the curtain

ghost image near the gate of the plane, humming CNN Airport TV Channel. Somewhere out there is a survey finding that the majority of passengers claim that they are excited and grateful for the opportunity to watch TV at the boarding gate. It may be true, and I have no intention of suggesting that this privilege should be taken away. But allowing entertainment and allowing harassment are two different things. If TVs have the right to be placed there, shouldn't passengers also be able to stay away from them if they want to? That is the flaw. Those damn boxers are everywhere and they can't turn them off. No buttons, no wires, no way out. There is one at every gate and all of them turn on 24 hours a day. Even the airport staff didn't know how to keep them shut.

The list below is inspired by my recent transit at Incheon International Airport (ICN) serving Seoul, South Korea. Not to take away the summary of consistently top-rated airports like Amsterdam's Schiphol or Singapore's Changi (some of the amenities at Changi airport include movie theaters, swimming pools, and butterfly gardens) But Incheon is the most practical, attractive, and overall passenger-friendly airport I've ever been to. It's like a spotless cave, and as peaceful as it is in a cathedral. Security and immigration procedures are as fast as the wind; Easy international transition. The staff at the information counters are fluent in many languages, helping to dispel any frustrations. Amenities include free internet, free shower, luggage storage, cell phone rental counters, post office, and massage facilities. Relaxation areas feature sofas and easy chairs

bear, is placed away from crowded areas. There is also a culture center, a museum, and a full-service hotel inside the secured area, allowing long-transit passengers to rent rooms without having to. immigration procedures. Or if you have the energy, there is a tour booth that organizes free tours around Incheon. If your destination is Seoul, the high-speed train line from the airport will get you there in less than an hour. Why can't all airports do that?

Fifteen Things No Airport Can't Miss:

1. There is a fast, cheap public transport route into the city center

In a way, choosing a favorite airport is like choosing a favorite hospital: setting aside amenities, no one really wants to get there in the first place, and the faster and easier it is to get out of it. the more, the better. In that respect, all airports [in the US] should have the same public transport routes as in Asia and Europe.

Even though there are places that have done well like Portland, Oregon, and Washington-Reagan, in general the railways from US airports aren't as convenient - it's talking about the existing lines. At my home airport, Boston-Logan, the six-mile (9.66 km) public transport journey takes almost an hour and two changes of vehicles, including one trip. On the Silver Line bus, in addition to surrendering fate to the traffic situation on the road, it requires the driver at some point to get out of the car and turn on the power switch manually. Or at JFK airport, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars they finally completed the AirTrain system - a closed inter-airport train line and just reaching out.

to the Queens subway line⁴. It sometimes takes 45 minutes to go through a maze of escalators, elevators, and corridors that complicate the problem of Rube Goldberg style just to get from station to station, let alone reach. as far as Manhattan.

⁴. New York City has four main districts: the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. Queens and Brooklyn are the two closest neighborhoods to JFK airport.

2. Transit without entry and exit

It is a shame that for some reason US airports cannot understand the concept of "transit without entry and exit." All passengers flying from other countries, even if they are only transferring to a third country, are required to check through customs and immigration, pick up their baggage and check in again, and must go through security. This is a horrible annoyance procedure that doesn't apply almost in the world. And it causes US airlines to lose millions of passengers a year. Why do you have to connect to the US to have to queue three different times, get photographed and fingerprinted, re-checked your luggage, have your div scanned by the TSA glove, when you can instead Smooth transition in Frankfurt or Dubai? Indeed, this is part of the reason why firms like Emirates,

3. Free wireless Internet

What do we do at the airport? Kill time. And there's almost no better and more productive way to kill time than going online. Email your lover; read my blog at askthepilot.com; Skype with my friend in Slovenia. Many large airports, if not most, are equipped with Wi-

Fi, but often expensive and entangled (rarely more annoying than some credit card payment sites). Wi-Fi should be covered everywhere, and free.

4. Convenience stores

It was as if the evolution of airport design would never be complete until airport terminals and shopping malls became indistinguishable from each other. I feel fine at Starbucks and souvenir kiosks, but the saturated high-end stores always amaze me. It felt like no survivors would die without dying to a hundred-dollar Mont Blanc, a remote-controlled helicopter, or a massage chair for one price. thousand dollars. And what are the stores selling suitcases? Who buys suitcases after arriving at the airport? What we really need are the things that we normally buy at CVS⁵or corner stores: basic groceries and dry goods, stationery, and personal care products. Brussels and Amsterdam are good places to do this, with food shops and pharmacies located in the station.

⁵. CVS: The second largest retail pharmacy chain in the US by revenue.

5. Electrical outlet

I did not know that passengers have the right - no, the obligation - to steal free electricity from any carrier they want, but as of now there is no argument. Airlines should accept to lose and install more charging points.

6. Short-term bath and hotel services

All international airports should have room to shower and recline for a few hours. Passengers from overseas can shower and change before their next trip. People with longer transit times can take a nap in the hourly sleeping pod.

7. Children's play area

Honestly, the airport play area encourages kids to scream even more than usual, but at least they are gathered in a separate area that all other passengers can easily avoid. Ideally, the play area should be located in a soundproof bubble six miles from the airport, but a little bit of space at the far end of the lounge is also a good alternative. Delta Station in Boston has a good children's play area, but nothing surpasses the "Kid's Forest" at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam. I will also go in there to play if no one sees it.

8. Better dining options (meaning fewer chain restaurants)

Chick-fil-A, Burger King, Sbarro. Airport cuisine is not much different from the food court in the commercial center. We need more independent restaurants that serve real food, ideally local flavors.

The next time you arrive at LaGuardia airport, visit the Yankee Clipper restaurant of Rocco Manniello next to the Marine Air station. It was a circular building with art deco doors⁶and a relief of fish flying on top of the house, next to the Delta Shuttle. Rocco's restaurant is styled like a cafeteria, located on the left side of the building. There is a sale of delicious grilled dishes without any corporate brands.

(If Anthony Bourdain⁷if you have an airport food program you should choose this as your first stop.) Marine Air Station is the starting point for the first cross-ocean and around the world flights, and the walls The restaurant is decorated with historic photos. You can eat in the restaurant or take your sandwiches to eat on a wooden chair under the famous Flight mural by James Brooks. Ordered in 1952, Brooks work outlines the history of aviation from myth to modern (then), from Icarus.⁸to Pan Am's Clipper. The painting is socialist realism, and at the height of McCarthy⁹In the 1950s, in a controversial incident not unlike the famous Diego Rivera's mural at the Rockefeller Center, it was declared a propaganda painting and erased in gray paint. It was not until 1977 that the painting was restored.

⁶. Art Deco is an eclectic school of art and decoration that began in the city of Paris in the 1920s and spread to the world in the 1930s. Art Deco art is characterized by elegance and charm. glamorous, functional and modern.

⁷. Famous American chef, author, and television personality. He is the author of a book and many popular TV shows about food.

⁸. In Greek mythology, Icarus is the son of the talented craftsman Daedalus, the creator of the Labyrinth maze. Later, father and son were locked in this maze. Daedalus forged wings out of beeswax and bird feathers to help Icarus escape.

⁹. The communist prosecution movement was named Senator Joseph McCarthy

took place in America in the early 1950s, a period when the Cold War gave rise to fear of the growing influence of Communism. McCarthy cap many American citizens who are communist but can not provide convincing evidence.

9. An information counter

Where is Yankee Clipper restaurant located? Where is the nearest ATM located? Where is the subway line (which does not exist) leading into the city? All arrival stations should have staff members who can give directions, hand out maps, and make changes.

10. A bookstore

Reading on the plane is normal, right? So why is it so difficult to find a sure bookstore at the airport? (Not everyone has books ready for Kindle.) Not long ago, all major airports had a dedicated bookstore. Nowadays, it is increasingly difficult to find them, and the so-called bookstores are often just a newsstand with a few business books, sensational stories, and trashy public books. Believe it or not, the tastes of passengers are not limited to Sudoku and the latest CEO's autobiography. And of course a bookstore is likely to have lots of Top Secret in the Cockpit.

11. Enough seats in the waiting area

If the plane is parked at the terminal door to accommodate 250 people, there should also be at least 250 seats at the deck waiting room. Having to sit on the floor to wait for the plane is a lack of civilization. Do we have to sit on the floor waiting for an empty table in the restaurant or wait for our turn at the clinic? When Changi Airport was built

set up in Singapore, waiting rooms are all equipped with at least 420 seats, the same number of seats on a regular 747.

12. Rules of using the escalator

Americans have yet to learn how to behave while riding an escalator. If you are not in a hurry, you should take the right side and enjoy the ride, so those who are about to be late can go to the left. Instead, we keep standing in the middle, causing entanglement on both sides. The same goes for moving sidewalks. The purpose of such a corridor is for you to move faster, not to indulge in your laziness. You don't stand on it, you have to walk on it. And there is one more thing to learn from Europe and Asia: what prevents us from designing escalators and motion corridors with motion sensors to stop working when no one is using? use? Our conveyor belts keep running regardless of whether someone uses them or not, a terrible waste of energy.

13. Vision

Why are so many architects trying to hide the fact that the airport is actually the airport? Lounge chairs always turn their backs toward the windows, and the windows themselves are sometimes intentionally blurred or blocked by obstacles. Why so? Many people want the opportunity to watch the plane back and forth. It doesn't have to be an airplane enthusiast to feel comfortable or even a little excited about seeing this. Plus, more windows means more natural light - much more welcome than bright fluorescent lights. In Boston, each has a wonderful observatory on the 16th floor of the control tower. Knee-to-ceiling windows are on opposite sides, with the best views of the city. Rims

Logan Airport's seawater dam is just two miles from the city center, and you'll see the city and the airport as two symbiotic entities. Passengers relax on carpeted couches, while kids and families hang out on weekends, drop coins into binoculars and camp on the floor. It turns the airport itself into a destination, like a park or museum, and encourages city dwellers to gather together, which has long been a rare sight. Observatories can still be found here and there today, usually in Europe. Boston's observatory ceased operations in 1989, under the pretext of ensuring security.

14. Please return the outdoor boarding ladder!

Have you ever tried to observe the telescopic bridge (Jetway in English aviation), the odd umbilical cord connecting the station to the fuselage? One thing to notice is how ridiculously complex they are built. Do we really need all those iron and steel, cables, wires, and hydraulic devices for something that is simply a jetty?

Of course, I'm basically against those telescopic bridges. I prefer the classic outdoor boarding lifts. Some of the international airports I fly to are still using those old ladders, and they always get me excited. There is a dramatic feeling stepping on an airplane that way: walking on the apron and slowly getting on. The effect is like the opening of a movie - a brief, official introduction to the journey. In contrast, the telescopic bridge makes the plane almost irrelevant; you are just moving from an annoying indoor space (station) to another space

Other uncomfortable indoors (aircraft cabin).

Please keep your email. I'm just being romantic. The telescopic bridge has obvious benefits - inclement weather, disabled passengers, etc. - and I understand it's impossible to go back to the past.

15. Last but not least, a little aesthetic flair

If an airport has an aesthetic obligation, it is to convey the feeling of the place: you are here, not somewhere else. In this respect, once again, Europe and Asia are at the forefront. I remember Lyon Airport with its magnificent terminal lobby designed by Santiago Calatrava, or the Kuala Lumpur airport with its indoor rainforest, where the design of the station is a great deal of pride - where it makes up. the message, whether in a quiet or architecturally grandiose fashion. Take for example the magnificent Suvarnabhumi Airport (pronounced Sudan-na-bum) in Bangkok, Thailand. Its central terminal is the most spectacular airport facility I've ever seen. At night, on the way to the airport by highway from the city side, it appeared in the middle of the night like a giant space station - a spectacle full of glass and light and steel, Huge braces bathed in blue headlights. Or if it's just a matter of personality, try going to the tiny airport in Timbuktu, Mali. Here you will see a project of Sudanese romance, recreating mosques built from mud throughout this country.

Except for a few rare exceptions (Denver, San Francisco, Washington, Vancouver), there is no place in the US that can match these airports. On the contrary, a few of America's most expensive refurbished airports turn into bad disappointments. For example locality

jetBlue is overrated at JFK airport. Terminal 5

- or "T5" as the company calls it - is a 29.1-hectare structure worth $ 743 million, which opened in 2008 as loud fanfare. Inside, the open-air dining area and the rows of shops make another airport look like a shopping mall. Free Wi-Fi, noise and fear of enclosed spaces are also free at the crowded station doors. But the exterior design is the real tragedy. The roadside facade, even when described in the worst way, is only bleak, but the side that paved the road is disgusting - a broad, dwarf industrial-style strip of rugged shit. from ugly brown-covered gray concrete. Again, it looked like a shopping mall. Or to be more precise, it looks like the back of a shopping mall. Just add a few more shelves to store goods and trash cans. The only aesthetic manifesto of this building is a sort of indifference, an expression of architectural worthlessness, and utterly empty of inspiration - that's exactly what an airport terminal does. should show. Is this all we can do?

Ironically is the architectural landmark of TWA Flight Center^tenThe redesigned Eero Saarinen is located right in front of the T5, which is itself part of the jetBlue complex. Considered a masterpiece of modern architecture, Flight Center opened its doors in 1962 and was the first major terminal built exclusively for passenger jets. Its role was envisaged to be the entrance hall and ticketing center for the T5, but it is temporarily partially derelict and has only been partially renovated. I hope they will complete it so that more people can enjoy the widely recognized structure as the most architecturally important airport terminal ever built. Saarinen, architect of Finnish origin, author of other works such as Gateway Arch in St. Petersburg Louis and the airport terminal

Washington-Dulles, described Flight Center's internal architecture "as a unity." The station lobby is a living, homogeneous sculpture of space, both futuristic and organic. It's like a reverse of Gaudi's designs¹¹A large, gouged indoor courtyard, reminiscent of caves in Cappadocia, Turkey, is suspended above a pair of dome-shaped ceilings rising from the spine like a giant wings.

^ten. The original terminal of the airline Trans World Airlines.

¹¹. Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (June 25, 1852 - June 10, 1926) - is a Catalan, Spanish architect.

And just north of T5 used to be National Airlines' Sundrome station, designed by IM Pei. The terminal opened in 1970 and was named to represent National Airlines' yellow and orange shining sun logo, as well as its famous route between Northeast and Florida. After National was acquired by Pan Am, the station was also taken over by Trans World Airlines. It is then used by jetBlue, which is then abandoned and demolished.

Pei and Saarinen, a half-minute walk from each other. Our airports are not the same as they used to be.

Am I overdoing it? While terminal design and passenger friendliness are important, it is not the operational aspects of the airport - runway conditions, runways, and logistics infrastructure - that matter. the best heart? Yes, but in this respect the current situation is also worrying, any American who has ever flown abroad can attest to this. Again, this is a matter of capital. Airports in the US are deteriorating and no one wants to pay

for them. The federal budget is limited, while airports and airlines do not have the same lobbying power as the pharmaceutical industry or military-industrial complexes.

“Other parts of the world have enlightened more than we do about aviation policies,” said Greg Principato, North America regional president for the International Airport Council, in his speech at a conference in 2012. He added that members of the US Congress had little understanding of the need to finance the maintenance and renovation of US airports. "They have a feeling that airports are economically important, but don't really understand why," he explained. Principato warned that the deterioration of airport facilities would put the United States "at risk of being turned into a branch system for the global aviation network."

How long does it take pilots to prepare for a flight, and what must be prepared?

At my airline, the required time to appear for domestic flights is 60 minutes prior to departure. 90 minutes for international flights. That is a moderate standard. If it's an international flight, preparations begin in the crew lounge. After introducing ourselves, we gathered the papers and moved through a desk to review them all. The paperwork includes a complete flight plan (see below), all required weather reports and forecasts, and a ton of other additional information. There are dozens of pages of documents, covering everything from taxi shutdowns to hotel transit phone numbers. (Some of these documents are laser-printed on regular office paper, but most are

is imprinted beautifully.) For transoceanic flights, the flight route must be manually marked on the graph just as it once was. On boarding, instruments (microphone earphones, flight instructions, profile clips, etc.) must be stowed in one place, and internal and external inspections are complete. . The systems and equipment in the cockpit should be checked; the logbook to be studied; and all route, wind, and performance data must be entered into the flight management system (FMS^twelfth) of the plane. And don't forget the most important task: go through the menu and choose the appetizer for dinner.

^twelfth. Short for Flight Management System

Somewhere in the cockpit, the pilots and flight attendants gathered for a brief crew meeting before departure. Sometimes this meeting takes place in a pre-set conference room before boarding the plane; otherwise it takes place on the plane before the passenger moves onto the cabin. The first is the exchange of names. The captain then speaks for three or four minutes, announcing flight times, expected turbulence, weather at the destination, and anything relevant or unusual. Crews on long flights sometimes spend a week or more together. Apart from practical matters this short meeting, if nothing else, is an opportunity to introduce yourself to the people who will be with you for the next few days.

For domestic flights, this step is quicker and more normal. Much of the prep work is done in the cockpit, and the stack of documents is also much lighter. The staff at the station entrance will print most documents from a vertical printer and hand it over to the captain or vice captain. The crew meeting is simply the captain calling the flight attendant aside and announcing flight times, disturbances, and weather. 60 minutes is more than enough to prepare. Unreal

menu to choose.

The pilots do not arrange flight plans - nor do they plan flights. Almost anything that needs to be researched, organized, or proposed, from the flight plan itself to another country's airspace permit, is prepared behind the scenes, if so to speak, by teams. Licensed planning and dispatching staff work at the airline's operations control center, a messy place that looks like the old mission control room at NASA. Do not underestimate the dispatcher; Their work plays a key role. Officially the responsibility for a flight is split 50/50 equally between the captain and the dispatcher. From backing out of an apron to landing, aircraft must always remain in constant contact with dispatchers via radio or data links.

You must be wondering: What is the flight plan in the end? It is literally a document submitted to air traffic control, listing key points about flight performance, such as aircraft type and registration, recommended route and altitude, and flight times. Usually, the crew never see the document, or even a copy of it. What we saw and carried with us, however, was part of that huge stack of papers, a composite data sheet that was several pages long, including not only that important information but also a whole. Extremely detailed analysis of each route point, from start to finish, covering everything from projected fuel consumption to wind and temperature analysis, to performance data. performance of the aircraft. We call it the flight plan.

Why does the plane take off and land against the wind?

In the pilot's world there are two types of speed: relative to air (speed of flight) speed and relative to ground speed (ground speed). The first is the one that makes an airplane fly - the air pushes the wings of the plane and keeps it in the air. Do you remember in chapter one, reaching out the door of the Toyota car and making it fly? You won't need to drive at 60 mph, if instead there is a gust of wind blowing directly at you at 60 mph. You don't have to move; the wind will take care of all that. Your arm, like an airplane wing, will reach a cruising speed of 60 mph, even if your ground speed is zero. Planes are similar, with the main benefit being that takeoffs or landings against the wind mean they can shorten the distance on the runway.

Due to air traffic restrictions and noise reduction rules, reversing the wind direction is not always possible, and sometimes you have to accept the crosswind or the tailwind. . Wind is only beneficial during flat flight, not during takeoff or landing. When traveling on a tarmac, the aircraft will be pushed from behind by winds of the same direction, increasing ground speed and wasting precious runways without increasing actual flight speed - that is, the speed in the air. For this reason, the limits for taking off and landing on the right wind are often very low, around 10 knots (18.52 km / h).

Please explain how the plane takes off and why it bounces, bounces, and changes direction, sometimes at very high angles, when taking altitude?

The plane accelerates to a set speed, at which point the pilot raises the nose of the plane to a certain angle and begins to take altitude. The specific speed at which this takes place, the level of engine power used, and the distance the runway needs

equipment in each case is different and is calculated in advance. They depend not only on the weight of the aircraft but also temperature, wind direction, and other factors.

Taking off is inherently a more critical stage than landing. In the process, planes are shifting from ground to air, and the level of control in the air is much less certain than when it lands. Anxious passengers often hate it most at landing, but according to the principles of lift, gravity, and momentum, this worry has been misplaced. Not that you shouldn't panic, but if you want to be anxious all the time, worry about the takeoff phase - from right before the plane leaves the ground until the first 20 seconds after the plane is on. are not.

After leaving the ground and collapsing the aircraft, pilots follow a set target speed and altitude setting where they retract the flaps - usually in stages as the plane rises. speed - during that time tilt the aircraft and reach the desired altitude. This process can be quite noisy due to a series of energy changes, directional changes, and takeoff / lowering adjustments. If you feel an abnormal level of disturbance, it is more likely that the crew is following the noise reduction procedures for the benefit of the residents below. To do so requires complex flight modes such as changing directions at low altitudes and taking altitude at steeper angles than usual.

Planes flying east may initially turn west after takeoff. Southbound aircraft may initially fly north, etc. It is not that the pilot gets lost but simply they are following a standard take-off guide line. Airports can have up to a dozen standard departure methods using equipment (or SIDs¹³

as we call it). The departure method for a flight will be specified by the air traffic control unit as part of the predeparture clearance. For example, if you take off from the 31L runway at JFK airport, the SIDs require you to always make a sharp left turn south, no matter where your destination is. The aim is to keep flights well connected and well separated, avoiding any obstructions, and avoiding aircraft from nearby airports. You will eventually be brought into the higher altitude structure and flew in the correct direction, but be prepared for a few turns, step-by-step elevation, and adjust your speed during the first few minutes of your flight. And the last few minutes of the trip are the same - the landing procedure is similar, but the guide lines are called STAR¹⁴ (Method to standard using equipment).

¹³. Short for 'standard instrument departure.'

¹⁴. Short for 'standard terminal arrival.'

What if at the moment the plane leaves the ground the engine stops functioning?

All civilian aircraft have been shown to be able to take off in the event of one of the engines shutting down at worst. From the passenger's point of view, it was around the time when the nose of the plane was just raised to fly into the air. From the pilot's point of view, the moment that was called V1, or "the decisive take-off speed," was the speed at which beyond it could no longer interrupt the take-off. V1 for each take-off is different, depending on weight, runway length, wind direction, temperature, and rear flaps settings. If failure of any degree occurs at or after the aircraft reaches this speed, the flight crew has been trained to continue takeoff,

Because as a rule, aircraft must be able to accelerate and get altitude even when an engine is completely stalled. This ensures safety not only in the perimeter of the airport but also for buildings, hills, antennas, and anything else. At every airport - every runway, in fact - data are computed not only to ensure flightability, but also to avoid obstacles outside the airport.

What about before V1? With a plane carrying all its payload, wouldn't take-off mean that the plane would stagger at the end of the runway? Are not. When analyzing the numbers, two things are completely certain before any civil aircraft starts rolling. First, as mentioned above, aircraft must safely gain altitude after having an engine failure at the decisive takeoff speed, V1. Second and not least, the aircraft itself must be safely stopped if take-off is canceled at any point before that speed is reached. Imagine V1 as a hinge moment. If there is a problem after V1, the crew knows that the aircraft will fly without hitting obstacles. If there is a problem before V1, the crew knows there is enough room to stop. This takes into account possible risks from ice, snow, or any unusual things on the tarmac that could alter the aircraft's performance. And this is one of the reasons why flights can have weight limitations when using short runways. Not that the runway is not long enough to take off, but because it is not long enough in the event of a take-off.

This does not mean that no aircraft has ever canceled takeoff and slipped towards the end of the runway. It still happens sometimes - that is very rare. With hundreds of tons moving at speeds of hundreds of miles per hour, not everything always works exactly as calculated data. To

To overcome the problem, modern airplanes have been equipped with extremely sophisticated brakes and extremely proficient pilots.

Larger aircraft have powerful engines and luxurious height-lifting devices (front flaps, rear flaps, and the like) that allow them to take off and land at the same speed. relatively low. The giant A380, for example, has the same approach and landing speed as the much smaller A320. It is therefore completely wrong to assume that a large aircraft requires a longer runway than a small aircraft just because it is larger. Maybe yes, maybe not. A 747 with fewer passengers and cargo may need less runways than a full-seat 737 that is only a quarter the size.

At the beginning of the altitude, the engine thrust was suddenly cut off and it felt like the plane was falling. What's going on?

The thrust used for take-off is always more than enough, so normally at an altitude of about 1000 feet, depending on the flight mode, the thrust is reduced to what we call "power. Get the height. ” Doing so will help reduce engine wear and keep the aircraft from breaching the speed limits at low altitude. The plane is not lowering altitude or slowing down, but just not increasing altitude as quickly as it originally was.

You will be surprised to learn that despite the impressive rumble and impressive acceleration, civilian jets rarely take off at full capacity. Maximum thrust is used only under certain conditions (weight, runway length, and weather), but is usually not needed, so the aircraft is in reduced mode. Doing so will be better for the engine, but when needed, you can still use maximum capacity.

What is the speed of the plane at takeoff? How much is the landing time?

Time to use the two most important and frustrating words in this book again: it depends. Certain airplanes consistently use higher speeds than others, but then it's up to the usual suspects: weight, rear spoiler settings, wind, and temperature. In order to be moderated, a regional aircraft could take off at 130 knots (240.76 km / h) and land.

• 110 knots (203.72 km / h). An Airbus or Boeing can have speeds greater than that about 40 knots (74.08 km / h) in both directions of takeoff and landing. With the 757 and 767 I drove, take-off speeds were between 140 and 170 knots (from 259 to 315 km / h). Grounding speeds are between 130 and 150 knots. Landing speeds are always slower than takeoff speeds, and landing uses significantly less runways than they do when taking off.

The pilot said we would take off from runway 31 of LaGuardia airport. How come there are thirty-one runways at this airport?

Not so right. The numbers correspond to the magnetic direction (compass direction) of the runway. Imagine a 360 degree circle with four direction points (north, south, east, and west) of 360, 180, 90, and 270 degrees. To determine which direction the runway runs, add a zero to the tail. Runway 31 is located at 310 degrees, northwest. The opposite end of that runway will be set to 13, at 130 degrees, facing southeast. So one runway is actually two runways. When the runways are parallel, they have a suffix of the letter L or R, just left (left) or right (right). (If you're wondering, the plane's taxiway names use alphanumeric symbols or a combination of letters and numbers - A, N, KK, L3, etc. - and are pronounced using the phonetic alphabet

negative: Alpha, November, Kilo-Kilo, Lima-3.)

An airport can have several runways arranged in all sorts of geometries - triangles, perpendicular lines, parallel lines, diagonal lines, nine-square checkered flags - or only one runway (actually means two). Viewed from above, Chicago's O'Hare Airport looks like an aerial photo of Nazca drawings¹⁵, with seven separate lanes, totaling up to fourteen runways. The runway has no so-called standard lengths. Like the heterogeneous ribbons of Major League Baseball stadiums, the runway length gives that airport some, well, personality. La Guardia and Washington-Reagan airports are known for their short, uncompromising runways of about 7,000 feet (2,134 meters). The 31L runway at JFK airport is more than twice as long. Ten or 11 thousand feet (3,048 or 3,353 meters) is considered the classic "long" runway.

¹⁵. A series of giant drawings are engraved on the Nazca Desert in Peru, from figures of animals, matrices, people, or merely geometries. They were drawn from 200 BC to 600 AD.

From digging roads, paving roads, lighting, to installing equipment for all kinds of weather, building runways is a very serious job, not just spreading asphalt and painting lines on it. A sixth runway at Denver International Airport costs upwards of $ 165 million.

Where is the hardest place to take off and land? Do passengers need to be wary of certain airports?

You must have seen the lists of "the world's scariest landings" and "the world's most dangerous airports" that often appear online or elsewhere. Never mind

about them because no civil airport is unsafe. If the airport is unsafe, there will be no airlines flying there. Pilots have commented that some airports are difficult, but that is a completely different story. As in any industry, some missions - in this case some takeoffs and landings - are more difficult and demanding than others, but they're still in the midst of handling. of people who have been trained to do so.

What makes an airport difficult is often one of two things, either alone or in combination: the length of the runway and the surrounding terrain. Many airports in the Andes, Himalaya, or Rocky regions have complicated landing guides by the nearby peaks. New York's Laguardia Airport, Chicago's Midway, and São Paulo's Congohnas are famous for their narrow runways.

Those intricate guides can take a lot of work, but it doesn't make them intimidating. So is the short runways. As seen in previous questions, the runway should always be long enough to ensure a safe takeoff. The same goes for landing; the pilot doesn't have to just look at the runway and conclude "looks fine," and then step on the brake and hope the miracle happens. Including weight and weather - including disadvantages from slippery runway surfaces caused by ice, snow, or rain - the data must demonstrate that the aircraft can stop within a maximum of 85 percent of the total usable runway length. Taking off and landing requires much more science than people imagine. We often hear that pilots need to possess masterful judgment and instinctive reflex skills. This is also true,

But it must also be said that the shorter runways still have a limited margin of error, and history has recorded many runway over-running accidents, some of which were fatal. In inclement weather, things can be very difficult. Low visibility factors, strong crosswinds, and slippery runway surfaces can combine and push the aircraft off its intended landing route. The best - and most correct - way to deal with an unstable approach is to stop. Which brings us to the next question ...

Just before landing, the aircraft increased capacity again and canceled landing. We tilted in a few angles before returning to our second landing. Many passengers were scared. Is this common, and why is it happening?

You sit there, wearing your seat belt to land. The descent process is very smooth, the weather is clear. You go down, down slowly. At an altitude of about 500 feet (152 meters), you begin to read what is written on the billboards; just a few seconds to land. Then, without warning, the engine roared again. The plane jerked up sharply and began to take its altitude, hums and vibrates as its cranes and flaps are retracted. The ground is tilted; the plane wobbled. You cling to the arm of the chair. What the hell is going on? After a long, endless minute, the loudspeaker clicked and the captain's voice spoke. "As you know, we had to cancel the landing and we had to take another flight," he said. We're spinning around for a second landing and will land in about 10 minutes. ” If you fly regularly, you should have experienced this situation at least once. That move is called flying, and it takes a special place on the long list of worries about flying passengers. I read all day about the flight waiting times described in horror by frightened passengers in emails; they still wonder if they barely escaped death.

The truth is quite tedious: flying is a relatively common situation and is rarely the result of something dangerous. In most cases it is a small matter of distance: air traffic control maintains the required distance parameters or the first arriving aircraft has not yet moved off the runway. It's not an ideal situation but let's be clear: this is not a narrow-minded escape situation as everyone thinks. The reason you're flying around is to prevent a narrow escape. It is true that there are close collision situations, but they are extremely rare.

In other cases, failing to save has nothing to do with this. One variation of a fly-and-hold situation, where the names of the two are almost interchangeable, is a missed approach, which occurs when the aircraft performs the same basic maneuvers for weather reasons. . If during the approach using equipment but the visibility falls below a set value or the plane has not seen the runway visually when the minimum allowable height is reached, the flight crew must take the altitude and flying away (then usually redirecting to an alternate airport). A fly-by will also apply whenever the approach becomes unstable. Deviation from the runway, landing speed too high, fierce crosswinds, warning of wind breaking - any of these can lead to flight waiting.

As for taking the altitude too steep or abruptly, any waiting flight has to do the same. There's no point in flying indifferently at such a low altitude. The safest direction is upwards - the fastest that practically allows. The sudden transition from a gentle landing to a quick climb would be loud and dizzying, but that is perfectly natural for an airplane.

For pilots, go-around is a simple but laborious move. The first step is to increase power to the propulsion of the waiting loop, bring the front and rear flaps to a neutral position, and raise the nose of the aircraft to a target angle - somewhere around 15 degrees. Once the aircraft has started to gain altitude, the treadmill is retracted. Meanwhile, the front flaps and rear flaps are fully retracted, followed by additional adjustment of the capacity and nose lift angle. Once altitude has been obtained, it may be necessary to reprogram the flight management system, restart the automatic flight components, rerun checklists, check weather information, etc. - during the lifetime. during that time you still have to receive instructions from air traffic control. There is a lot of discussion and work is done quickly.

And when you finally hear from the cockpit their explanation must be short and, though I hate to say this, it probably isn't very enlightening. The fact is that the pilot and the microphone do not always work together well (see section Communication issues, page 294). In our efforts to avoid the use of professional slang and to simplify complex situations, we tend to say very frightening sarcasm. Granted that passengers do not need to hear an essay about air traffic control distance limits or minimum visibility when approaching an airport, but the statements are like, "We went too close to the plane ahead ”paints a false, if not terrifying, picture. That night,

Planes how to find runways in bad weather? Several landings in the fog always freak me out.

The standard approach to access in bad weather has been, for decades now, called an instrument landing system, or ILS.¹⁶. The plane follows two signal lines, one horizontal and one vertical, transmitted from the antenna on the ground. With two signal lines intersecting in the middle of an electronic reddish, the plane descends to a predetermined height - usually about 200 feet (61 meters) above the ground, though sometimes higher or lower - at which the pilot must clearly see the runway with the naked eye to land. GPS, although now commonly used for navigation during flight, is still a new technology when it comes to approach and landing.

¹⁶. Short for 'instrument landing system.'

To organize the air traffic flow, air traffic control stations will normally designate ILS approaches even in favorable weather. But in situations where the pilot really needs them there will be three types of ILS - Cat I, Cat II, and Cat III (pilots use "cat" instead of the word category - category) - each has requirements for different visibility and equipment. Type I is the common standard type. Type II and III are more complex and can drop to the level of zero visibility - provided that runways, aircraft, and pilots are equipped, allowed, and trained to carry them out (which is not the case. Anything is like that).

The take-off process is similar. When the take-off visibility is reduced to certain levels, the runway and crew must be specially licensed. With runways it is mainly a matter of lighting and marking. With the crew, it depends on the minimums you are trained and allowed. We are in Amsterdam and the visibility on the 36R runway is 250 meters. Can we take off? It is better to look up some graphs.

Runway visibility is measured by so-called runway visibility (RVR¹⁷), in which a series of light-sensitive cameras are placed along the runway providing values ​​in feet or meters.

¹⁷. Short for 'runway visual range.'

On a recent flight, we made a terrible landing. We hit the ground very wriggled and hit the curb with a bang. Why do some pilots land more smoothly than others?

Sometimes pilots fail to land as smoothly as they wish. Although passengers are mainly evaluated by the level of comfort when landing, this is not an accurate measure of the pilot's skills. Evaluating a flight with a landing process is a bit like evaluating an entire paragraph with just one unreasonable word or punctuation. It's just a small part of the whole picture, but those are when it's really memorable. And a steady or "wriggling" landing is often the goal of the pilot. On short runways, priority should be given to how the aircraft touches the ground safely in the touchdown zone, not how to be skillful. The correct technique in a cross-wind situation is slightly inclined, so that one side of the plane lands in front of the other.

When the plane landed, it sounded as if the engines propelled the engine right after landing. I don't understand what it is, but are they reversing?

The jet engine does change direction, and that's exactly what you hear. Pilot lifts one lever by hand, one lever per engine, deflector panels

lift up or slide into position. If the motors are visible from your seat, you will be able to see these deflectors quite clearly. Once they are in position, which usually takes about a second or two, engine power increases - even if just a little; The full reverse thrust was only a fraction of the existing forward thrust. It's not a true 180 degree reversal, but rather a vector that is partially forward, like the impact of blowing on a cambered palm. (The propeller aircraft engines can also be reversed; the large rotors will rotate vertically, pushing the air forward instead of back.) Power usage will vary depending on the length of the road. ice, brake settings, runway surface condition, and to some extent depend on which branch taxiways the pilot plans to use. While the reversing engine does help, it's the brakes that take care of most of the aircraft stopping process, with the rear flaps support and the deployment of the flaps. The 85% runway length limit we mentioned above is calculated without using the reversing motor. Whatever it does, it is just an addition.

The old DC-8 was shipped with a regulation that allowed the engine to be reversed during flight to aid landing. No modern aircraft allows this; Engine reversals during flight are strictly prohibited, and the inverters are locked to prevent unwanted deployment. In terms of aerodynamics, I think you can change direction during flight, as long as it's symmetrical. Just like you could reverse your Toyota through the US states at 90 miles per hour. Most likely it wouldn't end well.

While at cruising altitude, I heard a loud rumbling steadily, like an engine boosted power. That noise pulls

a few minutes and then turn off. It sounds almost like take off, but the plane doesn't appear to be rising altitude.

Perhaps the person sitting next to you is having a stomach problem, or it is the “take-in altitude,” process where the plane rises from this level to a higher level, maybe by air traffic, weather, or to save more fuel. The engine thrust increased, making a loud noise, but since the elevation angle is much more comfortable than when starting off, you probably can't feel it. Only people seated at the rear of the engine hear this sound best. Passengers in the front seats may not be able to hear it.

Why do weather delays happen, and why does the system seem to go down in bad weather?

Bad weather leads to delays in two ways. The first is tangible - inevitable physical delays when people are forced to perform their tasks under conditions harsher than usual. If it rains or snows, planes often depart late for the same reason people are late for school or work: we and our vehicles move more slowly; Simple tasks also take longer.

The second way, which has significant and more unpredictable consequences, is to clog the air traffic control system. "Weather delay" is often a misnomer. Rather, it was flight delays due to air traffic - the result of the plane concentrating too much at the point of departure, destination, or somewhere in between. Even in ideal weather conditions, crowded skies and delays are common; plus ice, snow, low runway visibility, strong crosswinds, slippery runway surfaces, etc. significantly reduced the number of flights allowed to take off.

landing and landing every hour. Tarmacs need to be snow-scratched or sand-covered, aircraft need to be followed by equipment approach schemes, crosswinds or low visibility that could render one or more of the runways unusable, etc. And when local air traffic is congested, the effect will spread quickly over hundreds or even thousands of miles. Planes flying to New York City may be required to follow a bypass guide for Pittsburgh. To avoid air congestion, flights preparing to depart will sometimes be held underground until specific, predetermined departure times.

One thing that annoys both airlines and passengers is their air traffic control delay messages because of their laxity. They change every hour, every minute. Common situation: The crew prepares to depart at noon from Washington to Chicago. The plane was about to roll out to the tarmac when suddenly there was an order to delay departure because a thunderstorm appeared somewhere in Ohio. The scheduled pilot time to enter the new air (see wheels-up time, page 326) is 2:00 pm, which means two hours later. The passenger is suggested to leave the plane and the plan is to return to the plane at around 1:15 a.m. But then 15 minutes later, the air traffic command dialed back and adjusted the timing: the plane was allowed to depart immediately. Unfortunately all the passengers were scattered around,

Government statistics show that more than eight out of ten flights are landing on time. That is a strong number and is constantly improving. However, we do know that congestion at air traffic control continues to misery tens of millions of passengers. The system is so unstable that even on sunny days, congestion occurs. There has been a lot

harsh criticism of what is believed to be the cause of this problem - from the archaic air traffic control equipment to the clingy private jets that clogged the flight path - and how to deal with it. This is an important but often blinded issue: the fact that airlines are putting too many planes - especially smaller regional ones - into an already established system. Overload. The more planes take off, the more planes that land, the more late planes will be. Obviously we have to modernize air traffic control - for example, make more use of GPS technology to limit the horizontal distance between planes. But after all, it is only possible to cram a certain number of planes that take off and land at an airport as large as its runways and taxiways allow. What is often blamed for the issue of airspace is actually the airport problem.

And we cannot talk about flight delays without talking about the rise of regional planes. The number of passengers flying has more than doubled in the past 30 years, and so have the number of planes carrying them. However, the sizes of these jets are decreasing. In 1980, to fly from New York to Miami or Chicago, you boarded an L-1011 with 275 seats, or the smallest was a Boeing 727 with 160 seats. These days, don't be surprised if you fly on a 70-seater airliner. The average aircraft today has about 140 seats - much less than before. Regional aircraft can carry a maximum of about 90 passengers, and operations of this type of aircraft have grown by 300% in just the past 10 years, and now these jets make up 53% of the total. flights depart in the country. This means that half of all aircraft carry about a quarter of all passengers - an extremely low performance ratio. At airports like LaGuardia or Washington-

Reagan, ten zone-range aircraft departing continuously or even more was not uncommon.

Unless a dozen new and larger airports are built - as viable as building a civilization on Venus - the more plausible option is for airlines to merge flights. and using larger planes. Unfortunately, the competitive factors make this almost impossible. There are many more airlines than ever before and market share is being torn. So one of the most effective competitive tools is the ability to deliver as many flights as possible to the busiest cities. More and more airlines are offering more flights on smaller jets.

And after all, the passengers are getting what they ask for. When airlines surveyed, all of their passengers replied that yes, of course, they wanted as many flights as possible to choose from. Instead of offering five flights a day departing from city A to city B, why not increase it to ten? If the demand is not enough to fill the ten large jets, switch to regional aircraft. In this way, frequency of operation becomes one of the holy grail for marketing for airlines; having more flights to choose from means selling more tickets. Of course, this is just a lie when planes don't take off or land on time, but airlines still sell tickets and passengers still buy.

By the way, just try doing an informal poll. Instead of having a choice of twelve daily flights, one third of which land 30 minutes late on average, you get to choose one of

What about six larger planes and all landed on time? If I apply this mindset to the whole system, I would expect a lot of congestion on the air traffic control side to be eliminated. Not only that, but the economic advantage of larger scale also saves millions of gallons of fuel, while reducing emissions. (This can also cost thousands of jobs, so I should be careful about what I wish for.)

But what about other possible solutions, such as increasing the use of satellite airports, pricing for peak periods, and building high-speed rail? Let's take a look at some of the more commonly suggested options.

1. We need to modernize air traffic control.

Although the restoration work is inherently too late, they are also mainly beneficial for airspace parts on the flight path at high altitudes, while having impact on where it is needed especially inside and pulse. around the airport is less. The benefits are shorter flight times, fuel economy, reduced emissions, and better air traffic management to some extent in inclement weather. Those are good things, but they ignore the fact that each runway can only handle a certain number of planes per hour.

2. Then why not build more runways?

For a variety of reasons, not to mention the persistent and inevitable battles that runway projects have inflicted between airport authorities, politicians, and Neighborhood groups oppose the airport expansion. Like the airport in my state of birth, Boston's Logan International Airport, it took 30 years to complete a 5,000-foot (1,524-meter) piece of runway. Capital and issues

Technology is equally a headache. Taxi roads must be built; installation of complex lighting systems; arrangement of navigation aids; develop and test new takeoff guidance diagrams. The newest Denver airport runway costs $ 165 million. And at least this airport has enough room. How about at Laguardia, Newark, or Kennedy airport? Know where to add now?

3. What about encouraging airlines serving satellite airports to use their full capacity instead of busy transit ports?

This is one of the most annoying and persistent off topic questions. First of all, the large and bustling transit ports are due to the number of passengers connecting through them. People transition between flights - from small jets to large planes, from international to domestic. Satellite airports offer a limited number of flights from start to finish¹⁸fly to Florida for vacation, for example, but there are hardly any connection options. So, unless the airline refuses to shift all of its operations to a satellite airport, the end result is actually more aircraft entering the system. Assuming American Airlines operates a route from Stewart-Newburgh (located northwest of New York City) to London, it is not instead flying from JFK, but in addition to flight from JFK. Southwest Airlines, for example, has taken advantage of it by attracting millions of passengers to cities like Manchester, Providence, and Islip; offer an alternative to overcrowded airports such as Boston, Kennedy, and LaGuardia. Do its competitors at the above crowded airports have reduced the frequency of their operations? No problem.

less flights; but rather reducing the plane's size. The 767 turns into a 737; the 737 turned into a regional plane. Competition in the airline industry is seldom a game where the total profits of the parties are zero. The market was shredded and continued to grow. It is these points that also cause high-speed rail "solution" to be misunderstood in a similar way. There is no excuse to oppose the train for its own sake, only its impact on air traffic is negligible. Look at Europe, their railways are fast, reliable, and extremely convenient, yet the number of passengers traveling by air is just a bit lower than in America.

¹⁸. O&D (Origin and destination) traffic.

4. If we admit that the fault is with airlines' flight schedules, should there be a system of fees that forces them to pay a premium to fly during peak hours?

It's called peak period pricing, and it's a popular and controversial idea that is like imposing heavy tolls on city-center motorists as a way to reduce traffic congestion. In cities like London, it appears that such deterrent measures have worked. But civilian jets aren't cars, and airlines aren't private motorcyclists. The result will be higher fares and the impact on congestion is negligible. In this already low-cost situation, airlines can raise prices a little bit easily. You already paid extra to fly at the right time, so I guess you're willing to pay more.

✰✰✰

Technology will not solve this problem. She tried to retreat to small airports, to retreat to airlines, or to fantasize about new runways for nothing. The only hope, in my opinion, is a solution theoretically, that airlines should neglect to insist on increasing the frequency of operations and giving up their obnoxious regional jet lag. . The expectation for airlines to consolidate this way is almost the same as the expectation they go back to economy-class triple-cheese omelets, but I can't help but raise this thought. Then, we have a new normal: airlines and passengers suffer an acceptable level of inconvenience. That's the situation. Let's try the positives: 85% of all flights arrive on time. After all, that's a pretty respectable number.

“Control tower” sounds outdated. Who should pilots talk to and how do they communicate information during flight?

"Field command post" (command station) is a colloquial term used to refer to air traffic command stations in general, but these stations themselves are only responsible for aircraft on the runway and in the area. airport respectively. Actually, it's much more complicated than that. To make it easy to understand, let's do an end-to-end analysis of a cross-American flight. During this process, remember that an aircraft uses an electronic device called a transponder to transmit the position, speed, and altitude to an air traffic command radar screen. In many airports, the link between transponder and radar is also used to track airplanes on taxiways.

Departing New York to Los Angeles, our flight first receives local weather information and flight plans approval¹⁹ via computer to link data in

cockpit. When it was ready to leave the departure gate, the crew sent a radio signal asking for a pushback clearance, followed by a call to receive rolling instructions. Sometimes another separate call is required for instructions to start the engine. Moving from the departure gate to the runway can sometimes require four or five conversations on such frequency - clearance delivery, gate control, distance control (metering), ground command, and other matters - depending on the airport. Eventually, the aircraft was allowed to enter the runway by the command station at the airport and take off.

¹⁹. Flight plan clearances

Immediately after leaving the ground, the flight is now handed over to departure control, which follows us on the radar, orders navigation, altitude, etc. while the plane is being taken. Step by step on the flight structure above. A flight may have to go through several departure zones, each at a different frequency. Once high altitude has been reached, the flight is guided by a series of Long Distance Air Traffic Control Centers (ARTCCs).²⁰), often referred to as "the Center." The New York Center, the Denver Center, etc. They were responsible for the vast expanse of sky, which made themselves less compatible with the name used to distinguish centers from each other, and were often located away from courtyards. fly. The Boston Center, for example, covers the entire airspace from southern New England to the Maritimes region of Canada, but is located in a building in Nashua, New Hampshire. The centers are also subdivided into subdivisions, each in the hands of individual control units.

²⁰. Short for Air Route Traffic Control Center.

Finally, upon landing on LAX, the above procedure goes more or less in reverse order. The first is the Flight Handover Center to the approach command post, and if the weather is bad and flights are congested there will usually be people who designate a waiting guide. Around the time when you hear the sound of the airplanes stretching, the crew is handed over to the command post at the yard to receive landing instructions, followed by a back and forth dialogue with the ground command. and check the station doors before parked safely and on schedule.

The terms do change when leaving the US, but almost everywhere the basic process is the same.

Transatlantic flights are often unregulated via radar, but they must follow specific routes. These flight paths, some of which are also known as tracks, are made up of points of latitude and longitude connected to each other, with a point that identifies the gateway position at either end where you transition into and away from the normal air traffic control environment. Flights are sequenced based on speed and time. At each predetermined latitude / longitude point, the flight must report the location to the control div legally responsible there. The person you are communicating with may be thousands of miles away. Pilots report by voice over high frequency (HF) radio waves, or automatically over satellite data links, and include the exact passage time, altitude, fuel remaining, and time projected. ant to the next point.

English is the common language of the civil aviation industry, and air traffic controllers and pilots are required to speak it worldwide. But depending on the country, they may also use the local language. In Brazil, for example, you will hear both English and Portuguese

Nha on radio; air traffic control spoke in English with foreign crews and in Portuguese with Brazilian crews. The same goes for France, Spain, Russia, and many other countries.

When I flew from Seattle to San Diego, I observed the flight progress on the monitor mounted on the back of the seat. The plane kept flying zigzag, not going in a straight line. Why so?

Although satellite GPS is ubiquitous, the US airspace system is still a ground-based system, so winding routes are still common. Planes travel in point-to-point guides oriented around decades-old guided radio phases, known as the microwave omnidirectional radio (VOR).²¹), or follow a series of landmarks in very long and often circular spaces. The crew uses GPS to determine the equivalent of the VOR, creating virtual landmarks instead of converting to tangible radio phases, but basically the two ways are one. The FAA's heavily advertised (but under-funded) NextGen project was intended to streamline and modernize all of these processes, but it is a long term project that has only just begun.

²¹. Short for Very High-Frequency Omnidirectional Range.

Meanwhile, if you've ever heard the air-to-ground communication through the aircraft's infotainment system (see cockpit overheard section, page 189), then you've probably wondered when you hear the controls air traffic directions for flights to all kinds of strange and bizarre locations. You will hear: "United 626, go ZAPPY." Or, “Southwest 1407, go straight to WOPPO.” Just look at the navigation chart to see the entire United States - and indeed the rest of the world - covered with tens of thousands of landmarks in space bearing the five nicknames.

This strange letter. ZAPPY and WOPPO are made by me, but I bet they exist somewhere. Most landmark names are random, but sometimes they are placed to imply some underlying cultural or geographical feature. SCROD is a transatlantic landmark off the coast of Labrador²², not far from OYSTR, PRAWN, CRABB²³. Not far from where I live is a location named BOSOX²⁴(think baseball). And many other examples like that. God knows what's going on underneath BLOWN, BAABY, and LAYED, a trio of locations west of Virginia and Pennsylvania.

²². One of Canada's main seafood producing regions.

²³. Scrod, oyster, prawn, crab translated as cod, oyster, shrimp, and crab respectively.

²⁴. This writing resembles the Boston Red Sox, a professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Flights between the US and Europe always travel north, above northeastern Canada and close to Iceland. I guess do so to stay as close to land as possible in case of an emergency?

Nothing related to an emergency situation. Simply because it is the shortest distance.

When flying between continents, planes follow what's called "great circle," judged by the curved surface of the earth. These routes are completely meaningless if you look at a traditional flat map because when the earth was squashed from a natural circular shape to a horizontal plane it was distorted because the latitude cells were already. is stretched. (It depends on the layout - which cartographers call "slides" - that the level

the distortion can be very ludicrous. Children grow up to believe that Greenland is ten times larger than its actual area, thanks to the absurdly skewed near-to-the-wrong size of the commonly used Mercator projection.) A nearby globe will clearly see the logic of large arcs. When measured by a string, it can be clearly seen that the shortest distance from New York to Hong Kong for example is not going west as shown on the map, but going straight north to the North Pole and then straight down. southern. In other words, head-round.

That is an extreme example, but this principle applies to many long-haul flights, and that's why passengers flying between the US and Europe find themselves not only flying high but also on high high latitude - past Newfoundland, Labrador, and sometimes even icy Greenland. Flying over the Pacific is similar: a flight from Los Angeles to Beijing will pass through the Aleutian Islands²⁵ and the easternmost regions of Russia.

²⁵. A chain of volcanic islands stretching 1,900 km west from the peninsula of Alaska, USA to Kamchatka peninsula, Russia.

One night at Kennedy airport, I gave what I thought was the correct guide to a group of Muslims kneeling on the floor searching for Mecca.²⁶. I have a feeling they are actually heading towards the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut, so I suggested to them that the prayer rug should be adjusted to a few degrees to the southeast. I should have learned more because the most efficient route from New York to Mecca is not southeast but northeast. Heading steadily towards a place thousands of miles away, many Muslims are very good at it. To head towards Kaaba²⁷ deities in Mecca, they use qibla, is

shortest distance to Mecca from where they are praying

- a great arc of Islam. My Muslim friends at Kennedy Airport were looking for their qibla, only to find it

see the bluntness²⁸ of a traveling pilot who can only think in planes when he should think in a curve.

²⁶. The holy city, the holiest spiritual center of Islam, belongs to Saudi Arabia. Every day, from before sunrise to after sunset, Muslims must pray to Mecca five times.

²⁷. The Kaaba ("cube") is a gilded black rectangular building located in the center of Islam's holiest mosque, the Al-Masjid Al-Haram in Mecca.

²⁸. Here the author plays the word: quibble is homophones with quibla.

I was curious about the three-letter airport codes. Many codes make no sense.

These three-letter abbreviations are attributed to IATA²⁹fabricate. It is the International Air Transport Association, the international trade and advocacy group for the aviation industry. (There is also a four-letter version issued by ICAO³⁰, the United Nations civil aviation branch, enforce, but they are used only for navigation and for technical purposes.) If these acronyms are not as obvious as the BOS is Boston or BRU Brussels is also relatively intuitive, like LHR of London Heathrow or KIX of Kansai International Airport, Osaka. Many airport codes appear to be impromptu but are actually named after the old airport names. MCO is derived from McCoy Field, the original name of Orlando International Airport. Chicago O'Hare's airport code ORD is a tribute to the old name Orchard Field. Some yard codes

Another bay is geographically related or is a tribute to someone, including very odd names. In Rio de Janeiro, your plane will land at Galeão airport, on Governor's Island / Ilha do Governador, hence the airport code is GIG. In Maui, OGG is an airport code commemorating Bertram Hogg (with a mute H), native of Hawaii and a pioneer of the aviation industry in the Pacific.

²⁹. Abbreviation for International Air Transport Association.

³⁰. Abbreviation for International Civil Aviation Organization

• In one of those times when the United States became too strict, a campaign was launched in 2002 to change the airport code in Sioux City, Iowa from SUX to something less obnoxious. The campaign failed and the letters, along with a pleasantly mischievous appeal, were held back. The Finns don't mind HEL is their capital, and people

Syria also has no problem with DAM^{thirty first}. I'm not sure about Japanese profanity so I don't know what this country thinks about FUK, the airport code Fukuoka. However, to be on the safe side, if you ever follow the FUK-DAM-HEL route please avoid saying these acronyms when checking in.

^{thirty first}. The capital of Finland is Helsinki, and the capital of Syria is Damascus.

4.

FLIGHT TO LIVE

The horrors and wonders of life in the air

SEATS RIGHT: FLAT FAN, POLYESTER FABRICS, AND OTHER AWARDS

Boston, 1991

• Oh reach the starter latch, turn on the engine on the left. It was a hot morning and there was no outside air so we had to turn the propellers on. On the road

plastic of Logan Airport in July, the tiny 99 Beech turned into a sauna, and passengers wouldn't be pleased if the crew collapsed from heatstroke.

Mid-summer flights to Nantucket^firstis the most terrible. The flights were always full of passengers, and the passengers on the way to the island were irritable and hot-tempered. Today we carry a maximum payload, with 15 passengers - all from upmarket Boston suburbs, dressed exactly the same with reflective pilot goggles, straw hats, and Tevas² - and a wicker luggage cellar from Crate & Barrel³. After a few minutes of packing up your carry-on baggage and dusting any unhappy beings caught in the crossbeams of the plane's wings in the middle compartment, it's time to get sweaty and warm up. "Come on," I said. In my hand was a torn checklist

crushed, soaked with sweat. The latch was turned on, and we immediately heard the gritty hum of the turbines. The large propeller begins to spin, and a small white needle indicates the fuel flow rate. But 20 seconds later the problem began. The engine does not start. Great. I let go of the switch, and everything stopped. We wait for a set amount of time so the starter doesn't overheat, repeat the checklist, and then try again. The results are still the same. The motor is rotating but not running. I noticed what was missing was the click of the igniters. For some reason they don't catch fire.

^first. A small, isolated island in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. This is a popular summer destination.

². The brand name sandals is very popular.

³. A chain of more than 170 retail stores for home appliances, interior, exterior, and decorative items.

"Kathy," I whispered, "check if any of the breakers went down?" I can feel the gazes on me. The first row of passenger seats was only inches from us, and there was no curtain separating the cockpit from the passenger compartment. “Ignition set, left?

As a tiny blonde, Kathy was my co-pilot and was something like the celebrity of the whole district. She is one of the few people I know who, after so many efforts, has changed her extraordinary career from flight attendant to pilot. She worked as a flight attendant at Delta before giving up her peanuts - and most of her salary - in exchange for propeller planes. I wondered if this was what she had been hoping for: taking orders in a stifling 30-year-old machine not much bigger than her car?

Kathy reports that the circuit breakers are safe, gliding her hands over the control panel as though she were gliding over a grainy wallpaper seam. She moved her hand toward the backup radio, her eyebrows forming a question mark. I nodded, she crept into the frequency. "Maintenance team, this is the 804, are you guys there?" We'll have to wait for the mechanic to take ten minutes, while the temperature inside the plane is already 106 degrees Fahrenheit (41 degrees Celsius). A propeller turbine engine is essentially a jet engine. Combustible gas drives turbines; turbines rotate the compressor and propeller propeller. The burned part is the piece we are missing.

After passing a very disgraceful message to troubled passengers who were checking the time of the ferry, I noticed a woman sitting right behind me with a giant wicker beach bag balance on thighs. We don't know why we let it go. I told her, "Sorry, you need to fold that bag. Can't leave it on your lap when taking off. ”

She said, "Take off?" Then she paused, lowered her pilot's glasses and cleared her throat. "Maybe you should see if you can start this damn plane and worry about my luggage."

As she glared at me with arched lips, her glasses reflected the suffering face of a very hot and very disappointed young pilot - who had just passed his 24th birthday often found it difficult. The hardest part of our profession is against the urge to take it for granted. I restrained myself and forced a smile, a kind of disdainful smirk. I refrained myself not on behalf of Northwest Airlink, but because I worked for them, I was just struggling in the summer heat like a furnace, I refrained myself to act on behalf of a 12-year-old that I am not.

long before, with the biggest dream of life was to someday wear the badges and the role of an airline pilot. To fulfill that dream would mean suffering insults from one or two bad passengers, if so that's the price I will pay.

✰✰✰

Although I only have a faint memory of the day when I first flew solo in a small plane, I can remember the exact details of my first day as an airline pilot. It was October 21, 1990 - this date immediately became immortal under the yellow luminous ink in my travel log. Despite the ridiculously low salary I would get, I couldn't be happier. That big day included a car ride to Sears at 9:30 a.m., an hour before my request to show up for the flight, because I had lost my tie in time. (And then there was the salesperson's face when I told him "black" and "polyester, not silk.") Then, under a heavy cloudy sky just before noon, I would departing on a prestigious route from Manchester,

The flight has no flight attendants, so I have to close the cabin door. As I do this on the morning of inauguration, I turn the doorknob to latch on as if trained, deftly and nimble with just one smooth motion - while swiping three knuckles of my right finger at the head. the screw is loose, self-cuts. On the way to the runway, my fingers are wrapped in a bloody smelly towel. It is a bizarre and unbelievable coincidence that the first flight of my life landed at Logan International Airport. Pilots

airlines, especially those who are new to the profession, are migrants, frequently moving from one city to another on the orders to increase their long service years. It really is very rare to be assigned to the same airport where you grew up. And I say "where you grew up" in a sense that only an airplane madman would understand. That afternoon in 1990, as I flew over the Tobin Bridge and on the way down to the 15R runway, I squinted at the parking lot and observatory that I had been standing many years ago, holding binoculars and notebooks, recording registration numbers of flights about to land.

Our company is an emerging regional carrier, called Northeast Express, and we fly on behalf of Northwest Airlines, sharing the same flight code as them and the same paint color. (Northeast, Northwest, sometimes confuses some passengers). The brand was growing so fast back then, but it was operated so austerity that we didn't even have a uniform. We were given leftovers from old Bar Harbor Airlines. The owner of the company, Mr. Caruso, was also the owner of Bar Harbor, so I assume he has an entire garage full of leftovers. Bar Harbor was a legendary commuter airline company in the local New England region before being acquired by Lorenzo's Continental firm. I still remember when I was a kid in the late 70s,

Twelve years later, I was given a classic Bar Harbor suit

- battleship gray wool, filthy and spun at the elbows and knees. The lining of the vest is fastened with tape pins, looks

as if a squirrel had eaten a lapel. Some poor Bar Habor co-pilot had worn the suit, tearing his pocket and shoulders covered with fuel oil. I am sure it has never been laundered. Neither did the hardware — the outputl badge on the hat and the badges — were faded old things inherited from Bar Harbor. As we stood next to our newly recruited colleagues in new (old) clothes for group photos, we looked like crew members stepping out of a Bulgarian cargo plane on the apron in Entebbe.⁴.

⁴. Uganda's largest international airport.

These uniforms were given to us by a man named Harvey. Tall and bald, Harvey is the type to speak very quickly and with suspicion, wearing heavy round glasses and holding a long, unlit cigar. When explaining proper laundry techniques and recommending vinegar to smear pot from his shoulder, his cigar rolls back and forth, swaying like a counterbalance, always perfectly balanced with the angle of his head. mine. "Always wear hats," Harvey instructed, eyes bulging. "You guys have some babysitters too, that will scare the passengers!" He smiled, revealing root beer-colored teeth⁵.

⁵. Brown soft drink with main ingredient made from the roots or bark of the tree.

One winter day in 91, Harvey posted an excited announcement stating that he would be changing his uniform. We'll exchange a gray suit that looks like a car repair shop's uniform for brand-new ones - very cool navy blue with gold stripes. We will also have new hardware; Bar Harbor's eerie-looking eagle with a biplane paw that once appeared on Göering or Himmler's hat.⁶ were removed.

According to Harvey, the new outfit is designed to maintain the company's image (which actually has no image), "conforms to the Northwest identity." On the surface this makes sense since we are operating under their first name and using their paint color, but the truth is that even if we wear a banana green jumpsuit, Northwest Airlines doesn't. mind. It was just a way for Harvey to cover our eyes with blue wool and to sell some clothes.

⁶. Hermann Göering and Heinrich Himmler: two leading members of the Nazi regime.

My first aircraft was the Beechcraft BE-99, otherwise known as the Beech 99, or for short, the "99." It was just like the Bar Harbor planes I had seen in the Revere skies in fifth grade. This is a profoundly sad or profound emotion, depending on how you look at it. Some of the 99s are exactly the same old ones, still with the BH registered tail painted near the tail of the aircraft. Unpressurized and slow, this plane is a ridiculously outdated machine still operated by a stingy airline that eventually suffers a tragic fate. Passengers at Logan airport often show up by the plane in a red bus twice as large as it is. Originally expecting a 757, they were dropped off at the feet of a fifteen-seater aircraft built in 1968. I shoved the tissue into the cockpit window frame to stop the rain and the businessmen stepped on the plane while cursing the travel agent. They sat there, seething in anger, refusing to buckle up and screaming in the cockpit.

“Let's go! What are you guys doing? " "I am preparing to declare the balance and the load, sir." “Just flying to damn Newark! What the hell is a declaration for? "

Something like that. But hey, this is my dream job, so I'm just ashamed. Besides, 12 thousand dollars a year is still more than the salary I earned as a flight instructor.

Aside from my salary just enough to buy groceries and pay for auto insurance, this job also gave me a sense of being associated with Northwest Airlines on behalf of. Our 25 propeller planes, like the Northwest 747 and DC-10s, are all painted bright gray and red. Alas, solidarity is all that - later, when the paychecks start to be returned - but at that point I kept borrowing their reputations. When girls ask me which airline I fly for, I will say "Northwest", which is also flustered honestly.

My second aircraft was the Fairchild Metroliner, a more sophisticated 19-seater aircraft. It was a thin, long-propeller plane that looked like a dragonfly, famous for its cramping and unpleasant characteristics. At Fairchild down San Antonio, engineers had to tackle a challenge: getting 19 passengers on board and making them as uncomfortable as possible. Answer: have them sit horizontally in a tube 1.8 meters in diameter. Attached to it a pair of the loudest turbine engines ever produced were the Garrett TPE-331 engines, and then designed for real sound insulation through the speakers. It costs only 2.5 million dollars per plane. (Somewhere, a retired Fairchild engineer is feeling very offended. His life is worth it.)

As the captain of this monster machine, my mission is not only to transport passengers to the safe destination, but also to hide in humiliation at the endlessly flowing insults and ridicule. : "Can this thing really fly?" and

"Hey, who did you offend?"

The answer to the first question is somewhat. The Metro is equipped with a pair of flying wings for minimal operation and a steering wheel is in need of a "decorative only" sign. Admittedly, it was lethargic and difficult to land when the wind blew from the side.

Like the 99, the Metro is so small that there is no cockpit door, thus allowing the 19 steering wheelers in the back seat to be glued to the equipment more than we do. One pilot that I could not name, faked a document cover to tease these prying eyes. On the front cover, with oversized letter stickers, he arranged the phrase FLIGHT INSTRUCTIONS, stowed it neatly on the floor so that the front row of seats could be seen. During the flight, he picked it up and flipped the pages, bursting out cheerful - or harsh laughter. Another pilot played the trick by dangling a pair of velvet red dice to the auxiliary compass overhead. This made the passenger giggle, point, patted his shoulder, and send a letter to the FAA.

The cockpit view would be even more entertaining if, as it did from time to time, someone stuck a photo of a magazine onto the radar screen. Our radar unit is located in the center of the console and can be seen from the rear of the plane, looking like a miniature TV screen. At the end of a rotation, the pilots will cut a ridiculous photo from a newspaper or magazine and stick it to a blank screen, leaving it to the next crew.

Next up is the De Havilland Dash-8. The Dash is a boxy 37-seat propeller-shaped aircraft and is the largest airplane I ever have

hands in each hand. A brand new one of this kind costs 20 million dollars, and even has a flight attendant. The company has only 13 pilots senior enough to hold the position of captain. I am the 13th person. I took my test flight on 7 July 1993, about a month after my 26th birthday. For the rest of that summer, I called every morning. Some hands planner to get more flight time⁷. Driving the Dash was a turning point. It was an actual aircraft, a "large civilian aircraft" that the Metro or 99 would never be classified in the same class, and among all the airplanes I ever piloted, big or small, it's still the one I love the most.

⁷. Pilots' flight hours is a condition to be considered as a captain of the aircraft.

I only drove the Dash for a short time, and Northeast Express lasted for only a year. Things went downhill in the spring of 94. Dissatisfied with our level of reliability, Northwest refused to renew the contract. In May we went out of business, and a month later our firm completely collapsed. The end came on a Monday. I remember that day as well as the first flight with a bloody knuckle in New Hampshire four years earlier. No, this is not the demise of Eastern or Braniff or Pan Am, and I am only 27 years old, my career is spreading ahead. But it was still heartbreaking, the sight of the police car surrounding our planes, the flight attendants sobbing, and the staff tossing suitcases in a pile on the parking lot. So, both the beginning and the end of my first aviation job are so emotional and unforgettable, albeit in two different ways. But I don't need to experience such an end.

Please explain the terms captain, first officer, pilot, and co-pilot. How are they different?

All modern aircraft are flown by a two-man crew consisting of a captain and a co-pilot. The co-pilot is often referred to as a co-pilot - this is a false term and is misinterpreted. The co-pilot is not an helpful backup or apprentice. The captain didn't say to his subordinates, "Here, son, let's try driving for a minute." The co-pilot is fully qualified to operate the aircraft at all stages of the flight, and the number of takeoffs and landings they make is as good as the captains. Pilots on a flight take turns controlling the plane. If a crew were to fly from New York to Chicago and then to Seattle, the captain would fly the first leg and then the co-pilot would fly the second leg. Pilots who are free of the wheel are still very busy with a long list of chores: communicating, program flight management and navigation systems, read checklists, etc. The captain has the greatest authority over the flight, and the higher salary that comes with it, but sometimes he doesn't is the person who actually rolls up his sleeve to fly an airplane. (He was made the captain because of his seniority; this will be explained more later.)

The captain has four stripes on the sleeves and shoulder blades; The cop has three lines. Outside North America, you will see slightly different uniform designs, sometimes star shapes, crests, or other symbols.

Some older aircraft are still in service, such as the classic 747, which requires a third pilot. This person is the second co-pilot, also known as an astronaut engineer. His workplace, including a wall control panel, was on the right side of the cockpit, behind the first cop. His job is to manage a myriad of onboard systems - electrical and hydro systems

force, fuel, pressurization, and other systems - besides, acting as a backup for the first captain and first mate.

If you are wondering about the navigator it is a position that has ceased to exist on Western-made aircraft since the early 1960s. The last navigator ever known in America was the character Howard Borden. in the old Bob Newhart Show.

Perhaps the most annoying habit of the media is that when they talk about almost any case related to the aviation industry, they also mention "the pilot.⁸. " I cannot understand why after decades of experience, the press cannot make it clear that there are at least two pilots with equal capabilities in the cockpit. Using the term "pilot" is fine, but only use it when you want to share only one of the crew members. When it comes to the "pilot" that the other pilot is misleading and incorrect - not to mention that doing so is rude to cops like me.

⁸. The pilot: a pilot, singular in English.

The flight rules require long-haul flights to have an enhanced crew of three or four. This allows the members to alternate resting. The rules vary slightly from one airline to another, but usually eight to twelve hours long flights will have an additional pilot. All three pilots will be in the cockpit during takeoff and landing, but when they fly by plane they will start swapping places, one by one. As a result, each pilot gets about a third of the rest of his flight time - eat, sleep, watch movies, or relax as much as he wants. Flights longer than 12 hours will have two more pilots, and they take a break in pairs. During a 14-hour flight, two groups of two will work for about seven hours each.

The luxury of crew resting equipment depends on different airlines and each type of aircraft. On large jets such as the 747, 777, or A380, the crew has surprisingly large compartments and bunk beds. They can be arranged upstairs, downstairs, or somewhere in the main compartment. Some are structured into small removable boxes, located downstairs, passing through stairs or ladder. (Question: Where is the captain? Answer: Sleeping in the cargo compartment.) The flight attendants are also allowed to rest during the flight, but their accommodation is not always as comfortable as the pilot's.

Here's a basic but complex question: How do I become a civil aviation pilot?

• In Europe and elsewhere around the world, so-called ab initio programs are increasingly popular, in which airlines select, prepare, and train from scratch. young workers, you can say that. Little or no flight experience is a prerequisite. However, more traditional commercial airlines will not hire pilots who do not have significant experience available. In the US, applicants for major airlines typically have thousands of flight hours (including a slew of FAA certifications and additional ranks) along with an undergraduate degree.

To accumulate that much experience requires pilots to choose between one of two routes: civilian or military. The advantages of the military route are that the government pays the training costs and airlines tend to recruit military pilots with fewer flight hours than pilots coming up from civilian channels. The downside is fierce competition for a place in a limited number of quotas and a mandatory number of years in service. Historically, more than 80% of airline pilots have been

recruited from the armed forces, but that number has dropped to about 50% at major firms. At regional firms, only about 15%.

The civilian path is a hard, long, unpredictable, and extremely expensive journey.

Step one is elementary flight training. At a minimum, you must have an FAA commercial pilot certificate, with equipment and multi-engine ratings. Certificate of Flight Training Practice (CFI⁹Not a bad idea either. The good news is that you can do it one by one, at your own pace, taking lessons at your local flight training school one hour at a time. The downside is that doing so will cost tens of thousands of dollars and require a lot of effort. Alternatively, you can attend one of the many aeronautical schools - Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida is the most popular school in the US - combining elementary training and a bachelor's degree. multiply. This method is faster, more consolidated, and even more expensive.

⁹. Short for 'flight instructor certificate'.

The next step is to accumulate as many flight hours as possible. The commercial pilot certificate issued by the FAA can impress the girls at a party (although I have never used it successfully), but it does not guarantee that the owner of the certificate will having work at an airline - far from that. You still have to accumulate hundreds or even thousands of hours in the route book for the airline to seriously consider your profile. Be prepared to spend at least a few years of flight training, fly planes flying banners, or engage in some other unorthodox way to gain experience - bizarre jobs in the pilot industry without Any job

pay worthy. Once you have reached 1,500 hours, you will study for the Air Transport Pilot (ATP) certification^ten), adding one more certification enhances your competitive advantage.

^ten. Short for 'Airline Transport Pilot'. 11. AAA is the highest level of local baseball leagues in the US. These local baseball leagues have to practice a lot before they can play in professional leagues.

Well, if you don't have a degree at Embry-Riddle, you are expected to have completed your higher education. In the event that this is not an official requirement, airlines still strongly give preference to candidates with at least a four-year degree (however, contrary to popular belief, that degree is not necessarily must be in science, math, or technology related disciplines; many non-civilians have majored in economics, music, literature, and philosophy).

After a while, if you are still resilient enough and have not been escorted to jail for default, you should have a nice, thick travel log and tick all the required boxes. Finally, you are ready to apply for this aviation job.

• I'm on regional airline. Your qualifications are only equal to the AAA level in baseball11. It will take a few more years of hard work for a poor salary before the major airlines consider your application - that's if they're hiring. Chances are, your whole career just stopped at this level. Over the past decades, flying for a regional airline has been seen as a temporary internship, a stepping stone towards a more satisfying career at major airlines. That move was never a sure thing, and it is more and more risky today.

The regional aviation industry has expanded to the point where if you get a position at one of these companies, after all, it is no longer underestimated as a means to an end, but as a a long career.

My career went in this direction:

My parents' ultimate generosity paid for my elementary flight training. Having my parents handled the bills, I started learning to fly in my early 20s, two to three times a week, at a Boston airfield, fast enough to get my commercial pilot's license at the age of 21. (It's easier academically: I got a two-year degree at a local community college, then converted it into a four-year degree through an associate program.) From there, I became a teacher flight training, amassing 1,500 hours on all Piper and Cessna in three years. My turning point came in 1990 when I was accepted as co-pilot on a 15-seat regional turboprop, with a salary of about $ 850 per month (see section Right Seat, page 109).

That airline went bankrupt four years later. I then worked briefly at two other regional airlines before gaining a job as an astronaut engineer (see page 117 and page 167) on a DC-8 cargo plane - the first jetliner. mine. Four years later, I finally got a job at a major passenger airline and hope to continue working here for the rest of my career. By that time I had accumulated about 5,000 flight hours and am 35 years old.

It's a fairly common resume, but most of all, it's the hiring trends - the status of the airline industry and the number of new positions opened due to staff consumption and expansion - that are crucial. plan to see where, when, and whether

Cong can find a job or not. The regional airline segment has the highest employee turnover and replacement rates, while it may take a few years - sometimes a decade or more - to recruit a single new pilot. . Industry-wide application standards are the same: Once you've met the firm's minimum requirements, submit your application and wait by phone. The rest is not in your control. Apart from getting one or two letters of recommendation from the pilots working for the company, there is little you can do to increase your chances of success. Relationships can be useful in the corporate world, but they don't exist in airlines.

Please explain more about flight training. What hardships need to go through to impress airlines?

Once received, the aviation training curriculum for the industry is virtually similar. Whether the pilot is learning to fly a regional plane or a 777, the timing and curriculum structure is almost identical. New pilots will spend a month or more at the airline's training center. The first thing they have to endure is a week-long course called baseline infusion, which we call "basic indoc." This course is not as scary as its name suggests - no one is shaved or forced to do push-ups - but rather boring days spent on administrative paperwork and learning rules and tricks. corporate customs. In addition to filling in insurance declarations, you will spend a lot of time learning about so-called operational specifications (we call them ops-specs.^twelfth), as interesting as their name suggests. Apprentice pilots can call home and seduce their spouses with all they have learned about the required minimum take-off visibility and ceiling height standards when choosing a reserve airport.

^twelfth. Short for 'operations specifications'.

Practical flight training takes approximately three weeks to complete. Which aircraft you are assigned is up to you wish, compare the seniority in class (determined by lottery or date of birth), and what vacancies are available at that time (this will be discussed. continued later in the chapter). Before switching to the full-dynamic simulator, you have to practice in simulated computational cockpit - high-tech miniaturization systems. These machines have full equipment and controls, but have no visual effects and don't actually move. You will familiarize yourself with a variety of aircraft systems, rehearse various emergency and trouble situations, and "practice flying" over and over again using the device.

"Systems" are how pilots call what's inside an airplane - electrical networks, hydraulic and fuel piping systems, the operation of autonomous flying components, etc. Previously, crews had to go through too There is a lengthy training course on systems in a classroom setting, but now there is more emphasis on the self-study process. The company will send you a parcel of books and CDs, and you are expected to have a solid knowledge of the system before you arrive in class. This requires self-discipline and careful categorization of information - a lot.

Next is the emulator systems. You've seen those simulated cockpits on TV - giant paint mixers with horror hydraulic pins. Everyone has heard that these machines are terrifyingly realistic, and you might think that's normal. Please do not. A disaster rehearsal in that "box" is extremely similar in real life. The 3-D images projected on surrounding monitors are not real

most - airport terminal building scenes and landscapes, for example, won't win the CGI competition¹³ But the plane and its systems run just as they do in real life.

¹³. Short for 'computer-generated imagery', visual effects, simulating the real world with computer graphics.

Each session lasts about four hours, excluding the time to prepare and test knowledge at the end of the lesson. It could be a series of "snapshots" in which the simulator cockpit is positioned for different exercises, or it can follow a real-time pattern of flight. in fact, from the arrival gate to the arrival gate, full papers, radio calls, etc. The captains and co-captains trained together will be examined both individually and under the working aluminum. Sitting behind them is a ruthless flight instructor whose mission is to make them as miserable as possible.

I'm just kidding. The flight instructor is a teacher, a coach, and the goal here is not to miss the trainee. Even so, I'd rather be anywhere instead of sitting in an all-wheel-drive simulator. There are many people who want to be pilots and airline enthusiasts willing to sell their families as slaves for the chance to sit for an hour in those damn boxes. (You can actually rent them, but renting them for an hour costs thousands of dollars.) Ironically, that's probably the least I like most in the world. I hate emulators and they hate me too - it's the optimal relationship after all.

While it is rare to fail completely, all pilots will fail some moves. Adding one or two more simulations and repeating certain exercises is normal. The failure rate of the big airlines is quite low - perhaps 1 or 2% - but no one dares to take success for granted. If you fail a test flight, you get a second, all-time chance

course. But if the exam fails the second time, it starts to get annoying. Big firms tend to be pleasant and generous in training. Regional firms are not always so patient, and do not allow emotions and compassion to affect their training environment.

After the final mock test, the pilot is allowed to fly a real plane to perform what we call IOE¹⁴, or "initial operating experience." These are a series of earnings15 flights conducted under the guidance and tutelage of a training captain. There are no heated flights at all; On your first takeoff you have a load of paid passengers sitting behind you.

¹⁴. Abbreviation for initial operating experience 15. Contrary to flights conducted not for income generating purposes, such as moving an aircraft from one airport to another (in response to a flight schedule the next day ), flight demonstration, flight capability test, crew training.

Pilots assigned to international routes also take a short course in long-range navigation. There is also a "theater training" discipline for airports or particularly challenging areas, such as parts of South America or Africa. Commandos are often self-taught, while captains must practice flying in the presence of a training pilot before being allowed to take on their own.

It is done. But actually, no, because pilot training never really stops. Once or twice a year (the frequency depends on your location as well as the programs your airline is approved for) you must return to a training center for refresher study. This is called recurrent training - a ritual

imperative which pushes learning and stress to extreme, in a multi-hour simulated session. If the class goes well, you are allowed to return and continue to pilot.

To make it easy to understand, I will analyze one of my most recent supplementary sessions:

We started by departing from Washington-Dulles. The moment it leaves the ground, boom, the left engine stops running and catches fire. In addition, the flight instructor also set the weather to a minimum for the ILS Type I approach, and asked us to control it manually, not enable automatic flight. Then, when we had a quarter of a mile left before reaching our landing, we were forced to wait because a 747 was mistakenly wandering into our runway. Next scenario: We were at 36,000 feet (10,973 meters) above the Andes when suddenly we had a quick drop in pressure.¹⁶. At sea the solution is pretty obvious, but in this case the high terrain meant we had to follow a pre-programmed escape route and a well-scripted deflector. Lots of work to do. It was followed by two cut-off winds - once at takeoff and once upon landing, a complicated GPS approach, and an engine-damaged takeoff in Quito, Ecuador, again off-road. Mountains require unusual and arduous processes.

¹⁶. Rapid decompression is an uncontrolled drop in pressure in the space that takes place in 0.1-0.5 seconds, causing the lungs to drop more rapidly than inside the drill, potentially damaging the lungs.

And that is only the first day. Practice? Is it correct to use that word here? Probably true, but I cannot imagine that this is what an outfield player would feel

when catching the training ball before the game. At least time passed quickly. And when the training session was over, my relief was only overshadowed by a resurgence of resentment towards those who thought it was easy to fly and modern planes were essentially self-driving ( see Automatic Flight Myths, page 142).

Wait, not done yet. You also have to go through random "linechecks" - periodic spot tests in which you fly in the presence of a training captain - as well as unsuccessful visits. Prior notice of FAA member seats. I love my job, but I don't at all like the sight of flying all the way from Europe to America with an FAA inspector peeking from behind for eight hours taking notes taking no visible comments. in the notebook.

In the end, pilots had to keep up with the ever-changing piles of papers - an administrative storm filled with operating notes, newsletters, and revised flight manuals. Rarely does a day go by without something changing.

Are pilots trained to fly more than one aircraft at a time? Can the pilot flying a 747 be able to fly the 757?

Yes and no; almost not. Although management and training are sometimes cross-qualified, the ranks and profiles are typically only for a particular aircraft type. In some cases the flight certificates of different aircraft models are the same, such as the Airbus A330 / A340 and Boeing 757/767, but these aircraft are designed for dual qualification and are the exception example. Different types of aircraft have great differences, and change from one type to another

requires very long curriculum and simulation training. Right now, I drive the 757 and 767. If you throw me in the cockpit of an Airbus A320, I don't even know how to start the engine.

To switch to piloting a different aircraft or upgrade from a cop to a captain of the same aircraft, pilots must undergo a complete training regime. Even if you have completed training on a certain aircraft in advance, you will still struggle to pass the extensive recertification program.

It is said that the pilot's salary is very high. Is this really true anymore?

You will often hear that pilots make more than $ 200,000 a year. Those are the ones that airlines and academics prefer to use for example in the contract negotiation process. The truth is that only a very small fraction of such high-paying pilots - the soon-to-be retired captains are at the top of the major airline senior ladder. Rarely does a pilot get paid 30, 40, or 60 thousand dollars. Also in the regional firms, there are rarely anyone who earns 20,000.

Among us are also those who live well, but believe me, to be like that is not easy, and in general, this profession is not quite the same anymore. According to the Aviation Pilots Association¹⁷ and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics¹⁸, the average salary of airline pilots in the United States fell 42% between 1977 and 2010. The biggest drop came between 2002 and 2007, when airlines cut salaries by 20% or more. In addition to that, the pension was trimmed and benefits were gone.

¹⁷. Air Line Pilots Association.

¹⁸. US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Starting salaries at major firms are about $ 30,000 per year. Even with an annual raise, it will take eight or ten years to reach a six-figure salary. That is in the case the pilot is lucky enough to reach that level. Most ambitious growers who make it to the big firms have not gone that far and have to work with regional firms that pay significantly lower wages. A novice co-pilot, while flying a regional plane, sometimes makes only $ 19,000 a year. Perennial captains can be paid up to about $ 100,000.

Readers should be wary of sources that mention "average" pilot salaries. Those averages sometimes correspond only to certain areas of the industry - large firms, for example, who counted out about 40% of airline pilots working at regional airlines. They also forgot to explain that the pilot may not be in his 50s to be able to add a captain's mark and earn a respectable income after decades of poor salaries and a one or two layoff. times.

Also ask questions before quotes about hourly wages. It is true that most pilots are paid hourly, but that's by flying hours, not working hours, as most people think. $ 100 per hour sounds a luxury, but this has been calculated to include non-flight dependent tasks: pre-flight planning, downtime between transfer flights, and transit time at hotels. Only part of a typical long mission was in the air. Calculated according to a month, time

Actual recorded flight time may be 80 hours but pilots sometimes have to work 250 hours and be away from home for two weeks or more. This disparity gives rise to the notion that non-civilian workers work much less than regular full-time workers. I once heard a commentator on a radio malicious comment that pilots "only work 70 hours a month." A pilot working 70 hours a month is like a professional soccer player working one hour a week.

How much do you think pilots should be paid? How much is your trip worth? It is a difficult question to answer, and it sets up a trap. Does baseball player deserve to be paid 10 million dollars a year? Or to the contrary, is the teacher or social worker worth $ 24,000? That is, I am making an ethical judgment of a product as determined by the market. Pilots are not being paid the wages they deserve; they are paid at the rate they can reach through collective bargaining and agreement. But for this fun example, let's say you're flying from New York to San Francisco. That airline pays pilots with the money that passengers voluntarily donate. A cup is passed on at the end of each flight. How much is it to you to travel safely from one end of the continent to the other? How much will you put in the cup?

In fact, you're putting in about 12 dollars. If the average of the salaries of the biggest airlines, the captain of a Boeing 767 (the aircraft that represents the route) is paid $ 190 per hour. The plane has 210 seats and the flight lasts six hours. If we divide it up, each chair contributes $ 5.42. A typical flight is about 80% full, meaning each passenger contributes $ 6.78. The captain gets less than seven dollars in your ticket. Cops are okay

about five dollars.

Now let's try to calculate a regional carrier. It depends on the seniority, but usually a captain on a 65-seater plane is paid about $ 95 per hour flight. For a 90-minute flight, you paid him $ 2.74. The co-pilot earns more than a dollar.

It has been said that flying a plane is like making movies, drawing pictures, or playing for a minor league baseball team (or trying your luck by writing a book). The return goes to the lucky, and countless others work hard in suffering for their art. The trick is to reach a seniority number (see next question) as quickly as possible and then pray for the best. Payoffs come later than first, and while risks exist in many industries, the airline industry is particularly unpredictable and less tolerant. Even so, and despite the backward steps I've gone through in my own career, I have to admit that I love my job very much. A bunk bed at a big airline, at least when the ink is still black and people don't fly planes into buildings,

How are pilots assessed for salary increases or promotions? Who and what determines when a vice president becomes captain?

This question and the next few questions require understanding of an airline senority bidding system. In the US and many other countries, all parameters of a pilot's quality of life are determined by seniority, based on the date of employment. Our destiny has almost nothing to do with merit, but is completely related to timing. Experience and skill, with all its vagueness

they are, in fact, meaningless. The new seniority is the currency of determination. Nothing is more important than our "number", as we call it. We dictate our position (captain or co-pilot), aircraft type, flagship city, monthly schedule, holidays, etc. In the end, how we are assigned depends on into our relative position in the team: our number relative to its size; our number in a certain mainstream city; our number in a given aircraft class; numbers, numbers, numbers.

A cop becomes a captain only when vacant, and only when their seniority permits. How talented you are or how kind of a person you are won't help you get to the left seat faster. Even the number of lives you've struggled to save in some emergency situation won't help. Only your numbers make the story.

I should make it clear that not all pilots who are senior enough to rank up to captaincy will choose that path. Switching from a cops to a captain means you are moving from the top of one rank to the bottom of another. Maybe you will get a raise but you are not sure, and when you take into account schedules, places you are likely to fly to, etc., there may be times when you will have a more comfortable lifestyle as you continue to be a deputy. high compared to when switching to low level captain. Therefore, it is not uncommon for co-pilots to have more seniority and experience than many captains.

The seniority system is not so rigid in all countries, but many countries adopt all or part of the US model. And with negligible differences, the flight attendants work in almost exactly the same structure. Thing

This is both fair and unfair, an ultimate insult and an ultimate balancing tool - it's inhumane, crazy, and incredibly important. It matters for the reasons just mentioned, and also because if the pilot is cut off or his company goes bankrupt, the years of accumulated work becomes meaningless. Years of service can never be transferred from one firm to another. Every time a pilot changes firms, he has to start over from the bottom of the list, accepting his salary and probationary benefits, no matter how much experience he has. The slow, long climb road started over again. This is the industry standard, with no exceptions - no exceptions for Chesley Sullenberger (see Miracle on the Hudson River, page 147), for a retired NASA astronaut, or anyone. When pilots of Eastern airlines,

If the airlines fail to do business and have to downsize, the seniority level goes backwards: the captain becomes the vice captain; and low-ranking cops become taxi drivers. In the volatile profit / loss spiral of the airline industry, payroll cuts

- or as we call it on leave - come and go like waves, bringing in thousands of layoffs at the same time. After the terrorist attacks in 2001, more than ten thousand airline pilots in the United States were on leave, including myself. Many people have yet to come back. When this happens, part of an airline's long service list, meaning everyone at the bottom of the list by date of employment, is cut off. If there is a decision to cut 500 pilots, the 501 th person recruited now becomes the crew member with the least seniority - and worries the least. Some pilots are lucky to get in at the right time and have a long, stable career. But it's not uncommon

pilots with scarred résumés because of three or four demotion or layoffs, each lasting several years.

Those on layoffs remain nominal employees, likely to be re-convened when the situation improves or staff attrition guarantees their return. When and if that date does come, that is, in the event that the company giving you leave is still active, then you will be back in order of long service - the first off-pay pilot is the last to return. . How long will it take? My sabbatical period lasted five and a half years.

Pilots can reduce the risk of layoffs by joining the high-paying but less-polished realm of flying cargo planes. If the glare of 4 a.m. doesn't bother your style, then you can include yourself on one of FedEx, UPS, Atlas Air's better long-service lists of better economic downturns, etc. won't be autographed for kids and your circadian clock will turn upside down a bit, but freight cuts are less common.

If you are a young person dreaming of stepping into this crazy industry, be prepared to expect it to happen to you. When it happens, try to relax; That is not the end of the world (yet). Don't join mystical denominations and don't be the life dummies of the company's board members. Don't take the job of carrying unexploded ammunition out of Liberia, and no matter how dark the future, don't sell pilot badges and helmets on eBay. The FBI won't like that, and you'll probably need to use them again.

No one has asked this question but let me nominate that the two best songs about layoffs and unemployment are two songs.

longtime punk rock - "Career Opportunities" by The Clash and "Smithers-Jones" by The Jam. The first, from the band's debut album, was a hoarse exposition of the economic turmoil in Britain in the late 70s. The second, composed by The Jam member Bruce Foxton, tell the story of an English worker coming to work one morning, full of optimism and "punctuality, not wrong a second" to then be called into the office and received the dismissal notice.

“I've some news to tell you

There's no longer a position for you

Sorry Smithers-Jones. ”

(Translated: I have this news to report to you

There's no room for you anymore

Sorry Smithers-Jones. ”)

The song exploded around the word "Jones" in a strong low-note. It also makes me sick and scared, because I understand that feeling.

We are constantly hearing about the risk of a pilot shortage. How serious is this situation really?

The first step is to draw a clear line between the major players and their regional affiliates. New regional carriers are likely to encounter this. The major airlines can choose from the top teams of pilots from regional and military firms, so there will always be an abundance of highly qualified candidates to choose from. Even the manpower drain, activity expansion, or even the imminent wave of retirement that you have heard from time to time, is far from exhausting this candidate pool.

• Regional firms are another story. A career at the regional firm was considered temporary. That is the job that the pilot does before moving to a higher salary position at a more reputable firm, if lucky. This transfer is never guaranteed, but nonetheless it is also the bait for a series of young, talented pilots, and a lot of motivation to gradually level up. That is the story of the old days. The segment of regional firms is now much, much larger than in the past, and big firms are recruiting only in a trickle manner. Many pilots are realizing that a job at a regional airline means a career at a regional firm - with limited returns compared to the amount and effort spent to get there. It was not an easy life, and the salary, as we have seen, is at a level that makes people want to skip class.

A dream pilot will ask: Is it worth spending $ 50,000 or more on elementary flight training, plus college costs, plus the time it takes to accumulate flight hours? enough to be competitive (the number that, under the recent FAA rule I will mention later in the chapter, will increase dramatically) ... just to spend years of hard work on people's salaries. Poor, very lucky to have the opportunity to be transferred to a big company? For many, the answer is no. More and more regional airline pilots have quit their jobs all at once, while the alternative supply is shrinking.

It remains to be seen how much the supply will shrink. A trend can be seen when most regional airlines raise salaries or benefits to levels that appear to be meant to retain or attract pilots. It should also be remembered that pilots are willing to endure for their art, if so to speak. There will always be pilots - maybe too many - happily accepting almost anything just to get this job done. According to the

I, in the near future there will be a lot of experienced pilots looking for jobs, and airlines no matter how big or small can continue to wait for hundreds of resumes for any job. .

Pilots have a schedule like?

There is almost no such thing as a regular schedule. In a month, the pilot had to travel 10 days to record 60 hours of air travel; Another pilot had to be away from home for 20 days, with 90 hours in the air. The disparity is huge because seniority has a huge impact on where and when we fly, and because schedules are so flexible.

Every 30 days, around the middle of the month, we state our wishes for the next month: where to fly, what days to take off, want to avoid any unbearable colleagues, etc. In the end we How is assigned depends on the seniority level. Longtime pilots are given the highest priority; New pilots are assigned what remains. The top-of-the-line pilot can be assigned a 13-day single flight to Asia with 70 hours of paid flight hours; The bottom of the table was sometimes given a series of two or three days of domestic flights scattered throughout the month. If we don't like what's assigned, it can always change. We may convert, cancel, and trade with other pilots, even if it's urgent.

Many believe that pilots are assigned certain destinations and always fly there. One of the funny questions I get often is: "Which route do you fly?" If seniority allows, you can fly back and forth to the same place if that's what you want, but usually nothing is fixed. As I type these lines, my next month's schedule includes trips

flight connections in Las Vegas, Madrid, Los Angeles, and São Paulo, for a total of 76 paid flight hours and 14 days away from home. Not bad, but I'm hoping to drop that Vegas trip in exchange for another better ride ... to see.

Those at the bottom of the table are designated as “on-the-go” who are ready to be present when requested. Reserve pilots have fixed days off and receive a fixed minimum monthly wage, but their working days are completely unpredictable. The pilots must be within a specified radius of the airport - two to twelve hours drive, and can vary from day to day. When a pilot gets sick or gets stuck in Chicago because of a snowstorm, the standby pilot goes to work. Sometimes the phone rings at 2am saying you have to go to Sweden or Brazil - or Omaha or Dallas. One of the challenges of a backup pilot's life is learning how to pack. What to pack in your suitcase when you don't know if your next destination is in the tropics or the ice? (Answer: everything.)

• Most firms and crews are paired for each mission. If I had four different flights this month, I would be flying with four different captains. However, some airlines use a different rationing system in which the captain and co-pilot are paired for the whole month.

And just like there is no regular schedule, there is no such thing as a regular transition time. Overnight periods between domestic flights could be nine or ten hours long. When flying internationally, the minimum is usually 24 hours, but sometimes up to 48 or even 72 hours. I had a long transition waiting time for the full years. For long-haul flights, crews are sometimes allowed to bring a family member (see Travel privileges section, page 156).

Same with the flight attendant. Years of flight attendants can win desirable transitions in Athens or Singapore like a longtime captain. However, there are fewer restrictions on working time and fewer flight attendant protection contract terms than pilots, and flight attendants typically work longer days. Pilots can fly three or four long flights within a month, while flight attendants can fly up to seven flights.

So should it be speculated that the largest aircraft on the longest stretches are piloted by the most experienced and experienced crews? Not always so. One of the deciding factors is your primary airport. Big carriers usually give you six or seven options. Some will be preferred by the pilots over others, and so the years become a relative number. For example, my main city is New York, in my company, this city has the least choice and therefore is the main city but least senior. As a result, I have been able to fly international routes even though my total years of service are low. And not all pilots like to fly internationally even if those routes are paid higher.

Many pilots are placed - or if they use the annoying aeronautical word "residence" - in cities where they live, and will "commute" between the two, in the words of we. More than 50% of the crew members travel like that, both the pilot and the flight attendant. I was one of them. I was based in New York but lived in Boston. While this travel is a privilege that allows crew members to live where they want, this is also a real problem. If you are a regional airline pilot with a salary of $ 30,000 per year and have to support a family, it can be quite difficult to live in expensive megacities like San Francisco or New York. More,

The aircraft and key city to which you are assigned are also constantly changing. The opportunity to travel between the two places prevents employees from having to leave their homes and move after each new assignment.

Traveling between the two places can be very stressful. The crew members are on duty, and company law requires us to make time for spare flights in the event of flight delays. This means leaving home a few hours before the requested show time, or in many cases an entire day. Flight crew members often rent a part-time accommodation called a crash pad so that they stay there before or after a trip if necessary. (The level of decor and hygiene standards of a property will normally be discussed on another occasion.) Other members will rent a hotel room if the price is reasonable.

One way to reduce travel is to register on international routes. The turnaround rates for international flights are usually longer, sometimes up to 10 days or more, and usually you don't fly as much internationally as you do domestic. International pilots sometimes have to travel between two cities two or three times a month, while domestic pilots have to travel five or six times.

My commuting distance is only 40 minutes of flight so it is not inconvenient. However, trips lasting many hours across several time zones are not uncommon. I used to know the pilots had to fly to New York to work from Alaska, the Virgin Islands, and France. Legend has it that once a captain of Eastern Airlines was deployed in Atlanta but lived in New Zealand.

We've heard a lot about pilot exhaustion lately. Is that really a matter of concern, and what can be done to address it?

Exhaustion has long been a serious problem. It has been attributed to a number of airline crashes, including the 1999 crash of American Airlines flight 1420 in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Colgan Flight 3407. Air in 2009. Airlines and the FAA showed intense resistance to tightened regulations on flight times and hours of work, and even minor changes were subjected to by airlines and lobbyists. their objections. It wasn't until December 2011 that the FAA managed to reveal a comprehensive package of changes that, while still not perfect, was a welcome positive step.

In my opinion, the airlines focus too much on long-haul flights. The circadian clock reversal effect caused by a continuous 12 or 14 hour flight is indeed disturbing, but long-haul flight fatigue is relatively easier to manage. Long-haul pilots do not fly as often as other pilots, and these flights carry additional flight crews along with comfortable onboard resting equipment. A more serious problem lies on the other end of the set: short range flight. Regional pilots must fly on exhausting schedules, operating multiple routes into and out of busy airports, often in the worst weather conditions, followed by transition periods. short at the casual motels. I'd rather fly across the ocean for 12 hours straight and then stay for 72 hours at the Marriott¹⁹ Better than getting up at 4:00 in the morning and then flying six legs on a propeller plane, and luckily getting eight hours off at the Holiday Inn Express Hotel.²⁰.

¹⁹. Globally famous luxury hotel chain with 505 hotels.

²⁰. Affordable chain of hotels, with limited services and affordable rates, are available worldwide with more than 2300 hotels.

And not the cockpit time itself poses the toughest challenges. The real annoyance is that the work periods are long and between them are usually short transitions. After a typical working day, a pilot can sometimes only get two hours of flying in the air. It sounds like an easy task, but actually those two hours are the beginning or the end of a 12-hour working period starting at 5am, most of which are spent waiting for the delay and Kill time at the airport terminal.

In the FAA terms, the timeouts between tasks are called "breaks." Before the changes were announced in 2011, a vacation sometimes only lasted nine hours, and the very definition of the word "break" did not take into account things like travel time to and from hotels, eating, etc. Suppose a flight crew completes a mission in Chicago at 9pm and has a new assignment schedule at 5:00 pm the next morning, that means they get eight hours off. But if you subtract the hotel car waiting time, get from the airport to the hotel and vice versa, ask for food, etc. then the eight-hour transition on paper is essentially just six or seven hours. at the hotel.

Eventually this changed. Pilots will now enjoy at least 10 hours of rest between missions, meaning a chance of getting at least eight hours of straight sleep. This clause should have been in place for a long time, but nonetheless it was some of the smartest things the FAA has ever done.

At the same time, I disagree with the argument that high-tech cockpit automation aggravates exhaustion. It is said that the pilot became complacent and sad

bored to the point of escaping from work and in some situations falling asleep, thanks to the light work environment in the modern cockpit. That's a very convincing argument, but I feel that boredom and autopilot are quite unrelated. Or rather, the level of relationship between them is not as close as before. Pilots are extremely busy at times; while at other times there are still stretches. Work comes and goes, often wavering. How long has it been. Boredom was a factor 60 years ago, when planes had primitive automatic flight mechanisms and propellers still spinning on plungers. It will be a influencing factor in any industry where the workload decreases over long periods - such as when flying across the ocean - and when the majority of the work is repetitive, become a habit. I regularly fly eight, nine, or even twelve hours of non-stop flights. I had intended that there would be a certain degree of boredom and had to deal with it. But that is not the fault of the automatic flight mechanism. Honestly, if I had to hold the wheel during the entire flight and concentrate all of my efforts, by the end of the flight I would be five times bored and ten times more exhausted.

There is quite a bit of debate about the level of experience pilots have at regional airlines. How concerned should passengers be?

When I was first admitted as a regional airline pilot in 1990, I accumulated a total of 1,500 flight hours and just received a new ATP certification. At that time, such certification was intermediate or below average. Everything has changed too much. Over the next two decades, the continued growth of the regional aviation segment opened thousands of new pilot positions. To fill these vacancies, the airlines have greatly lowered them

minimum experience and flight time requirements for new pilots. Suddenly, the pilot was recruited for a total flight time of 350 hours, and was then allowed to sit in the co-pilot's seats on sophisticated regional planes.

The short answer is no. Total flight time saved in the route book is not necessarily an accurate measure of skill or performance under pressure conditions. The quality of a pilot is not so easily quantified, and accident records show that short crews are not the only ones at fault. All pilots undergo rigorous aviation training before being allowed to carry passengers, and the largest regional carriers also have state-of-the-art training facilities that are not inferior to any. big, and have adapted their training program to accommodate newcomers who fly.

The full answer is more complicated. I remember when I was a young pilot with 500 hours of flight time and dreamed of being delivered to a regional aircraft. Will I be eligible under the regulations? Sure. But am I the best and safest candidate for this job? Are not. The truth is that there are qualities worth seeing that cannot be seen by such a fledgling pilot. So I think it is fair to say that regional firms have become somewhat less secure. But remember, we are arguing without statistics: less secure doesn't mean unsafe, and this is not a warning not to fly with regional aircraft. However, this is also a remarkable thing.

Lawmakers agree to this, and the rules are getting stricter. Aviation Safety Improvement Act and

Pilot Training²¹Approved by the US House of Representatives in 2009 brought important changes to the training and recruiting practices. The law requires that pilots have an ATP certificate to qualify as a civilian pilot. Achieving ATP requires at least 1,500 flight hours (divided into various categories) and satisfactorily completion of written and practical in-flight exams. In addition, the law will also redefine the ATP certification itself, emphasizing the operating environment of commercial airlines and requiring specialized training for things like cockpit resource management (CRM), crew coordination, etc.

²¹. Airline Safety and Pilot Training Improvement Act.

These changes will make it easier to eliminate pilots who lack the acumen to operate aviation. Progressive people will easily transition from general aviation to the demanding training environments of regional carriers. Training costs will be reduced and the pilot will eventually operate the cockpit safer. At least in theory, this should encourage regional firms to start raising salaries and benefits, because for someone on the way to becoming a pilot, to get an ATP certification he has to invest some. up to six numbers.

As stated in a previous chapter, most regional carriers, even wholly owned ones, are entities completely separate from any major carrier with the same paint color and flight number. They are contractors, have their own groups of employees, training departments, .... With the crew, there is no automatic promotion from a regional carrier to their big-deal partner. A young pilot (or flight attendant) would probably be delighted to fly in a plane with United or Delta paint on the side, but with little text - Connection,

Express - is the essence of the problem. The United Express pilots are not United Airlines pilots, just as the airport terminal cashier is not United Airlines pilots. If he wants to drive a 777 for United, he has to file and hope the best comes, just like anyone else. But there are exceptions such as American Eagle and Compass Airlines, where a limited number of pilots are conditionally transferred, to American and Delta, respectively.

And low-cost airlines like Spirit or Ryanair²²so what? Should we be cautious? And cargo pilot?

²². Ryanair is an Irish low-cost airline with the simplest possible in-flight and ground-based services.

All airlines will brag about their employees are, in a vague way, better than employees at all the other airlines, but as a rule it's unfair to say one thing. Certain pilot class will work for a given airline rank. The leading firms have a huge supply of candidates with more or less similar qualifications to choose from. Even in the most explosive times there are hundreds, if not thousands, of extremely impressive resumes stacked on recruiters' desks. Candidates are not exiled to low-cost firms because of lack of talent; Where you work does not depend on skills but on luck and timing. As for the carriers, companies like FedEx and UPS that offer the highest salaries and benefits in the industry, and many pilots love the anonymity of the freight industry, away from crowds and troubles. Carrying people versus cargo has a certain distinctive mark, but its value

it depends on the ego of each person.

I have rarely seen female civilian pilots. How many female pilots are there, and is there a work culture in the airline industry that doesn't support them?

There's nothing about flying a woman in itself. As a female civilian pilot once said: “Being a pilot or not has nothing to do with physical strength, which is the only advantage of men over women. Anyone who is competent can be trained to be technically proficient, regardless of gender. Yes, but anyone who travels by air clearly sees that the majority of pilots are men, and I don't know what prevents women from getting into the profession more. I guess those are also the reasons, whether fair or not, that prevent them from pursuing professions that are normally reserved for men, and vice versa. Part of the reason may be that military culture over the past several decades still dominates pilot ratings.

Whatever the reason, the industry is no longer dominated by men as it used to be. By the mid-1990s, nearly 3% of the crew members in the US were women - about 3,500 in total, triple the number in 1960. As I was writing these lines, that number had grown to nearly 5%, fluctuating in trends in recruitment and downsizing.

Harassment of female pilots on duty is extremely rare, and long service lists are organized purely based on the date of admission, ensuring fair wages and promotion opportunities. Some of my colleagues are female and their presence on the plane has become so common that during the first meeting at the conference room I barely noticed that I was shaking hands with a woman.

If you are wondering, the Black Space and Aviation Industry²³ statistically, up to 675 African-Americans, including 14 women, currently work for US airlines - less than 1% of the number of about 70,000 airline pilots nationwide.

²³. OBAP - Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals

We have heard that modern commercial jets can essentially fly on their own. Is this real, and does the concept of unmanned remote-controlled drones really exist?

The aviation industry is still full of conspiracy theories and myths. I have heard all of those stories. However, nothing set me on fire more than legends and hype about automatic cockpits - the notion that modern aircraft are computer-controlled, pilots are only present as backup. in case there is a problem. We also heard that in the near future, pilots will be completely disqualified.

For example, in a 2012 Wired article about robotic industry, a reporter said: “A computer brain called an autopilot can drive a 787 without assistance. Help, but it's absurd we would put the pilot in the cockpit to keep an eye on the autopilot, in case of trouble. "

That is probably the most reckless and ludicrous civilian job description I have ever known. Claiming that a 787 or any other civilian aircraft can fly on its own "without assistance" and that the pilot is present to "watch over the autopilot" is not just an exaggeration or speculation. romantic.

That's not just a bit wrong. That is completely wrong. And a venerable tech magazine is so ignorant enough to allow such a statement to be published, which shows how widespread this mythology has been. These assertive statements appear so often in the media that they are taken for granted.

You will notice that the guys who make these bluff are usually journalists or scholars - professors, researchers, etc.

- instead of pilots. Many of them, no matter how smart or how valuable their work is, are not well aware of the everyday realities of commercial pilot work. Sometimes pilots are part of the problem. There was a pilot said: "What, this plane is almost self-flying." We are often our own biggest foe, passionate about machines and, in an attempt to explain complex processes to outsiders, often simplify information. As a result, we paint a caricature of what is what flying an airplane is all about - in the process undercutting the value of our profession.

Essentially, high-tech cockpit devices that assist pilots are like high-tech medical equipment that assist internal and surgical doctors. They greatly enhance their abilities, but do not diminish the experience and skills required to perform at that level of work, and do not turn those experiences and skills into redundancy. An airplane can drive itself just like a modern operating room can perform surgery on its own. Surgeon and author Atul Gawande wrote in a 2011 issue of The New Yorker: “When it comes to advancements in health, people often think of technology. But the competence of doctors is as important as technology. This is true of all professions.

After all, what makes the difference is how well people use technology. ” This is the answer.

At the end of the day what do terms like "automatic" and "autopilot" mean? An autopilot is a tool, along with many other tools a crew can use. You still have to tell it what to do, when, and how. I prefer the phrase autoflight system. It is a set of several different functions that control speed, engine thrust, and horizontal or vertical navigation, together or individually - all of which require the crew to enter commands frequently to may work properly. With the Boeing I am driving, I can set up the automatic altitude or descent process in seven different ways, depending on which way to use it. Media will report on listen-to-be-expert who say “the pilot only pilot by hand for about ninety seconds per flight.

One evening I was sitting in the economy class of a flight, and that flight landed abnormally smooth. A man behind me shouted: "Good job, autopilot!" Maybe funny, but wrong. It was a completely manual landing, like most other ones. Yes, it is true that most aircraft are certified to be able to land automatically - in the pilot's words "autoland." But in reality, it is very rare. Less than 1% of landings are automatic, and to explain how to install and manage one of these types of automatic landings, I would have to waste pages. If it was as easy as pushing a button, I wouldn't have had to practice twice a year in a simulated cockpit or regularly review.

back to the highlighted items in your manual. In many ways, automatic landing is more demanding than manual landing.

Flight is a very organic thing - complex, flexible, ever-changing - in which key decisions are constantly being made. With all the defined methods, checklists, and procedures, the crew has to place hundreds or even thousands of subjective control commands, from avoiding accumulating clouds to solving problems. machines.

I'm talking about meal-like situations that arise every day on a flight, often dealing with so many steps to work saturation. You will be amazed how busy the cockpit can be even in perfectly normal situations - and the autopilot is on.

There's one more thing we've heard from time to time, saying that the automated cockpit has made flying a plane "easier" than before. On the contrary, perhaps it is even more demanding. If you take into account all the operational aspects of modern aviation, from flight planning to navigation and information communication, the amount of knowledge required is much greater than before. It places more emphasis on another skill type but it would be wrong to assume that one skill type is more important than another.

You will certainly ask the question, but what about the proliferation of military drones and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)? Isn't that a harbinger of what's to come? It is very easy to think that way. These machines are sophisticated and have proven their reliability - to a point. The drone is not a commercial cargo plane

hundred people. It has a completely different destiny and operates in a completely different environment - with less damage if something goes wrong. You can't just simply take the drone concept, enlarge it, retrofit a few extra parts, and then use it to carry passengers.

I wanted to see a remote-controlled drone executing a high-speed take-off order because the engine stopped running, followed by brake fire, and evacuated 250 passengers. I wanted to see it fix a problem of compressed air pressure, which required deflection over hilly terrain. I want to see it weather a storm in the middle of the ocean. Or even the simplest of things. On each flight, there are countless unexpected situations, whether large or small, requiring attention and instinctual assessment of the situation of the crew. I cannot imagine solving these problems from the ground thousands of miles away.

And simulating a drone into commercial aviation would require very costly changes to civilian aviation infrastructure, from designing and testing an entire generation of aircraft. newcomer rebuilt air traffic control system. We still have not finalized the idea of ​​an unmanned car, train, or ship; the leap to a commercial jet would be much more difficult and costly of a much larger caliber. And after all those steps, it is still necessary to have people to fly these drones from afar.

I'm not saying this is beyond our capabilities. We can fly civilian drones, just as we can live in cities on the moon or on the seabed. After all, this is not a challenge in terms of technology, but in terms of cost and practicality.

There is still a long way to go - if it does.

I know how what I've written so far has impressed some readers. This conservative guy is defending his industry from the encroachment of technology and inevitable obsolescence; precisely because I am a civilian, my arguments are unbelievable. It depends on what you want to think, but I guarantee that I am neither naive nor dishonest. And I'm not against the development of technology either. What I am against is the stupid technology extrapolation, and the completely distorted description of what I and my colleagues are doing for a living.

• In the front section you have discussed that sometimes the pilot intentionally makes the plane land lightly or not, and the smoothness of the landing is not a valid criterion for the passenger to judge the pilot's skill. So where is the correct measure?

Whether the plane landed lightly accidentally or intentionally, the flight should not be judged solely by the landing process, just as the success of an organ transplant should not be evaluated by the straightness of the transplant. stitching. As for the exact measure, in my opinion there is no. Skill, technique, and knowledge levels are not something a passenger in row 14 can perceive. In the same airline, all pilots are taught the same techniques and will fly the same procedure at roughly similar angles, speeds, and fuel consumption. A certain angle can be abnormally steep, or the landing is a bit clumsy, but that could be the fault of one or more factors. The discomfort of a flight, whether real or perceived,

It is not always due to the outburst of ideas or the lack of ingenuity of the crew members.

What do you think of the heroic image for Captain "Sully" Sullenberger and the so-called Miracle on the Hudson River?

Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger is the captain of the US Airways who flew an Airbus that suddenly lost her engine into the Hudson River on January 15, 2009, after crashing into a flock of Canadian wild geese. Along with most of my colleagues, I have the greatest respect for Captain Sullenberger. But only that: respect. Not a cult or a misunderstanding due to the media hype about what he and his crew had encountered that day. According to the public understanding, Sully has saved everyone on the plane thanks to his nerves of steel and superhuman flying skills. The truth is not that romantic.

One day not long after the accident, I was cutting my hair (what's left of my hair) when Nick, the barber, asked what I do. As usual, any talk about piloting at some point will turn to the Sully-on-the-Hudson genius, and this time it will be no exception. Nick's eyes lit up. He said, "Goodness. How did he land the plane like that? " Nick isn't really waiting for an answer but I'm still answering him. "Just like how he landed 12,000 times before in his career" was my reply. Following the silence, I guess it meant Nick was being silently impressed or thinking "bastard."

I am overstating but to emphasize one thing: the nature of landing in the water is not so difficult. The common sense of water landing is one of the reasons why pilots don't practice the situation in a simulated cockpit.

Another reason is that having to land in the water will always be a side effect of something more serious on the inside - fire, multiple engines shut down, or some other catastrophic failure. That was the crux of the emergency, not the landing it caused.

And the public discussion has never fully recognized the role of luck. Specifically, here is the time and place where the problem occurred. As it happened, it was daytime and the weather was pretty good; Just to the left of Sullenberger is a 12-mile (19.31 km) runway in the image of a calm river, within a swim distance of the largest city in the country and their lifeboats. If the collision with the geese was in another part of the city, at a lower altitude (beyond the gliding distance down the Hudson River), or in more extreme weather conditions, the result would be a catastrophic catastrophe, and no matter how skilled or technical you can do anything. Sullenberger, very worthy of her praise, was very rightly but humbly acknowledging the points I made above. People brushed off, consider it as false modesty or a humble predestined relationship when in fact he is only being honest. He also highlighted the undisclosed role of the first mate, Jeffrey Skiles. On the plane there are two pilots, and both have to participate in dealing with the situation.

What they have done is not easy, and there is no guarantee of successful results. But they did what they had to do, what they were trained to do, and what perhaps any other crew would do in that situation. And do not forget the flight attendants, their actions are equally commendable. Thus, the passengers on that flight were saved not by any miracle or hero, but by less splendid effects.

In descending order (forgive this pun) it is:

luck, professionalism, skill, and technology.

There is no harm in celebrating the unexpected survival of 155 people, but the words like "hero" and "miracle" should not be let loose indiscriminately. A miracle is a result that cannot be properly explained. And to me a hero is someone who accepts a great personal sacrifice, to the point and to include casualties, for the benefit of others. I don't see the hero here; but see how to handle it professionally in an emergency situation.

And if you're going to generously give praise to people like Sullenberger, who survived the incident, then there are other people like him you've never heard of, mostly because of planes. Don't they plunge right next to the media capital of the world? For example, Captain Brian Witcher and the crew on United Airlines Flight 854, a 767 that flew from Buenos Aires to Miami in April 2004. They were not informed by the media but what they had to deal with. it's almost unthinkable: complete power failure in the Andes at three in the morning. In the dark, with the cockpit devices decommissioned or on the verge of decommissioning, including all radios and navigation equipment, they made a successful emergency landing in the Bogotá region of Colombia surrounded by a hill. Mountain.

Or the difficult situation that Captain Barry Gottshall and American Eagle deputy lieutenant Wesley Greene faced three months earlier. Immediately after takeoff from Bangor, Maine, their Embraer regional plane suffered a bizarre system failure that caused the aircraft's tail-wheel to completely deflect from its original position. . They struggled to keep control

check and return to Bangor during deteriorating weather conditions. Visibility drops to a mile and when the 37-seater approaches the landing threshold, Gottshall must maintain its pitch completely deviated.

- that is, the rudder is turned to a stop and remains there - so that the aircraft does not rotate into the woods.

If you like the hero image then look at Gottshall and Greene, the emergency situations they face must have been very harsh. These are situations that require a purely instinctive response. Is the tail wheel completely deflected? There is no checklist prepared for that situation.

We sometimes hear about pilots whose alcohol levels exceed their permitted levels while on the job. Shouldn't the customer community be concerned?

Rarely does it bother me more than the drunken pilot's jokes. Those remarks were always in the kind of tense, joking, but not really joking: “Hey, the drunk pilots we've heard about, what is it? I mean, I know you guys aren't joking around up there, but ... yes or no? "

Yes, that did happen. Over the years, a small number of pilots have been arrested for failing to pass a blood alcohol test or a breath alcohol meter. The most infamous in March 1990, Northwest Airlines' entire three-man crew was arrested after landing in Minneapolis. All three of them spent the previous transition night at a bar in Fargo, North Dakota, drinking 19 glasses of rum mixed with Coca-Cola, and then found that blood alcohol levels were far above legal levels. Cases of this type lead to a long stereotypical impression of the civilian: a divorcee with a rebellious wife, a crush on alcohol, eyes full of crow's feet, a squeaky whiskey of whiskey, a bottle always in the suitcase. pocket-sized wine. It is very easy to make people rush to make a conclusion

Comment. For every pilot caught in the act, there must be ten other people over the limit, right?

Are not. Trust me, this is not something pilots dare to ignore. Why would they do that, when their careers could end at any time? Violators will have their pilot's certificate revoked immediately, and possibly imprisonment. My personal observations are not a scientific sample but I have been a commercial pilot since 1990 and have never been in the cockpit with a pilot I know or suspect of being drunk. . I understand and think that passengers worry about everything, whether it makes sense or not. But as a rule, this is not one of them.

The FAA's blood alcohol limit for airline pilots is 0.04%, and we are prohibited from consuming alcohol within eight hours of arriving at work. Pilots must also adhere to the airline's own policies, which are often more stricter. In addition, we have to undergo random and random alcohol and drug tests. In other countries, the regulations are even stricter. In the UK, the legal limit is 20 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood. That is four times lower than the level for motorists in the UK, and equates to a blood alcohol concentration of about 0.02%.

After all, it must be said that alcoholism exists in the airline industry just like it exists in every other profession. Worthy of its name, airlines and pilot federations such as the Aviation Pilots Association (ALPA²⁴) has been very successful with proactive counseling programs, encouraging pilots to seek treatment. Not long ago, I flew with a colleague who joined the HIMS program, an intervention and treatment system organized by ALPA and FAA.

function. HIMS (named after a 1970 research project called Human Intervention Motivation Study) has treated more than 4,000 pilots, with only 10 to 12. % of participants relapse. This program removed alcohol from the cockpit and has helped prevent this problem from developing in the background as it would potentially become a safety issue.

²⁴. Abbreviation for Air Line Pilots Association.

Can a pilot who has been fined for drinking alcohol be allowed to fly again? One of the most inspiring stories is the story of Northwest captain Lyle Prouse, one of three people arrested one morning in 1990 in Minnesota. Prouse, an alcoholic whose parents died from the illness, became a fine example of punishment and redemption. He spent 16 months in federal prison and then, after a series of unusual and unbelievable events, returned to the cockpit on his 60th birthday and retired after serving as captain. 747. After being released from prison, Prouse was required to regain all of her FAA certificates and ratings. Once exhausted, he asked a friend to lend his flight time in a single-engine training plane. Northwest's CEO at the time was John Dasburg, he himself grew up in an alcoholic family, took notice of Prouse's efforts and openly lobbyed for his return. You'll see Prouse appear in interviews from time to time, and you'll certainly be impressed by the way he bluntly accepts his responsibility without resorting to sobbing sobs and self-blame like most public apologies. they are different. Unexpectedly, one will always have to conclude that this once imprisoned inmate deserves a second chance. In the year And you will certainly be impressed by how he bluntly accepted his responsibility without resorting to sobbing and self-blame like most public apologies. Unexpectedly, one will always have to conclude that this once imprisoned inmate deserves a second chance. In the year And you will certainly be impressed by how he bluntly accepted his responsibility without resorting to sobbing and self-blame like most public apologies. Unexpectedly, one will always have to conclude that this once imprisoned inmate deserves a second chance. In the year

2001, he was one of those who was ordered by President Bill Clinton to special amnesty.

What are the complicated watches pilots always wear? And what's in those heavy black documents?

The watch's purpose is to see the time. The pilot is required to have a watch to prepare the aircraft's clocks, but the clocks simply have enough hour, minute, and second hands. If any pilot prefers to wear a more flashy or expensive watch, that's his or her job. My 15 year old Swiss Army still does its job well.

In those black leather briefcases was a library of leather navigation folders containing several hundred pages of maps, charts, access options, airport maps, and other technical secrets. . There is also the Airplanes Operating Instructions (AOM)²⁵) and General Operating Instructions (GOM²⁶). There's also a set of microphones, backup checklists, quick lookup cards, flashlights, and loads of personal junk (mine are Post-it note pad, pens, earplugs, and a bunch of wet tissue packs to wipe dust, food debris, and irritability from radio consoles and other surfaces in the cockpit that are often dirty).

²⁵. Aircraft Operating Manual.

²⁶. Abbreviation for General Operations Manual.

Gradually these briefcases will appear less and less as airlines switch to digital versions of these thick guidebooks. It was called the "undocumented cockpit" and appeared. JetBlue pilot used

laptops have been around for a few years now, and United, Delta, and Southwest are turning to tablet platforms. Depending on the needs and preferences of each airline, each pilot can be assigned an iPad or another device, or sometimes attach and wire the two devices in the cockpit. The cockpit will never be completely undocumented, but pilots will easily and quickly access the digitalized hard copy documents.

They are also quick and easy to adjust. Switching to electronic documentation is the best idea I've seen in years, mainly because it frees the pilot from the tedious and barbaric work of updating and modifying books. His instructions that in ordinary situations mean having to revise hundreds of times per month. Just the smallest addition to the takeoff and reach, boom, the other 18 pages must be removed. The most cumbersome series of adjustments can take two hours or more to complete. Common side effects are dizziness, trauma from repetitive activity, and suicide.

The bottom line is that airlines and lawmakers are bound to cram data and information into flight crews. There should have been a relatively thin set of useful information, but what we got were thousands of dumb pages. They will still be there, but at least we don't need to carry them around. United said its transition to iPad will save 16 million sheets of paper per year. I believe that. It will also save time, fuel, and osteopathic treatments.

What happens when the cop spills the Coke Zero onto the new iPad or drops it to the floor? There is nothing to panic: that is

references not manuals required to follow otherwise will die. There will always be at least two pieces of equipment in the cockpit, and what really plays a key role will also have a hard copy.

What are the flight supplies for the crew? Do pilots sometimes bring food from home?

This varies by airline, but usually pilots and flight attendants are provided with food on all flights longer than five hours. Some airlines have separate crew menus, but usually the crew is served with the same food as first class or business class (yes, all dishes, including soups, salads, and desserts ). At our company, the pilot is given a menu - the one given to the passenger - before departure, and then we write down what we like. Passengers are given priority for the main course; we eat what's left. Considering the possibility of food poisoning, pilots are encouraged to eat different main courses, but this is not a mandatory rule. In fact, the meal depends on your preferences and what is left to eat.

With domestic flights and short distances, pilots have to take care of themselves. Be it pretzel, peanut, food from the food court, or anything you can bring with you.

And at night ... it's time for instant noodles! If you don't understand why instant noodles are a must-carry, as important as clean socks and underwear, you've never been in the situation of a starving pilot checking into a motel in the middle of the night. and wait eight hours until the next mission. There are other foods that are tastier and healthier, but instant noodles are cheap, never spoil, and cook very quickly. Just give me a nice pack of Trader Joe noodles and an in-room coffeemaker, I'll show you how

cook a whole party:

Instructions: (1) Clean the filter of the coffee machine; (2) Break the noodles into the jar; (3) Fill the coffee machine with water and turn it on; (4) When the jar is full, wait three minutes, then add the seasoning and enjoy. Don't spill the water, and always make sure the filter is clean as the coffee-flavored instant noodles are even worse than Cream Sauce Chicken. Make sure to bring a plastic fork instead of the outputl one that TSA has lost, otherwise you will have to eat or use two pencils as chopsticks. To add a foreign flavor - meaning a little less pathetic - add a little Guyana chili sauce.

The late Mamofuku Ando invented a noodle dish during postwar food shortages in Japan. The company he founded, Nissin Food Products, used to invent a special vacuum-packed noodle for the Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi who carried an American space shuttle. There is no word on whether Nissin has any plans to target airline personnel, but I can attest to the product's adaptability to heavenly life.

Everyone has been told stories of an infatuated time in the airline industry, when flight attendants and pilots partyed wildly and slept together. Now that the flight attendant seems more dignified and the pilot has the same mysticism as the taxi driver, it is difficult, or even disgusting, to imagine that such things are going on. What about the truth?

If that continued, I would have been left out of the fun for a long time. Other than this, I don't know what to say. In general, perhaps the situation is not that different from any other work environment, even for regional firms.

then it can be faster and more relaxed, which is to say more youthful.

In 2003, two Southwest Airlines pilots were fired for getting naked while flying. I don't know exactly how it was going and probably shouldn't be judging because things like this are easily distorted when taken out of context (sorry puns). But so far no, I have never stripped my clothes in flight.

Actually, subtract once. It was the summer of 1995, when a hot wave melted even bitumen that swept across the Midwestern United States. I was deployed in Chicago as cop in a 64-seater ATR-72. The European-made ATR is a refined aircraft, but of all those lines and pipes they forget the air-conditioning system. The tiny air vents like eyeballs blew thin air. That day, an array of super-hot mist covered O'Hare airport, pushing the temperature to 107 degrees Fahrenheit (41.7 degrees C). I was sitting in the cockpit, completing all the pre-flight checks and waiting for the captain. I was so hot that I could barely move. So I took off my shirt and tie. The pilot shirt is made mainly of polyester fabric, so it is very inconvenient even in perfect weather conditions. Adding hot air is like wearing armor. I take off my shoes.

The captain appeared - a large, slow-moving man, being

• 50s that I have never met. He entered the cockpit and found his co-pilot, sweaty and dehydrated, with only a pair of pants and a set of Sony-branded headphones on. At first he said nothing. Then he sat down, turned to me and calmly asked, "Will you get dressed again?"

I told him I would get dressed again as soon as the temperature was on the machine

the flight drops below 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees C), if then I still haven't passed out. I volunteered to wear a T-shirt but the only thing I could find in my carry-on luggage was a Hüsker Dü Metal Circus tour promotion shirt - a 1983 artifact, greasy and silver. The color was exactly like the flaming Chicago sky.

"All right," said the captain. "As long as you don't let anyone see you." So I stayed naked and flew the plane all the way to Lansing and then back.

It is rumored that pilots enjoy some pretty good secret travel benefits.

Right. However, in addition to being in a jumpseat seat²⁷In the cockpit, our privileges were no different than those of any other airline employee. Usually all full-time employees and close family members²⁸(including fiancé today) can fly for free on all flights in the airline's network if space is available, and can be upgraded to first or business class if seats are available. Sometimes there is a small fee per sector of the flight and an annual fee; This varies from company to company.

²⁷. Jump seats are folding seats, intended for people who are not currently in flight operations, including crew members during take-off and landing, sometimes for novice pilots, members. Crew members do their best when traveling between airports. They are also commonly used by the relatives of pilots and flight attendants.

²⁸. Usually includes parents, spouses, siblings, descendants, and cousins. Depending on each definition, it can also cover

includes other family members.

In addition, mutual carrier agreements allow one airline's employees, along with a valid family member, to fly at another airline for only a so called "ZED fare." ZED stands for Zonal Employee Discount - a new simplified system that replaces the complex inter-agency discount system that has been in place for decades. .

Again, all tickets are only available if space is available on the plane, and the ZED fare does not allow an upgrade to the class. Anyway, this is still a great bargain. If I want to fly from Bangkok to Seoul using Korean Air or Thai Airways, there will be around $ 70 one way fare, including taxes and fees. Flying from New York to Amsterdam by KLM is around $ 100.

If you want to bring a friend or reward a babysitter who endures your rebellious children, most airlines offer a limited number of discounted airline tickets per year, commonly known as It is a "buddy pass," which can be given to friends, distant relatives, the woman whose cat has been run over by you, etc. The best friend ticket is considerably more expensive than the one for the staff. But it is possible to refund and change the reservation at no charge.

Those rates for commuting for that benefit are generally counted as "nonrevving." The original word "nonrev" stands for nonrevenue, meaning not profitable, because the airline gets little or no income from these trips. Passengers of this type are often recognizable at the boarding gates: they are sweaty, anxious, and sometimes crying, waiting to be called on at the last minute. They are never guaranteed to be there

chair; careful planning, patience, and flexibility is imperative. Every employee has one or a few nightmare stories about getting stuck somewhere. If you want, I can tell you about the three days I feigned at Charles de Gaulle airport, tried and failed again, failed to get to Cairo, and the non-refundable cross-Egypt trip I had to bargain.

Contrary to popular belief, employees are never given priority first and business class seats to eligible passengers. I'm sorry if you can't upgrade your seat class on a given flight; The cumulative mileage redemption rules and the like are complicated and not always fair. Please submit a complaint to the fare department, marketing, or frequent flyer assistance. All I can assure you is that there is never a blocking of high-end staff seats. If one of us is in that seat it means that the seat is not for an upgrade and if we don't take that seat it is empty.

Although we enjoy such generous benefits, you will be surprised to learn that pilots are generally not particularly risky travelers. I don't mean to slander my fellow companions, but the fact that most of the pilots are not interested in traveling never stops making me upset. Pilots are now required to have a passport but not always before; Yet I have known a lot of colleagues who do not have passports and have no interest in going abroad. I remember having a pilot

it was revealed in a chat about the travel plan that he did not know where the capital of Spain is. The other staff too: I remember a young flight attendant who refused to leave a hotel room during transition in Quebec - Canada! - for fear of what she said was "culture shock."

I guess this attitude exists in any industry, but it's frustrating in the airline industry. Moving is our job. Our customers save years on once-in-a-lifetime adventures, yet our airline staff allow them to travel to the most remote countries in the world at great cost. small or completely free, contempt for the idea of ​​global travel.

Perhaps not surprising, however. After all, this is the way of thinking of millions of Americans. I understand that most people don't have the time or money to travel around the world, but still have to admit the fact that so many Americans, it's shameful and even stubborn, no. had no interest in the world outside his own borders and fortunately had only a little bit of geographic understanding. A National Geographic survey revealed that 85% of the US population between the ages of 18 and 24 could not locate Afghanistan or Iraq on a map. 69% could not find the UK, and 33% of young Americans believe that the US population is between 1 and 2 billion.

Is it healthy that the people of a country, which possesses so much power both economically and militarily, are so blind, if not xenophobic? Will global influence and global ignorance ultimately be mutually exclusive? Are we risking our lives and ignoring the whole thing

the rest of the world?

When I go abroad, I am often impressed by the small number of American tourists compared to other countries. I have been on a group tour several times - in Botswana, Egypt - and out of 10 or 15, I am the only American. On the other hand, British, Dutch, Australian, German, Israeli, and Japanese are everywhere, along with an increasing number of visitors from China and India. Countries like Australia, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands have relatively small populations, yet their per capita tourist numbers are much larger than the US. Admittedly, expats tend to get more vacation time than we do, and our country's geography, which is blocked by two large oceans, makes it difficult to travel long distances. In essence, however, this is not a matter of practicality but of the very different lumbering of America.

If I had the right to decide, all American students, instead of receiving tuition aid, would have to enlist for at least one semester abroad. And certain international means of transportation, such as buying a hybrid car²⁹, should be tax deductible.

²⁹. The "hybrid" vehicle uses two types of dynamics, a traditional internal combustion engine and one or more electric motors.

In general, I don't want to idealize or romanticize travel. There is so much beauty and magnificence around the world to be admired, indeed. But more than that is despair, poverty, pollution, and corruption. Travel can be very relaxing, educational, and many other good things. And it can also make us discouraged and choke our hearts. Wherever you go you will see right before your eyes how the world is breaking down; How devastated the planet has been, how cheap life is, and that there is nothing you can do with a good conscience.

is not. That's enough for you to rush home and throw your passport in the toilet and press the drain.

There are people who say the world is correcting itself. Following that line of thinking, we have come close to a huge, unshakable push towards social and ecological justice. We are going in this direction because behind us is a wall of forgetting man-made, so we have to. I'm not sure I agree with this view. I have had to see with my own eyes so much the filth, the crowds, and the despair of this world.

The downside of tourism: see the more unhappy realities on this planet. Of course, this is a matter of perspective, and one can easily argue that experiencing the world

• the worst is actually worth more than enjoying its brighter, more friendly sides. Perhaps if there were a sufficient number of people taking the time to witness and deal with these harsh realities, it would be different.

In any case, the first step is getting out. I took my passport out of the toilet, figuratively. I will keep going, and so should you.

Room: On The Road With Patrick Smith

Transfer breaks for international flight crews are typically in four or five-star buildings in the heart of the city center. I have fond memories of long vacations in places like Cairo, Amman, Cape Town, and Budapest. At the JW Marriott Hotel in Mexico City, the guest room has exposed beams, Aztec wares, and has floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the mountain views. When you're in the right room, in the right city, and in the right time, your transition suddenly turns

into a free miniature vacation.

• Brussels, Belgium, when I was driving a cargo plane, I spent hundreds of nights at the Hilton Hotel on Waterloo Avenue, where the towel is lined up in a lotus shape and someone who comes to fix your toilet is also in a suit. We were arranged on the 23rd floor of the entire leadership room, with a pine marble bathroom with room, and a view of the majestic Palace of Justice, always covered with scaffolding. Once, I arrived at a particularly late hotel and the rooms we used to book were full, and I was set up in a sumptuous apartment with a six-person hot tub and an eight-seater dining table. I am sure that the walls in that room could tell stories about famous figures and NATO commanders. And then, every morning there is a garden party: a full American breakfast with a great omelet.

• The Hilton Hotel in Brussels, I'm finally starting to feel like, well, a civilian pilot, in the style of captain Pan Am or like some '60s movies. Even as time transitions lasting up to 60 hours, I still felt uneasy leaving the room. Why do I have to go sightseeing when I can lie in my room, put on my Hilton bathrobe, watch BBC channel and sneak out of the lounge when it's time for cocktails?

But that is a waste. Brussels is an ideal starting point for a day trip. So, after finishing my omelette, I forced myself out of the Hilton Hotel and set out for Antwerp, Paris, Luxembourg, or Liege. Even Antwerp's splendid train station itself is worth a ride. Other excursions include the moody city of Ghent (home to St. Bavo Cathedral

and the famous van Eyck trilogy), Brugge overflowing with tourists, or a three-hour trip to Amsterdam.

Belgium's skies are always gray, and one of my late-night habits in Brussels is walking in the mist before dusk - banging through the Royal Palace and along the park; turn left to the majestic Grand-Place central square; up to the Botanic Gardens and the shabby northern station of Gare du Nord; and then along Waterloo. I gave up these late night walks after the night my arm was stabbed by a drunk wanderer. My elbow still hurts from the bruise caused by falling back and hitting the curb while avoiding the other person because he slashed my hand with a ballpoint pen. The most stressful part was not a fall or even a trip to a Belgian hospital by police car at dawn, but having to call a sick ad that could not fly back, this dilemma was costly. thousands of dollars are not specified. The flight was delayed for a full day to wait for my replacement, he had to fly over from the US and take legal rest before he returned. I spent two days in my room recovering, watching movies while my hands were dripping with gauze and dripping orange anesthetic gel. Days after my injury, more intriguing rumors about the attack began to spread among colleagues. There are versions like I was beaten unconscious by a Moroccan bandit, or chased and bruised by a man leading a brothel. I do not make any denial. some more intriguing rumors about the attack began to spread among colleagues. There are versions like I was beaten unconscious by a Moroccan bandit, or chased and bruised by a man leading a brothel. I do not make any denial. some more intriguing rumors about the attack began to spread among colleagues. There are versions like I was beaten unconscious by a Moroccan bandit, or chased and bruised by a man leading a brothel. I do not make any denial.

So the luxury (and danger) of commercial flying is not entirely fabricated; the problem is knowing where to find them.

Most likely they will not be found in a Howard Johnson chain hotel in Pensacola, Florida. Domestic rooms are much less luxurious. Vacation

Transitions to a Hilton or Westin hotel in the heart of the city are not uncommon, but so is a nine-hour night stay at the exact same motel right next to the runway. Even fewer hours of rest are arranged in decent places, but it's the fast and cheap kind of hotel everywhere; You've seen office building belts and their overfertilized lawns everywhere in America: Fairfield, Courtyard, Hampton. I know these places quite well, mostly from my time as a regional airline pilot. My collection of ballpoint pens is like a drive along the I-95 highway³⁰ or a roundabout around O'Hare airport, and I possess a disturbing ability to tell the difference between the Holiday Inn Express hotel and the La Quinta hotel even when blindfolded and just smelling the lounge. hotel.

³⁰. Interstate 95 is the main federal highway on the East Coast of the United States, running parallel to the Atlantic coast, mainly serving areas from Florida to New England, passing through 15 states in America.

Rest and resuscitation, not local tourist sites, is the focus when time is limited. So, in the minds of pilots and flight attendants, some destinations are not just cities, but rooms, beds, and amenities. I have a reputation for consistently registering my rooms according to three criteria: the elegance of the wallpaper, the ruggedness of the mattress, and the accessibility of food. According to most people, 48 hours in New York City are much happier than 11 hours in Dallas. But wait until you have to stay a few consecutive nights at the Five Towns Motor Inn near Kennedy Airport. When the Hyatt hotel

• San Francisco airport stopped allowing the crew to enter the lounge to eat free appetizers, I started to sign up for Miami because of free breakfast at the AmeriSuites hotel

with pancakes and fresh fruit.

We all have the sinful desire to have fun at a five-star high-rise hotel, but there are so many unpleasant things.

• Even the prettiest and most expensive hotel rooms: erratic air conditioning, door frames breaking toes, "workspace" inconvenient like hell. And one more thing: cardboard brochures. Today, every hotel amenities from room service to Wi-Fi must be searched through one or a few annoying ads displayed throughout the room. Business cards, signs, menus, and brochures of all kinds - they were everywhere: on the drawers, in the closet, on pillows, in the bathroom. I wouldn't mind if these trash were placed in discreet places but usually they would get in the way, which I would hate to spend five minutes after a exhausting night flight to collect the decorations. This devil then threw it into a corner where they should have belonged.

Food and room service are another completely different topic. Be careful never to dine at the Pullman hotel in Dakar, Senegal, where the cranky pool waitress may eventually bring you the pizza you ordered 90 minutes ago, still real menu in the room offers delicious dishes like

• Chef's Salad

• Grilled Beef With Italian Corn Porridge

• Money Of The Day

• Paving Stone of Thiof and Aromatic Virgin Sauce

The last one sounds like the summary of a fiction chapter. Instead head to La Layal, a great Lebanese-style hotel up the street, where after passing Garlic Taste and Minced Meat Eaters the menu will be both easy to understand and delicious. .

I shouldn't complain as most of my rooms are paid for by the company. Yes, airlines all pay for cabin crew accommodation while they're on duty. We are only subject to incurred charges. Hourly per diem is also included in the employee's monthly salary to cover meals. If you see a pilot or flight attendant paying for a room, chances are that they are on duty and at the beginning or end of their personal trip. If the mission started early in the morning or ended late at night, resulting in insufficient time to fly away or return, we had to take care of ourselves. Some flight crew members stay together in bunk bed rooms; others rented rooms near the airport (see section on commuting to work and bunk beds for resting, page 135).

Pilots spend at least a third of his life on the fly and sleep in hotel rooms. This is a disoriented, sometimes depressing, lifestyle. But for those who love to travel, this can also be exciting and enlightening - even a little bohemian.

5.

ON THE ROAD

Life in the aircraft cabin

DRAW IN THE NORTH: WHERE IN THE WEST COAST

Brussels, Belgium, 1998

NOvernight at Brussels airport, three men in copper The olive green outfit stood next to me at a checkpoint. They were tall, imposing, with cinnamon skin - thick brown stuff

of the Horns of Africa^first. Their clothes were tough, clean, with golden stripes on their shoulder blades and pointed hats. The captain looked at his watch, and we could almost hear the sound of his hard aluminum sleeve tense like a rope.

^first. Horn of Africa: Northeast Africa, also known as the Somali peninsula, is the easternmost part of Africa including the countries of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia.

I'm tired and sweaty, and my suitcase wheels need oil. The three men nodded without smiling. They are pilots, but are as impressive as soldiers of an elite military unit defending a corrupt leader in the country. I secretly read the tag on their baggage and found that they were in the Ethiopian Airlines crew. I saw it a few minutes ago

their plane on a misty apron, with an old emblem reminiscent of an old era: three colored lines braided into a bolt of lightning, split by the lion Nubia². Above the plane's tail, the letters EAL overlap with three diagonal lines of red, yellow and green.

². Nubia: an area located along the Nile, now the north of Sudan and the south of Egypt.

I feel my heart beating fast. "Nice flight?" I asked the captain.

He replied in perfect English. "Yes, not too bad, thanks."

"Where did you guys fly from?" "Addis", he answered. Of course he's talking about Addis Ababa, the mysterious capital of Ethiopia. "Through Bahrain," he added. He spoke softly, without color, but his voice was dark and commanding. He was taller than 180cm, feeling like he looked down at me from a great distance, judging me with the serious attention he gave to a burst of light coming out of the Addis mist.

I looked at the first lieutenant and suddenly realized that maybe he was not over 25 years old, this was completely overshadowed by his stern uniform. I remember being at that age and can't decide whether his looks deride or impress me.

• to what extent. This young man somehow rose from the war-ravaged impoverished East African highlands to this unprecedented status, bringing his flag to places like Rome, Moscow and Beijing. In his passenger compartment, Ethiopian merchants, Russian bankers and Eritrean warriors plunge into utopian regions of the world.

Next time, if someone asks me why I choose to be a pilot, I will stutter and look away wishing I could blurt out the images of these three men. I already knew that I would try to write these lines in the future, and then I wouldn't be able to find the right words to write.

✰✰✰

But first of all, let's talk about the Monster, which needs to be pre-checked and prepared for the eight-hour flight to New York.

From the truck I saw his inky black silhouette on the cargo cushion in the dark darkness of Zaventem³. "Monster" is a dear name that I give to the Douglas DC-8. Actually, it's not so dear because I think that huge pile of outputl would somehow kill me. It was my first airplane. And it's really huge. But it's also old-fashioned. The major airlines stopped using this type of aircraft two decades ago, and the cockpit looked like that of a (old) Soviet submarine during WWII. Its forerunner was the DC-7 using a piston engine, whose tail-wheel was covered with not aluminum or other high-tech alloy, but fabric.

³. Zaventem: a suburb of Brussels, Belgium. Brussels Airport is located here.

I am the second co-pilot - the flight engineer - and pre-flight inspection is my sole responsibility. I work at my own pace. Most people can get the DC-8 ready in less than an hour, even for an international flight. I extended that time to 90 minutes. For me, pre-flight preparation has, or should be, pure Zen

there.

Start from the cockpit by looking through the route book, ensuring full signature certifications and taking note of what has been delayed recently. It was followed by a highly concentrated inspection of the panel from start to finish. All transmitters, tools, light bulbs and electric boxes must be checked. Then I sat at the engineer console - my own office - with a marker in one hand and coffee cup in the other, reading through the 20-page flight plan, highlighting important parts: Flight time, flight route, weather, airport reserve, fuel usage plan.

Once that was done, I equipped and arranged the kitchen compartment. Taking third place on this ship means food preparation and garbage collection. I don't mind. Cooking jobs were a pleasant break from the heavy duties in the front part of the plane.

This is followed by an outside inspection, otherwise known as "walking around." I walked around the plane clockwise, observing the lights, sensors, doors, and the surface of the steering wheel. It was a gentle, almost peaceful walk - except for the cockpit.

Observing the actuators of a real plane makes you open your eyes - it shows a remarkable level of human engineering. We take easy and safe flying in the air at 600 miles per hour (965.6 km / h) for granted, but it becomes more complicated and difficult to look at the chamber. From a distance, the plane is a smooth, streamlined thing. Underneath it is a network of cables, pumps, and pipes. I check the wheels, check the brakes, check the hydraulic system. I also had to look up at the ropes, the pipes, the braces bigger than the trunk, shake my head, wondering who built this terrifying machine, and who was.

stupid enough to trust it completely.

Back in the cockpit, it was my duty to supervise and direct the refueling. This morning we will need 121,000 pounds (54,885 kilograms) of fuel. This equates to 18,000 gallons (68,137 liters), divided into eight wing and fuselage tanks. During flight, to maintain balance and maintain engine load requires switching tanks alternately. The tank valves are opened and closed by a row of eight manually controlled vertical levers, located in the lower part of the control area of ​​the second cop. While operating the tanks, I look like a madman trying to play a set of pipes.

Working with lots of fuel means working with lots of numbers. They don't require a lot of computation - I just need to do additions, subtractions, halves, or quadruple - but they are large, ever-changing numbers. This is bad news for me because I'm math ignorant. This is funny because I often see people dreaming of being pilots worried that their below average math skills might hold them back on the ground. There is still speculation that before each flight, pilots are required to prove that they have Newtonian intelligence - the remains are probably from the time when the pilots were still using the Logarithmic scale.⁴and astronomical orientation. “Hi Uncle Patrick, I'm in 11th grade and want to become a pilot, but my B is minus⁵the honor class pre-calculus worried me. What should I do? "

⁴. Logarithmic scale: consists of two divisions that show the logarithm of the numbers. The user can calculate by sliding two rulers to the correct position and then reading the results. The Logarithmic scale became the primary tool for scientists and engineers in the 1950s

and 1960, until the computer was invented, made the Logarithmic measure obsolete.

⁵. The American scale uses the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, where A is the highest, F is the lowest.

These people didn't realize that I only dreamed of a B minus elementary algebra. My scores for attending St. John's Foundation. John, class 1984, kind of like this: B, B, B, A, D. Math is just that for me. I can only vaguely define pre-calculus, and I get a sweaty sweat when I have to exchange a dollar for change or calculate points when playing Boggle.⁶without the help of electronic devices. Nothing to worry about: I have never scored less than 97% on any of the FAA writing tests, and my checkbook does not show any math related accidents.

⁶. Boggle: a puzzle game. Dice with letters printed on each side are placed in a square grid. Players compete to find words made up of letters in horizontal, vertical or diagonal rows.

Pilots only have to deal with elementary calculations. Regular landings require quick calculation. Modern flight management systems automatically set the landing parameters, but with older planes the pilot has to calculate the data in his mind: “Let's see, if we need to get down to 14,000 feet (4,267 meters) within 60 miles, assuming a landing speed of 2,000 feet / min (610 meters / min) and a ground speed of 320 knots (592.6 km / h) then at the time Should we start to land? " This is like a question that calculates the high road length on the SAT⁷, and the air traffic command and the entire crew think you know the answer. Therefore, the most essential metric in the DC-8 was not equipped by the designers at Douglas -

The people who built this hideous airship in the mid-1950s, when humans were still humans, could fly while dividing many numbers. I'm talking about the $ 6.95 computer I bought from CVS - the only flying part that is more important than a checklist for an emergency, an icebreaker guide, or instant noodles. My computer is marked with a Day-Glo luminous orange paper label, affixed with vital fear that if I don't, I'll forget to take it with me.

⁷. SAT: college entrance exam in the US, assessing candidates' writing, critical reading and math skills.

Refueling takes about half an hour. And now, outside there was the roar of a forklift diesel engine. On the plane, there was a mess of plastic-wrapped and boxed packages, about 50 tons tonight, waiting to be loaded onto the plane. Glancing through an empty cargo compartment is like looking at a long, deserted highway tunnel. I sometimes go back there, imagining what that space would look like 20 or 30 years ago when this plane was carrying Air Canada passengers. In 1982, I flew to Jamaica with my family in an Air Canada DC-8. Maybe this one should also.

Time to eat some pasta and the boring cucumber sandwiches from the snack tray. Just me and the Monster. Pre-flight check-in further enhanced our mixed love and hate relationship. The DC-8 spoke to me. I will kill you, it said, if you don't take care of me carefully.

So I take good care of it.

✰✰✰

In the drizzling darkness of dawn, we took off.

This is a flight over eight hours to New York. Compared to today, it is nothing, but still a long time. We are somewhere south of Iceland. I took off my shoes. The foil trays contained pieces of chicken gnawed on the floor, along with a trash bag full of discarded paper cups and Coke Light cans.

A flight across the ocean causes a special feeling of loneliness. You are alone out here; There is no radar or conventional air traffic control. Flights are separated by time and speed, sequentially by longitude and latitude. We report our locations hundreds, even thousands of miles away, quietly over satellite links - or in the case of the old DC-8 over high radio waves. frequency. There was something in the crack and echoes of the high-frequency waves further emphasized a sense of distance and isolation.

"Gander, Gander," the captain called. “DHL is not a single location. The year eight degrees north latitude, three zero west longitude at the time zero five zero. Flying altitude is three or six⁸. Expected year eight degrees north latitude, four zero west longitude at zero year four six. Next: year six north latitude, year zero west longitude. Mach tithe eight years. Fuel seven two decimal six. Over." Those are the current position, the estimated landing time for the next reported position, speed, altitude, and amount of fuel remaining. A few seconds later there was an announcement receiving information from a remote control agent in remote Newfoundland, his voice faint as if he were answering from the moon.

⁸. This is the plane's altitude calculated on a separate system based on the atmospheric pressure in the area the plane is passing through, not necessarily the plane's actual altitude above ground or level.

sea ​​water, and measured in units of 100 feet. So here, the plane is at 36,000 feet (10.97 km).

For the second cop, the period when the plane has reached the cruising height is quite a leisurely time. There was nothing much to do and the thought began to wander - sometimes in the wrong direction, leading to a plan full of sentimental karma:

In an interview many years ago, writer Kurt Vonnegut was asked how he wanted to die. "In a plane crash on top of Kilimanjaro" was Vonnegut's reply. Come to think of it, there is something poetic, almost romantic in it - a plane lost its way in the mist, plunging into the majestic cliffs of Tanzania.

Everyone must think of the crashes as a cold, harsh victory of gravity over a heavy machine, but for our flying enthusiasts, there's something in there. almost paranormal. Not some Hollywood stuff - explosions, fireballs or something like that. It is something more profound, requiring context and time frame - catastrophe as an event in history, shrouded in drama and mystery. And not all plane crashes cause this special feeling. The Lockerbie case⁹and Tenerife does (see Tenerife's story, page 263); ValuJet services in Everglades^tennot. Sometimes there is mysticism, sometimes there is nothing but the tragedy of a violent death.

⁹. In 1988, plane 103 of Pan Am company exploded on the journey from Frankfurt (Germany) to Detroit (USA). All 243 passengers and 16 crew members were killed. Investigation agency has found fragments of the appointment device

time to detonate the bomb. So far, the real culprit behind this is still in question.

^ten. In 1996, ValuJet flight 592, departing from Miami, Florida, USA, crashed into Everglades National Park shortly after takeoff, killing 110 people. The reason is that its contractor Saber Tech has illegally installed a few overdue oxygen tanks on the aircraft's cargo hold. The oxygen cylinders operate automatically when the plane takes off, meet high temperatures and cause fire.

That's what I contemplate as I fly across the Atlantic. And I think the very second category - the blandest and least mysterious kind of accident - is waiting for us, if we suddenly fall to the dead underwater. Three people on a cargo plane? Luckily, we will be mentioned by the media. It was bleak.

The most terrible nightmare of a pilot, apart from the airline bankruptcy or the caterer forgetting a meal for the flight crew, is a fire on the plane. This old aircraft has two identical fire alarm systems for the 46 meter long cargo compartment. They are dials with telegraph signs with yellow bulbs on the bottom. Warning usage of light bulbs: KEY IN STOCK. Of course this is a plane built in the Eisenhower era¹¹Still more hair, so what more could you expect? Thanks for the warning, but there's nothing that can actually be used to put out a fire when it detects a fire. (The DC-8 series aircraft have gone extinct and been out of the passenger aircraft industry for a long time so don't worry.) There are bigger, brighter lights in the cockpit, but the square yellow lights themselves look. That seemingly harmless is something I never want to see lit up, especially when the nearest land, two hours ago

Lake, which is the frozen coast of Greenland again.

¹¹. Dwight D. Eisenhower: 34th US President, in power from 1953 to 1961.

However, I also know that in the rear compartment we are about 9,000 kilograms of fresh flowers from Belgium and the Netherlands on our way to America. The scent of flowers fills the cockpit like baby powder. And when thousands of kilograms of flowers are piled up, they tend to emit tiny clouds of dust - tiny particles of dust that fill the air like a cloud of fragrant powder. Meanwhile, the DC-9's outdated fire alarm systems are designed not to detect fire or hot gas but smoke molecules, and are easy to fake alarms due to dust or powder.

So I was staring at the warning lights, waiting for them to announce a fire as I passed in the middle of the ocean. Or just dust only? And I also thought about the fact that after every plane crash at sea, people would take a boat out and scatter flowers on the waves, and if something happened that caused us to fall into a grave on the seabed, we would. save everyone from the hassle of being able to literally spread a carpet of tulips all the way to Labrador.

To make things even worse, the captain even took out a chart and began to play with the GPS. "Ha!" he shouted. Out of boredom and curiosity, he found the exact coordinates of the sinking of the Titanic, about 40,000 feet (12,192 meters) below us (including 28,000 feet (8,534 meters) of air and 12,000 feet (3,658 meters) of water. sea), just slightly to the south from our itinerary.

"Please," I said. "Don't do things like that." I sit in front of my console - a wall of plates

numbers and switches, all arranged in a perfect sequence, with the general purpose of nothing more than not being mistaken about the machine. Green light, red light, blue light, round windows with white clock hands fluttering. Modern aircraft are all LED or liquid crystal, and these are old-fashioned analog gauges, giving the cockpit the appearance of a German submarine. Dizzyingly old and complicated for just that reason. I step back and acknowledge it all, with the criticism and admiration an artist has for my painting.

In that moment, I was a brilliant conductor of order technology. But if only you see what lurks behind that dashboard. The maintenance staff sometimes took off the panels, and below that was hell: bundles of steel wires and cables were tied up wildly, like a pasta factory that had just exploded. Most people have never seen the guts of an airplane - gigantic complex of machinery joining together and defrauding gravity. When you look into the eyes of a pretty girl - the surface beauty of irises in the sun, do you think of the nerves behind it? And in her brain, what is she thinking? It was like a fire secretly smoldering behind me, among the flowers. And when it's too late: SMOKE IN STOCK.

No, not this time. A few hours later, we were safe at Kennedy airport.

And doesn't it always end like this? Amazingly the whole machine worked, all the wires and the pumps and the parts moving - almost in no way, almost all the time. But it really does work, and that's the reason for these demonic thoughts. It is the imagination of

we, not our technology, can fail.

Another lesson here is that we all have some degree of fear of flying and that is perfectly normal. Especially if you are a pilot. Our job is essentially contingency management. The passenger asked the pilot if we were ever scared; Have we thought of the possibility that our next flight could be our last flight? I have always found this to be both a profound and a foolish question. "Yes," I replied. “Of course I'm scared. I've always been scared. ” You can get that answer with a joking wink but it's somewhat true nonetheless. Fire, explosion, outdated physics - all the horrible perspectives the simulation instructors delighted to offer - all right there, curled up behind the console, The wait is turned out in a pleasant but never perfect game of chance. And the pilot's role is to bounce back. Are pilots afraid of plane crashes? Yes of course. Honestly, they must be afraid. That is their job. It is in their best interest, as well as yours.

Why are there some nasty rules about window screens, upright chair backs, dining tables, and cabin lights during takeoff and landings?

Have to latch the dining table so that in the event of a collision or sudden deceleration, you will not stab yourself into it. In addition, doing so also creates space to get into a path during evacuation. The back-up rule is for easier access to the aisle and also to keep your div in the safest position. It minimizes neck injuries and prevents you from "submarining" under seat belts. Please fasten your seat belt in position

low and tight. Nothing is more annoying than hearing a passenger reasoning that if the plane crashes, they will surely die, so what is the seat belt for? Most plane crashes have survivors, and something as simple as a seat belt is properly fitted or not can make the difference between minor injuries and serious injuries.

Opening window screens makes it easier for flight attendants to assess external hazards - explosions, debris - that can interfere with emergency evacuation. This will also help you navigate if there is a sudden impact - rolling, acrobatics, etc. Reducing light in the cavity is also part of that strategy. If it is bright, bright lights will make it impossible to see anything outside. By adjusting your eyes, you won't fall into a sudden sight of nothing as you rush to the exit in darkness or haze.

On Airbus aircraft, there is often a very loud hum from under the floor of the aircraft when rolling or parked at the terminal door. Sometimes it was a high-pitched whimper, sometimes WOOF, WOOF, WOOF interrupted, sounding like the barking of an agitated dog. What's going on down there?

This is due to the two-engine Airbus models: the A320 series (including the A319 and A321 sub-variants) and the larger A330 series. In the US, the largest operators operating these lines are Delta, United, jetBlue, and US Airway. Almost all frequent flyers have encountered this sound a few times. The crew rarely takes the effort to explain, leaving passengers questioning and sometimes anxious. The noise is like a motorbike engine starting many times without fail, thus leading to speculation that something is wrong.

What you hear is a device called a transmitter

capacity, or PTU^twelfth, designed to ensure adequate hydraulic pressure during an engine operation. To save fuel, twin-engine jets quite often turn off one engine when rolling off the tarmac. Usually each pressurized motor has its own hydraulic system, but when an engine is idle it means a system then has no energy to run. This is the time when PTU comes into play, helping to transmit energy to the side whose engine is not working. PTU is only activated when the pressure drops below a certain threshold, so it turns on and off, on and off, on and off. Because the pressure fluctuates, sometimes noise will continue to sound even after both engines have been turned on and running. It also does a self-test when the right-wing engine starts, so you'll hear it too.

^twelfth. Short for Power Transfer Unit.

Another characteristic noise of the Airbus series is the shrill hum that lingers at the station door before departure and repeats after landing. It was the sound of an electro-hydraulic pump used to open and close the doors of the store.

You can justify the air, where one of the most typical air-soothing topics with air quality is air quality. We heard a lot about how dirty and germinated the air was on the plane.

Filthy, full of germs, rotten, disgusting, bad, dull, stinky, rotting, stinking, and full of smell are just a few of the adjectives used to describe the air above. aircraft, along with countless stories of sick passengers

thought to be because microscopic pathogens spread in planes.

In fact, the air is very clean.

On all modern planes, passengers and crew breathe a mixture of pure air and recycled air. Using this source of combined air instead of just pure air will make it easier to regulate the temperature and maintain a bit of humidity (more about humidity will be discussed soon). The air source is extracted from the air compressor parts of the engines. The compressed air is very hot, but compressors compress the air only, not in contact with fuel, oil, or gas in the engine. From there, it is pumped into the air-conditioning units for cooling. It is then guided into the cabin through air slits, air vents, and spherical air vents above your seat. (The parts of the air-conditioning are called "pack." It is an acronym for pneumatic air cycle kit (roughly translated: circulating air by compressed air).

The air circulates and is eventually sucked into the lower div of the plane, where about half of the air is vented out of the plane - drawn out by the pressure release valve. The remainder is mixed with pure air from the engines, then passed through the filter, and the cycle is repeated.

Studies show that crowded planes don't have more germs than other enclosed spaces - usually less. Those underfloor filters are described by the manufacturers to be of hospital quality. I don't need to be reminded that hospitals are infamous virus incubators, but Boeing says that between 94% and 99.9% of the bacteria on planes have been purged, and every two or so. The air is completely renewed in three minutes - much more often than in offices, movie theaters, or classrooms.

There is a persistent anecdote that pilots regularly cut down on the volume of air circulating as a way to save fuel. It is extremely unfortunate that even the most authentic and authentic sources parody this unfounded claim. The obvious example: the following is taken from a 2009 issue of The Economist: “Usually the airline will balance using a mixture of 50:50 pure air and recycled air. However, the pilot can reduce the amount of pure air to save fuel. Some pilots are said to have cut pure air by only 20%. " I gasped as I read these lines. I love that saying, "Some pilots are said to have cut pure air to 20%," is fluid and full of intrigue about some plot.

First things first, pilots can't play around with an airplane's air-conditioning systems to change the ratio of pure air to recycled air. That ratio has been predetermined by the manufacturer and cannot be adjusted in the cockpit. On the Boeing I fly, we can control the temperature directly and accurately, but with the air flow, we can only control it indirectly. If you asked me to please "cut it to 20%" then I would politely let you know that is not possible. The switches have been set to automatic before flight, and the compressed air rotors are mostly self-propelled. As long as both motors are rotating and everything is operating normally, the air flow is completely adequate. Only when something goes wrong will the settings change.

I am not as familiar with the Airbus series as I am with Boeing, but consult someone who knows them well.

"The Airbus family of aircraft, from the much larger A320 to A380 series, all allow pilots to change the air flow,"

Says Dave English, an A320 aircraft captain and a writer for the aviation industry. "But not in the same way as The Economist describes it."

English explains that Airbus regulators have three levels named HI, NORM, and LO¹³. “Most of the time you are on NORM, the air flow adjustment is done automatically. The HI level is used when you need a quick temperature change. The LO level plays a role as its name suggests. It reduces air flow and saves fuel but is very little and rarely used. Company guidelines only allow the use of the LO level whenever there is a passenger volume of less than 100 people. That change is negligible. Sitting in the cabin, it's almost impossible to notice the difference. ”

¹³. The stands for High, Normal, Low, respectively, meaning High, Normal, Low.

Occasionally you will notice a strong smell when the plane is on the ground - a pungent odor like the exhaust from an old car or bus envelops the cabin as soon as the plane backs off the taxiway. Usually this happens when exhaust gas is sucked into the air conditioner when the engine is started. The cause is usually wind, which causes air to circulate in the opposite direction, or to blow smoke through the entrance of the air conditioner. It usually lasts only about a minute until the engine has stabilized. This smell is unpleasant, but it is no different from the smoke that you sometimes breathe in a car during traffic jam.

The passengers' only plausible complaint is about air dryness. Indeed, aircraft cabins are often extremely dry and dehydrated. At around 12% humidity, the cabin is drier than most deserts. It is mostly a side effect of high altitude flight, where the humidity is between low and zero

exist. Humidifying an airplane cabin seems like a simple and logical solution, but it is avoided for different reasons: First, to fully moisten an aircraft requires a large amount of water, which is inherently heavy. so it would be costly to carry it. Humidification systems will have to re-absorb and cycle as much water as possible, making them expensive and complicated. Those systems did exist: a system costing more than $ 100,000 each with only a slight increase in humidity. Also important is wear. Wetness and condensation getting into the airframe can cause damage.

The Boeing 787 has the cleanest air of all commercial aircraft thanks to its filters with an efficiency of 99.97%. The humidity is also significantly higher. Its all-carbon-fiber construction is less susceptible to condensation, and its unique air circulation system pumps dry air through the layer between the cabin wall and the outer shell. .

All of this does not deny that passengers sometimes feel unwell from the fly. Yes, the air is clean, but dryness isn't good for your sinuses and can damage your mucus membranes, leading to more infections. Often, however, passengers don't get sick because of what they breathe but what they come into contact with - contaminated bathroom door handles, dining tables and handstands, etc. A little hand sanitizer is probably is a better measure of protection than the masks I still see with passengers from time to time.

I also don't deny that airplanes are very capable environments for the spread of certain diseases. The benefits of long-distance and high-speed air travel are obvious - and so are the dangers. Once, after landing on a flight from Africa, I noticed one

lonely mosquitoes in the cockpit. I thought, it's easy for this ticket stowaway to escape into the airport terminal and burn someone. Imagine an airport employee or passenger living indifferently, never going abroad, yet suddenly at risk of contracting some foreign tropical disease. In fact, this has been happening for years. Cases of "airport malaria" have been reported in Europe, leading to several deaths following misdiagnosis or delay. It is only a matter of time that this situation happened in the US, in case it did not. What an exciting lesson and to be honest it is a bit scary to see how effectively international air travel can spread pathogens from one continent to another.

Is it true that pilots reduce oxygen to make passengers easier to talk about?

This is one of the most persistent rhetoric about the aviation industry, like the one above about reducing airflow in order to save fuel. Not only is it blatantly wrong, but it also has undesirable effects on people on board: hypoxia leads to a condition known as hypoxia. While hypoxia can initially make people feel dizzy and relaxed, it can also cause confusion, nausea, and migraines. The pilot must be very cruel to want to inflict such mass pain. I still remember the days of hypoxia headache I suffered a few years ago in Cuzco, Peru - an experience I didn't even want my biggest enemy to go through, let alone It's a whole plane filled with passengers. The oxygen level is determined by the pressurization, and the regulator is almost never touched during cruising, unless something goes wrong. The crew has installed this system before departure; part

The remainder takes place automatically. During flight, the cabin is held at pressure equivalent to a place between 5,000 and 8,000 feet (1,524 to 2,438 meters) above sea level, depending on the aircraft type and altitude (see pressurization section, page 49).

And the pilot breathes the same air as everyone else. The fuselage does not divide into separate enclosed spaces with different pressure setting modes. The entire aircraft is pressurized from head to tail, including the passenger compartment, cockpit, and the cargo compartment below.

What about the lack of air conditioning when an airplane is parked at an airport terminal? Is it possible to pity passengers who have to wait for a flight delay in the hot cabin?

At the terminal door, planes are cooled or warmed in one of two ways. The first is by means of an external air supply pumped into the aircraft compartment through a valve in the fuselage. This is the heavy yellow hose that you can still see from time to time, connecting the plane and the telescopic bridge. The second way is through the aircraft's auxiliary power supply (see section APU, page 11). This small turbine engine delivers air and electricity when the main engines are idle. While APUs are usually more efficient, the general rule is to rely on outside air if available, as it is less expensive. However, almost all carriers have a policy that allows the crew to start APU if the situation becomes uncomfortable.

So why are passengers still sweating in a crowded cabin? The culprit may be the APU is not working, or the air source from the ground is insufficient or malfunctioning. If the situation is too

If bad, please speak up. You absolutely have the right to complain to the flight attendant. In their turn, they may suggest that we turn on the APU or check the connection to the ground. While in the cockpit we can read the temperature readings in the passenger compartment, but usually thanks to the flight attendant we will know when the temperatures have become extreme.

A simple but effective way to cool the plane is to lower the window screen between two flights. The flight attendant will sometimes ask passengers to lower the window shield before exiting the plane.

When leaving Tokyo on a packed 747, the air conditioning was turned off just before takeoff. In the compartment quickly became hot and stuffy. A few minutes later, in the air, the air conditioner was turned on again. What does that mean?

This is called takeoff off the air conditioner. Air conditioners run on the air from the engines and consume a portion of their power in the process. So some takeoffs with certain high weights require at least one air conditioner to fail until it is unsafe overhead. This depends on aircraft weight, runway length, and temperature. Pre-departure performance data - a printout containing all relevant data on speed, power, and rear spoiler settings - let the crew know if it is necessary to do so. The air conditioner will be turned off just before the plane rolls, and then turned back on at the beginning of altitude - usually around the first planned power drop, at about 1 altitude.

Can a crazy person or some malicious guy open the door of the plane during flight?

As if in a single week people haven't heard or read a story about some weird passenger trying to open the emergency exit door, only to be stopped and restrained by the people sitting around because they assumed they were. about to be pushed out into the troposphere. While sources never ignore these incidents, they rarely mention the most important fact: You cannot - I repeat, cannot - open the main doors or emergency exit of the aircraft in flight process. You cannot open them for the simple reason that the pressure in the cabin does not allow it. Imagine the plane door is the end of the water pipe, fixed by internal pressure. Most aircraft emergency exit doors open. Some doors have recessed from the ceiling of the plane; others just pop out; but first they open inward, and even the most muscular person couldn't overcome the force that was holding the door shut tightly. At normal cruising altitude, nearly eight pounds of pressure is being applied to every square inch (5.5 Newtons per square centimeter) inside the fuselage, which means 1,100 pounds per square foot (55,160 Newtons per square meter). ) emergency exit. Even at low altitude where the cabin pressure is much lower, a difference of just 2 pounds per square inch (1.4 Newtons per square centimeter) keeps the door from moving - right away. even after drinking six cups of coffee with the frustration of having to sit behind a baby constantly screaming and crying. The exit doors are further secured with a series of electrical and / or mechanical bolts. 5 Newtons per square centimeter) inside the fuselage, that is 1,100 pounds per square foot (55,160 New Zealand per square meter) of exits. Even at low altitude where the cabin pressure is much lower, a difference of just 2 pounds per square inch (1.4 Newtons per square centimeter) keeps the door from moving - right away. even after drinking six cups of coffee with the frustration of having to sit behind a baby constantly screaming and crying. The exit doors are further secured with a series of electrical and / or mechanical bolts. 5 Newtons per square centimeter) inside the fuselage, that is 1,100 pounds per square foot (55,160 New Zealand per square meter) of exits. Even at low altitude where the cabin pressure is much lower, a difference of just 2 pounds per square inch (1.4 Newtons per square centimeter) keeps the door from moving - right away. even after drinking six cups of coffee with the frustration of having to sit behind a baby constantly screaming and crying. The exit doors are further secured with a series of electrical and / or mechanical bolts. 4 Newtons per square centimeter) still made it impossible for anyone to move the door - even after drinking six cups of coffee with the frustration of having to sit behind a baby constantly screaming. The exit doors are further secured with a series of electrical and / or mechanical bolts. 4 Newtons per square centimeter) still made it impossible for anyone to move the door - even after drinking six cups of coffee with the frustration of having to sit behind a baby constantly screaming. The exit doors are further secured with a series of electrical and / or mechanical bolts.

So if you like being punched and kicked by panic passengers and strangled by the neck, just sit there all day and jerk the doorknob as you like, though I don't support that. The door won't open (however you can make the red light blink in the cockpit and make me knock the Coke Zero over). You will need a hydraulic lever, which TSA won't let you carry on the plane.

On the 19-seat propeller plane I used to fly, the main cabin door had a snug cushion that could be inflated inside the door sill. During flight, that air cushion swells to keep the pressure inside the compartment from escaping, while also blocking noise from the engines. Once in a while the gasket punctured and went flat, sometimes very quickly. The pressure drop caused by it could be easily resolved and ultimately harmless, but a sudden noise was heard - a loud intake of hundreds of decibels plus two 1,100 engines. the horsepower is just a few meters away - startling everyone on the plane, including me.

On the ground, the situation was different - as one had expected when it came to the possibility of evacuation. During the plane rolling, you will open the door. You will also be able to activate the emergency escape chute from the door. As the plane approaches the terminal door, you will sometimes hear the flight attendant say "door to manual mode" or "unlatch." That means deactivating automatic lifeboat deployment. The escape slides, when spread out, have enough force to kill a person, so you won't want them to hit a telescopic bridge or plane food truck.

Why is the passenger compartment window so small? Why not make the windows bigger so that the outside view is more enjoyable?

The passenger compartment windows should be small - and round - to better withstand and disperse pressurization forces. The size and shape of the windows also contribute to absorbing the fuselage flex and flex due to the effects of aerodynamic forces and temperature changes. Also for these reasons it is better to place windows on the flatest part of the fuselage, so they are sometimes placed in positions with less than optimal visibility.

The Caravelle, a 1960s French civilian aircraft, had triangular passenger compartment windows - the corners are rounded but clearly three-sided. The Douglas DC-8 is another exception. Its windows are not only square, but also exceptionally oversized, almost twice the size of the windows on today's Boeing or Airbus aircraft. (And one of the interesting things I really like: When you look closely at the Air India plane, you will see that each passenger compartment window is meticulously contoured with Taj Mahal motifs that make each plane look like it is. reminds one of the palaces of Rajasthan.

But what about the cockpit window? Aren't they much bigger and a bit square? Yes, but they are also made of laminated glass thicker than the glass at a bank transaction counter and surrounded by heavy duty door frames - unbelievably they can withstand pressure differences, hail, and birds fly in the opposite direction. I watched a video of maintenance staff trying to smash an abandoned airplane cockpit windshield with a sledgehammer - and failed. Replacing a cockpit window glass can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Contrary to many Hollywood scenes, I have never heard of any passengers being sucked out of an airplane through a broken passenger cabin window. However, I can verify that a British Airways captain once leaked a div part out of the plane through an exploding cockpit glass. He survived and suffered only minor injuries.

When I look out the window, I often see a circular halo on the surface of the cloud below, moving along the plane like a shadow. It sometimes has concentric colored circles, like flash photography.

A special thanks to the interesting book Window Seat

(roughly translated: Window chair) by Gregory Dicum for helping answer this question. The phenomenon described above is called the "pilot halo" or "pilot halo." This phenomenon is often seen when the clouds and the angle of sunlight meet the correct conditions. Those transient color rings are created because sunlight is diffracted and reflected by water particles inside the cloud. Sometimes you can see the shadow of an airplane in the middle of the halo; other times only circles are visible.

How are pets treated in the lower compartment? I heard they were held in the airliner part of the plane and not warmed up. At 35,000 feet (10,668 meters), the outside air temperature is about minus 60 degrees F (minus 51 degrees C) and there's not enough oxygen to breathe. This is even worse than sitting in an economy class seat, and transporting animals in such conditions will offend most of their owners. So, it is true that the lower compartment is always pressurized and kept warm. Usually there is a designated pet area. This is usually the area with the easiest temperature to regulate. Maintaining a safe temperature is easy during flight

- not much to do, the controls are set the same regardless of pets or not - but when it's hot on the ground it's a little difficult. For this reason, some brands ban pets during the summer months. The crew is always informed when animals live in the lower compartment. There used to be passengers sending hand mail to the cockpit, asking us to take special care of their pets. It's not really necessary to do that, and we can only do it to that extent, but just write if it reassures you.

What is the truth about cell phones and portable electronic devices? Are they really dangerous for flight?

There are hardly any rules that make it more confusing to passengers

rules about the use of mobile phones and portable electronic devices. Are these devices really dangerous for flight? Everyone wants a simple answer to all the questions. Unfortunately, there is no such answer. It depends on the type of device as well as how and when to use it.

The first is the laptop. In theory, an old and poorly protected computer could emit harmful energy. However, the main cause of having to take off laptops during takeoff and landing is to prevent them from turning into high-speed warheads during deceleration or have a sudden impact and keep aisle clear. in the event of an evacuation. Computers are part of the luggage, but the luggage must be stowed away so that no one is killed or gets in the way. This is why, after landing, the flight attendant announced that the use of mobile phones was allowed, but computers were not allowed. There's still the slightest possibility of emergency evacuation, and you don't want people to trip over their MacBook as they head to the emergency exit.

Next, we have tablet devices like Kindle, Nook, and iPad. In terms of resistance, it is difficult to seriously ban these devices as many pilots are using tablets in the cockpit (see page 118). The warhead argument seems well worth it in this case: no one wants an iPad crashed into the forehead at 180 mph (289.69 km / h), but the hardcover book is just as heavy, if not worse. If the use of tablets is banned during takeoff and landing, why is it exempt from books? As I write this, the FAA is thinking. Perhaps by the time you have read this book the tablet rules are loosened.

Finally, there is a huge problem: the cell phone. Broadcast

Do cell waves actually interfere with cockpit devices? The answer is yes, but most likely no, and airlines and FAAs are just moving in a safer-than-regretful direction. I know you want more information but that's the most accurate answer that has ever existed.

The aircraft electronic systems are designed and protected when interference is taken into account. This is expected to alleviate the negative effects, and so far there have been no proven cases of the phone adversely affecting the outcome of a flight. But who knows. If the aircraft's protective systems are old and malfunctioning, for example, there is a risk of problems.

Even when the phone is not used to make calls, its on mode emits potentially harmful energy flows. For this reason, they must be turned off before the plane rolls over, as required by the pre-departure flight safety screen has never been tedious (see Flight Safety Nabble, page 190). This is clearly stated but is clearly not being followed. We guess the risk is minimal, otherwise the airline staff will confiscate or thoroughly check the phone instead of relying on the self-awareness of the passenger. I ventured to guess that at least half of the phone numbers were turned on during flight, either accidentally or due to laziness. That number equates to one million phones a day in America.

That said, it's possible that cell phones played a role in at least two serious cases. The key word here is 'possible' as it may not be possible to trace or demonstrate interference. Some people blame a phone as the cause

the crash of a Crossair regional plane in Switzerland in 2000, which remains unresolved so far, asserted that the interference waves caused the plane's autopilot. Interference was thought to be a contributing factor to a catastrophic regional plane crash in New Zealand in 2003. In another case, a regional plane was forced to make an emergency landing. after the fire alarm was supposed to be triggered by a phone ringing in the luggage compartment.

Those are extreme situations. What is common interference? You imagine a passenger unfortunate to press the SEND button and then suddenly the plane overturned. In fact, the impact will be fleeting and subtle. The electronic architecture of modern civil aircraft is very large, which is understated; and most anomalies aren't necessarily going to start a heartbeat: the warning flag flashes for a second and then goes off; progression slightly deflected. Or something unseen. People ask from time to time whether I have witnessed disturbances in the cockpit. I don't know, but I can't conclude anything. The plane is very large and complex; Transient minor malfunctions of one part or another are not uncommon and often the cause cannot be identified.

Maybe airlines are just relying on the pretext of possible technical trouble as a way to evade the social implications of allowing cell phones to be used for in-flight calls. . As soon as it is possible to prove that cell phones are secure despite reasonable suspicions, some passengers will demand the right to use them, causing one angry group of passengers to oppose another. and the airlines are stuck in the middle. If it is true that the airlines are playing this game, I would like to join the group

It agreed to continue the ban on cell phone use on airplanes - not out of technical concerns but because of manliness and a bit of peace and quiet. The bombardment of the senses inside the airfields was terrible enough. The cabin is the last relatively quiet shelter (as long as there are no crying children). Please keep it that way.

On each flight we heard a series of cracking noises. What do those signals mean?

The bells you hear fall into one of two categories. The first type is basically just a call. The flight attendant and cockpit workstations share an internal communication system through which any station can call each other. When there is a call, the called party's phone will ring "ding."

That bell is also used by the pilot as a signaling device for the flight attendant. On the plane that I fly, we make this sound by spinning the seat belt signal a proper number of times. Each airline has its own rules about how many bells mean and when to use it, but they're essentially the same: usually, the bells after take-off indicate the plane has passed degrees. 10,000 feet tall, from that point on passengers can use authorized electronic devices, while the flight attendant can communicate with the cockpit without worrying that he or she is interrupting a critical period. latch of flight. Upon lowering, the bell means "We're about to land, so get ready for the passenger compartment."

By the way, these signals have nothing to do with allowing landing. Usually after the second bell for the second landing, you will hear a flight attendant announce: “Dear customer, the runway is empty for landing, please take off

go… ”I don't know when this habit started but in reality, the flight attendant doesn't know when the plane is allowed to land. They just said that for convenience. Actual landing instructions given by air traffic control usually come long after, sometimes just seconds before landing, and not something communicated between the pilot and the flight attendant.

To be clear, it is not entirely correct to say that the runway must be empty before a plane is allowed to land on it. Flights are still allowed to land while inbound or outbound aircraft are still on the runway. This directive simply meant that we were allowed to land without passing any further information to the command post. If the runway does not clear up in time, air traffic control will cancel and ask the aircraft to wait.

On some flights, the sound system has a channel through which I can overhear the pilot and air traffic controllers talking. I find it interesting, but usually the channel is turned off.

• United Airlines, one of the few that offers this oddly exciting form of entertainment, is called Channel 9 according to its position on your radio console. This channel can be either cool or confusing, depending on how much you love the airline. Sometimes this channel is not broadcast, in the opinion of the crew, because of the unfriendly letters that people send and threatens to sue when they realize that the pilot has made some "mistake". In addition, passengers who are unfamiliar with the specialized language may misinterpret the message and be worried that problems do not exist or are overblown. Suppose an air traffic controller asks, "United 537, um, can you guys do that?" This is a common question regarding whether an airplane can reach a degree

High or certain navigation mark at a certain time or at a certain speed or not. Depending on the control staff's tone - or the pilot's response that "No, I can't" - that innocuous dialogue could make the passenger burst into tears and his mind showed up. my wife and children.

If you turn on this channel, wait to hear some more fancy airline call-signs. While private jets use their own registration number for radio identification, commercial aircraft use the identification and flight number. Often the contact summary is simply the name of the airline. "Delta 202, lowering and maintaining 8,000 feet (2,438 meters)." However, many firms use specific summarys, with Pan Am's "Clipper" (roughly translated: "Shearing") summary being the most famous example. "Clipper 605, allowed to take off." Another identifier that you will often hear is "Cactus" (roughly translated: "Cactus"). Originally an identifier for America West, it was later used by US Airways after the merger of the two companies and is still in use today. Aer Lingus¹⁴then use the classic name "Shamrock" (roughly translated: "Clover"), while China Airlines is "Dynasty" (roughly translated: "King"). "Springbok" (roughly translated: "South African antelope") is the name of a gazelle species and is also the summary of South African Airways. The British Airways 'Speedbird' identifier alludes to the common name of an old business logo - a bird with triangular wings clawed back - originally used by Imperial Airways, one of the forerunners of British Airways, since 1932. Other identifiers used in the past are "Apple" (roughly translated: "Apple") of the New York Air, "Palm" (roughly translated: "Palm") of Air Florida, and ValuJet's unfortunate choice, was "Critter".

¹⁴. Irish national airline. The clover is the symbol of this country.

In the late 1970s, passengers on American Airlines DC-10s were entertained by live video reports from the cockpit during takeoff and landing, shown on a movie screen. Today, many studios show footage from cameras placed on the nose, tail, or under the belly of an airplane. Passengers can switch between different scenes using the video controller on the seat back. On an Emirates plane, you can choose the camera to look forward or look straight down, showing what the plane is flying on. (The second shot that led to a rather ridiculous UK controversy revolved around nude sunbathing people in the backyard worrying that overhead passengers were shown free shows.) Some Airbus The A340 has a rear-mounted camera that shows the view from behind - joyful but dizzying viewing angles,

What are the flight safety instructions for the flight attendant? After all, no one was listening, what did they have to say for so long?

In the United States, commercial aviation is dominated by a huge set of books called the Federal Aviation Regulations, or FAR¹⁵- a great big book, often incomprehensible, embodies the boundless tendency of the airline industry to present the simplest of ideas in as confusing and confusing language as possible. . Among its most prized works, the most glittering example is the flight safety instruction - 25 seconds of useful information spread out into six minutes of chattering in unfamiliar words to the point of flight attendants. the airline is like speaking Urdu or praying in tongues.

¹⁵. Abbreviation for Federal Aviation Regulations.

Whether pre-recorded and projected on the entertainment system or done live in the old fashion, the flight safety instruction screen is also a form of rhetoric - an adaptation of verbal legal documents. aviation language is redundant into an art performance. "At this point, we would like to suggest that you return your chair back to its original vertical position." Why not, "Please straighten the back of your chair?" Or my favorite example is: "Federal law prohibits interfering with, damaging, disabling, or destroying any smoke detector in the bathroom." Forgive me, but what the hell isn't all one tense? Isn't “messing up” enough?

With a pair of scissors and common sense, the ordinary guide can be cut to a maximum of half its length, resulting in an easy-to-understand speech that passengers will sometimes really listen to. All that's really needed is a short tutorial containing the basics of emergency exits, seat belts, life jackets, and respirators. Such tutorials should not take longer than a minute.

In the past, when I was on an airplane as a passenger, I often scornfully watched those who ignored full flight instructions and even tried to show that I was completely focused on making the flight attendants feel good. found it helpful. After a while, realizing that neither the FAA nor the airlines had any interest in cleaning up this wolf flower nonsense, I stopped caring. Note: this doesn't mean that I forgive the passengers who insist on going on a separate conversation over the loudspeaker, so the speaker doubles the volume. There is a need to listen to the flight attendant to explain

Seat belt usage is a matter of debate, but we certainly don't need to hear the guy in row 25 bragging about his favorite seafood restaurant in Baltimore.

In the front seat pocket, you'll find a pictured version of that very gabble: the famous flying safety guide folding cover. It is also a pedagogy of the FAR. The level of talent of the artists who presented themselves; The figures appear to be the incarnations of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Worse still were the cards stating the rules for the exit row. The rules about who can or can't sit by the exit door have been a controversial issue for a while, leading to a new standard of the redundancy of Federal Aviation Regulations. - a meticulous hardcover book full of technical nonsense that makes anyone who reads it dizzy. Passengers sitting in the exit row are required to read this information before departure,

As for the pilot announcements, the companies have instructions on how intonation and content is acceptable. There are regulations that do not allow discussing politics, religion, or any other offensive matter. The General Operating Manual, chapter five, section 12 states: Jokes, insinuating profanity or defamation of any kind are strictly prohibited. You will only be able to communicate in non-confrontational language, lest Pilot Truong summons and torment you. There may also be rules that restrict the use of frightening words or confusing common words - rules that are put in place with good cause. An airline where I used to work has regulations that prohibit the opening of any message with the phrase "Please pay attention."

I strongly support adding the habit of reading college league soccer scores to the ban list, but that is only my personal opinion.

“Please pay attention. South East Central Nebraska's Technology School team just scored a last-minute goal to lead the Superintendent North West South West team 31-28. ”

We also have to be careful not to stuff our passengers with information they don't use for anything. Such as the weather. Does anyone care if the wind is blowing in a southwest direction at 14 knots (25.93 km / h) or the dew point? They want to know if it is sunny, cloudy, rainy, or snowy and what the temperature is.

Another great taboo to avoid is diving into a complicated explanation full of slang words. “Yes, um, sir, it looks like 31L

• Kennedy has just dropped to less than one in eight. Currently all three RVRs are under six hundred. They're assigning Cat III, which we're new to Cat II, so, well, we're going to spin a couple of rounds through VOR, then go back and do ISL down to 22L. There are three hundred and a half. ”

Thanks.

First class, business class, economy class ... Where am I sitting and how are they different?

• To some extent, there are different interpretations but there are basically four classes of cabin: first class, business class, economy class, and Ryanair. Okay, there are three compartments: first class, business class, and economy class (see section Ryanair, page 141). The common compartment is commonly referred to as the passenger compartment or

passenger cabin, while first class and business class can be collectively referred to as "premium" class.

An airline can set up aircraft in all three classes, two classes, or just one class. The number of cabins as well as the seat design and associated amenities vary by aircraft and market. Premium compartments on long flights are often far more luxurious - with their own sleeping box, widescreen, and so on

- compared with shorter flights. The conventional rule is that the first class cabin is more luxurious (and more expensive) than the business class, but only relative. The business class of long-haul flights is usually more luxurious than the first class of domestic flights in the US or within Europe.

Some airlines blur this line through branding techniques. Virgin Atlantic has only one luxury cabin which they call "Upper Class" (roughly translated: "Upper Class"). China Airlines has "Dynasty Class" (roughly translated: "Royal Class"), while Alitalia has "Magnifica Class" (roughly translated: "Extraordinary Class"). To appease the meaning of "economy class", Air France sells tickets in the "Voyageur" ​​class (roughly translated: "Tourists"). British Airways offers three different economy classes and three different business classes, each with a different name depending on the itinerary. If that is not complicated enough, then Continental Airlines (now a member of United Airlines) also created a very confusing ticket class "BusinessFirst" (roughly translated: "First Class Business"). You can understand what class of traditional tickets they are referring to,

On many intra-European flights, seat classes are assigned just before the flight based on demand. The seats themselves are unchanged, but the curtains and partitions are fine

correction. On an Air France plane, the economy seat becomes a business seat by dividing the middle seat of a row of three side by side. Another common trend is to divide the economy class into two zones, one with more legroom and in some cases more luxurious seats. “Extra Economy Class” or “Comfort Economy Class” are two of the extravagant words created even though they are still economy class.

People are constantly complaining about the inconvenience of economy class, but the fact that luxury seats, whether first-class or business-class, have never been as lavish as it is today. Regardless of the days when passengers slept in private beds in the 1940s, luxury has never been as showy as it is today - albeit in a more ingenious, 21st-century fashion, not long ago. Spacious leather seats and welcoming flight attendants are the norm of in-flight luxury. Today, competition and technology have given us all kinds of exotic comforts. Jets operated by luxury airlines like Singapore Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Emirates and Qatar Airways have a cocktail bar and even an on-board esthetician. Passengers sleep in separate mini-cubicles on 180-meter-long couches, with quilts and electric privacy partitions. The flight attendant helps you break your collar as you change into your designated pajamas, and sometimes even extra cushioned chairs if you want someone to have dinner with. The crew adjust the light on the cabin ceiling according to their physiological clock, including the projection of the constellations at night. On transatlantic flights, Turkish Airlines has a business class chef.

Of course, not everyone has a lot of money in the bank and has $ 9,000 to buy a chair to go to Hong Kong. To compensate, the current Economy Class also has certain amenities. TV

Live streaming, feature film, and in-flight Wi-Fi are some of the more common amenities. Some Asian and European airlines have switched to clamshell seats where, when leaning back, it swings forward instead of leaning back, thereby ensuring space for the rear seat. And while free meals are increasingly rare on short flights, in-flight meal options are affordable and often delicious.

It is assumed that airlines are constantly cramming more seats into economy cabins. This is largely not true. Firms can't just push more seats; Commercial jets are allowed to hold the maximum number of seats based on the number of exits, among other criteria. In fact, the layout of economy seats has barely changed since the popularity of airplanes in the 1960s. In the early days, airlines arranged five seats equally on narrow div aircraft instead of six seats as usual, or nine seats per row on the 747 instead of the current ten seats, but only for a short time. The layout of the large civilian aircraft we see today is essentially unchanged from 40 years ago. If so, they are a bit wider.

However, passengers often complain the most about the legroom between the two seats rather than the armrests. The distance between two rows of seats is in aeronautical term called "pitch", and in this regard it is better and worse. It is true that airlines have narrowed the gap between the rear seat rows to make room for them

the larger (and more expensive) "Extra Economy" seats are at the top, but those who have flown PeoplExpress before must remember how they arranged their seats mercilessly and lacked distance. Or Laker Airways with the "SkyTrain" service flying between the US and London in the 1970s. Sir Freddie Laker, the flamboyant founder of the airline, arranged for his DC-10s to have 345 seats. stiff - about 100 seats more than most DC-10s of the time (the plane had eight properly-sized exit doors to legalize that seat layout, and no first or business class seats both).

In my opinion, the uneasy economy seat is only partly due to the space in the leg room. The main reason is the shape of the chair and usability¹⁶lousy of the space around the chair. Every time I sit on the economy seat, I silently ask what kind of deformity it is designed for. Using the word "an coordinates" is incorrect; Not really resting, but trying to sit balanced in a chair. The supports were all wrong, the legs had no support, no armrests, and the waist was completely indeterminate. The dining table and the armrest are both inappropriately shaped and positioned.

¹⁶. Originally, ergonomic, or Human Factor (Vietnamese: Ergonomics), is the science that studies the relationship between people and their working environment, especially in terms of "use". In order for products to achieve the best fit for the user, the designer must ensure that the equipment and the appropriate work environment have the capabilities and limitations of their users.

The most obvious way to make Economy Class seats more comfortable is to arrange fewer seats in the first place, but unless the passenger pays.

The fare is much higher then this is not possible. Engineers also had to find a way to tackle the challenge of designing an extremely sturdy and lightweight seat frame that can withstand gravity several times. Either way, there's no excuse for the badly designed chair we are used to sitting in. Through the use of high-tech materials and a bit of imagination, the seats can be completely safe, light, sturdy and comfortable. In fact, ergonomic chairs designed by cutting-edge manufacturers like Recaro and Thompson Solutions have been on the market for many years. If there are more companies willing to buy this type of chair.

In addition to the fact that a chair really fits the human form, here are six things that should be standard in any economy compartment:

1. Lumbar support. The current seats do not have a lumbar cushion. There is just a space that your lower back is leaning on, pulls you down and bends you.

2. In-flight Wi-Fi and in-seat video, on demand, with a personal monitor at least nine inches wide. I put all of these together because they all use the tactic of distraction, and that's how the passenger is happy. Surfing the web or watching movies are ideal ways to pass the time. Five or ten dollars to use the Internet isn't unreasonable, but should be free in first or business class.

3. Adjustable headrest. Not a half-season that just lets the head roll back and forth, but has to be snug and comfortable.

4. The dining table is pulled close so that passengers do not have to bend over to eat or work. Ideally, the dining table should have a curved edge to fit the passenger's chest and the one that opens from the armrest

not from the front seat. Doing so will eliminate the problem of bending and prevent the risk of your computer being crushed when the front passenger suddenly leans back in his chair, sandwiching your monitor between the table and the top mattress. "Raid raider" is the name I give to passengers who suddenly completely back their seats, not giving you even a second to save your laptop from the crunch-crusher This death-walnut. The dining table should also have a raised edge for wireless food and drinks to enter you when the plane is reaching altitude or passing through areas with bad weather. Some dining tables have recess to hold a cup of water, but many are completely flat and smooth, causing your coffee cup to slide down every time the plane raises your nose. A quarter-inch hollow will prevent this. Certainly, the designers of aircraft interior must have some grasp of the concept of gravity; There's no reason that the design isn't popular. Just spend a few extra pennies per table, or maybe not. And by the way, please design the circle cup holder that opens from the back of the chair. (This design is very popular in Europe, but I have never seen it in any airline aircraft

• US.) It will prevent water spills and increase the amount of space on the dining table.

5. Electric charging place. If the requirement for the AC outlet is too much, at least provide a USB connection port. It is appearing more and more on long flights, but at some point all aircraft should be outfitted.

Whether or not you're comfortable in an economy seat, be sure to get up from time to time and stretch your arms and legs. With long flight times now longer than the gestation period of many small mammals, there is growing concern about a condition called deep embolism, or DVT.¹⁷caused by a motionless position in the airplane seat. Also known as "class syndrome

common, ”is a potentially deadly blood clot that forms in the legs and can spread throughout the div. People with pre-existing conditions (obesity, smoking) are at higher risk, but all passengers should avoid sitting still for too long. Get up, stretch your limbs, walk up the aisle. Super long-haul planes are often equipped with banquet areas and in-flight lounges - community areas where drinks and snacks are prepared. Not just a right, its purpose is to get people moving steadily. The banquet area on the A340-500 has a heated floor for those who go to sleep with vacuum after waking up.

¹⁷. DVT: short for Deep Vein Thrombosis.

The boarding process has turned into a nightmare. What can airlines - and passengers - do to make it more pleasant?

No one enjoyed the tedious queuing up and down a plane. The congestion scene on the plane aisle and in the telescopic bridge can sometimes last indefinitely, and it takes a few minutes just to get from the boarding gate to your seat, and vice versa.

If you want to make things a little easier for your travel companions here's a simple tip: when you get on the plane, please don't put your carry-on baggage in the first empty compartment you see. Use the baggage compartment as close to your seat as possible. I want to go crazy watching someone push his Tumi 26-inch suitcase into the luggage compartment above row 5, then move on to his seat at row 52. I know it is convenient, but what That causes the front luggage compartments to fill up quickly. People sitting in the front now have to go back to put their luggage, then back up again, up the road from the flow of people, slowing everything down.

people. Next, after landing, the same people had to go upstream to the back while everyone was trying to go to the door. Am I wrong in suggesting that perhaps a luggage compartment should be designated? You could argue that there are far more seats than there are luggage compartments and not everyone's carry-on baggage is the same size, but I believe there must be a way to solve the problem. this. If there is no other way, the airlines should announce at the boarding gate asking passengers to use the luggage compartment at or near their seats.

The traditional approach of filling the plane from the back to the front is part of the problem. Instead, many airlines now allow passengers to board flights in "zones" or "groups." One element of these techniques is for the passenger to sit in the window and middle seats first, then the passengers next to the aisle, so that everyone is less likely to squeeze through each other. Another option is to put passengers in the air in row order, in alternating groups instead of in succession. We just call every second or third row, let everyone finish their luggage and repeat. According to one study, it is possible to get passengers on an airplane ten times faster this way. It doesn't make much of a difference either because many people hate getting on a plane early and will wait as long as possible, ignoring the announcement of when it's time to board.

Another suggestion: families with children in stroller should get on the plane first, while on arrival suggest that they sit in the seat until all passengers have disembarked. How many hours are wasted each day waiting for parents to assemble the stroller and collect about 90 pounds (40 kilograms) of travel baggage that every child under the age of five must have?

Using multiple doors will also increase speed. It is rare in the US, but in Europe and Asia, a telescopic bridge connecting both the front and middle doors (on planes with these doors) is very common. Some gates at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport also have incredible bridges connecting both to the back door, passing through the left wing of the plane. (Boarding and disembarking are almost always on the left side of the aircraft. The right side is used for loading and unloading cargo and checked baggage, for service, and for food reception.)

Meanwhile, I guess you are wondering about overly frequent situations where the plane stops far from the arrival terminal, along with the crew's embarrassing announcement that “our gate is at There is another plane in use ”or the escort staff has yet to arrive. Yes, the arrival terminal is always updated on the scheduled arrival times of all flights, so why, why, why is the gate not prepared on time? I'm afraid I don't have a satisfactory answer. There may be other reasons for that situation that we are not aware of - parking spaces assigned to aircraft depend on aircraft departure and arrival time, number of passengers, customs issues and Immigration - but I suspect the shortage of personnel is one of the main causes. Pilots are as discouraged as passengers.

I'm old enough to remember a time when passengers applauded after each landing. Is this still available now?

The most recent period where applause after landing remains as common action is in the late 70s and early 80's. It's not surprising that these days are hardly seen anymore. The number of Americans flying at least twice a year has more than quadrupled in the past quarter-century. The familiarity of the procedure and the troubles associated with it was removed

blurred feeling of excitement and newness. However, this is still quite common abroad, where passengers are not as bored as in America. In the past few years, on flights that I have been flying to Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, there have been cheers and applause on about a quarter of landings.

Does the crew feel offended or offended? No problem. It is not a review of a landing or an assessment of the pilot's skill. Nor was it a burst of relief at defeating gravity and surviving to tell it. Even the most feared passengers were more optimistic than that. I won't analyze it too much. It has proved itself, there is no need to take it too seriously. They're just having fun, and for me it gives a sense of harmony and humanity at the end of the flight.

And you'll also notice that when this scene unfolds, it's just a phenomenon in the Economy Class cabin alone. First-class or business-class occupants never clap their hands. You will tend to look for the socioeconomic meaning behind this phenomenon, which may be real, but it is the dynamics of the economy - that more people sit closer together - that is. multiply. There is a sense of community that arose when we shared a relatively cozy space for several hours with hundreds of people, especially after a long flight. In a way, people clapping their hands and cheering like a collective handshake.

One more scene that is also not as popular anymore is the passenger visiting the cockpit. Apparently people thought that was not allowed for security reasons, but it wasn't. Of course

Not allowed in the air, but you are completely allowed to pass through the cockpit when the plane is parked at the front gate or after the flight (but remember to ask the flight attendant first). Occasionally children will drop into the cockpit, usually with parents, for sightseeing and sometimes take pictures sitting in the captain's seat, but adults almost never visit the cockpit alone. Unfortunately. Meeting the crew can give anxious passengers more peace of mind, and most pilots boast that someone is interested in their quaint little cabin.

Watching: Memorable Scenes From Above

On a regular 747 with four hundred passengers, only a quarter of them are lucky enough to be seated by the window, if luck is the correct word to use here. In a row of ten seats, only two can see the outside view. If traveling by air has lost the ability to move our mind, perhaps part of the reason is because there is nothing to see.

Sitting by a window provides an instinctive feeling of comfort - the desire to be oriented. Which direction am I going? Has the sun risen or set yet? For those who like to travel in the air, of course, it's not that simple. Until now, I've always liked to sit by the window whether it's the longest ride or the busiest. What I observed through the glass was a feeling just as much as what I would experience while visiting afterwards. When I flew to Istanbul, for example, I still remember the image of the Bosphore Strait¹⁸ packed with boats from a height of 10,000 feet like a memory of the experience standing in front of the Süleymaniye Mosque¹⁹ or Hagia Sofia²⁰.

¹⁸. The Bosphore Strait is a strait that separates Turkey's European part from its Asian part. Istanbul is located on both banks of the strait.

¹⁹. Süleymaniye is one of Istanbul's two largest mosques, completed in 1558.

²⁰. Hagia Sophia was originally an Orthodox basilica, later a mosque, and now a museum in Istanbul. It was the largest church in the world for nearly 1,000 years until 1520.

For the pilots, there are clearly not many options. We spent hours in what was literally a small glass-tiled room. The cockpit windows are surprisingly large, and while there is usually nothing to see but gray clouds thanks to the inky black color, they sometimes show breathtaking panoramas:

• New York City. The LaGuardia Airport landing guide will sometimes lead you along the Hudson River at close altitude, skimming the western edge of Manhattan and showing a breathtaking view of the New York skyline - "the hedgehog quartz ”as writer Kurt Vonnegut named it.

• Meteors (especially the annual Perseids meteor shower in late summer). Most impressive is the streaks of meteors lingering on the horizon for a few seconds, gradually changing color as they plunge into the atmosphere. I've seen meteors so bright that I could see them even during the day.

• Northern Light. When it is brightest, you must see it to believe it exists in the world. And there's no need to dive all the way to Yukon or Siberia; Most splendid performance I have ever

seen on a flight from Detroit to New York. The sky turned into a giant fluorescent curtain, vibrating and spreading across the horizon, as if God's freshly washed veil gently flying in the middle of the night.

• Fly into Africa. I love the way the Cap Vert peninsula and the city of Dakar appear on the radar screen, the perfect curvature like a giant hook - the westernmost point of the continent, and the feeling of coming and exploring it evoked. Africa is here! And inland is the topography of Mali and Niger²¹. From an altitude of 30,000 feet (9,144 meters), the Sahel region²² Barren looks like a piece of sandpaper, tiny here and there green and littered with villages - each village is a tiny star with red dirt paths facing out.

²¹. Mali and Niger are the two landlocked countries of western Africa.

²². Sahel is the name of the boundary area in Africa that lies between the Sahara in the north and the more fertile region in the south.

• The bizarre flickering orange glow of Venezuelan oil fields - a strange sight that makes you feel like you're a pilot on a 1945 B-17.

• Likewise, but sadly, there are thousands of wildfires throughout the Amazon. Some of the fires were kilometers long - fiery red walls gnawed at the forests.

• In return are vast, temporarily still pristine forests in the northeast of South America. Especially when flying over Guyana, the scene is truly unique in the world - a vast, pristine green strip spreading out of sight. No cities, no roads, no clearing or burning of forests. Until now.

• Climb out of the "tablecloth" - cloudy areas frequently spread over Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa.

• Frozen in northeastern Canada, forgotten in the middle of winter. I love to fly over the isolated jagged lands of Newfoundland, Labrador and Northern Quebec in the middle of winter - stormy underworld, worn rocks, thick forests and icy black rivers.

• Greenland is majestic, primitive and nothing. Huge arcs between the US and Europe will sometimes take you over Greenland. Maybe just gliding across the south pole, or maybe a 45-minute flight deep in the country. If you are seated by a window, don't miss the opportunity to see the view outside, even if it means letting the sun dazzle the sleeping seatmate next to you.

The scenes are not overwhelming, but rather strange ...

One afternoon, we flew along the coast into the US from Europe, about 200 miles east of Halifax, Nova Scotia. “The Gander Center²³," I call. "Have time to answer a question?"

²³. The air traffic command post at Gander Airport, Canada.

"Yes, say it." "Do you know what the name of this strange little island we just flew over?"

"You know," said the people at Gander. "It's Sable Island." Sable Island is one of the strangest places I've ever seen from the air. The oceans are full of secluded islands, but Sable's fragile isolation makes it particularly anomalous. It was a thin, thin, crescent-shaped strip of sand a bit like an archipelago

Bahamas in shape and texture, alone in the swirling North Atlantic. It looked like a piece of an archipelago that had sunk on the ocean floor - a tiny island that had lost all of its friends.

Calling it "island" is probably too generous. Sable is really just a strip of sand, a piece of sand dunes and ribbed weeds - 26 miles long and just a mile wide - weathered with wind and waves. How vulnerable it looked from 38,000 feet (11,582 meters).

I have flown over to Sable many times and was about to ask about it. It was later learned that this place was "the subject of extensive scientific research," according to a web site, "and of a variety of documentaries, books and magazine articles." It is most famous for being home to about 250 wild horses. Horses have appeared in Sable since the late 18th century, living on grass and clear ponds. The short visitors on the island are gray seals and nearly 300 species of birds. People have strictly limited access to this island. Only a few people working at a scientific research station have a long life here.

That's enough about the earth. I know some readers who are curious about UFOs²⁴. I am frequently asked about this issue. Up to now I have never seen a UFO, and I have never met another pilot who reported seeing one. To be honest, this topic has never been addressed, not even during long dark night flights across the ocean. Dreaming about the vastness of the universe does, but I don't remember having talked to colleagues about UFOs in particular. I have never read this subject in any major publication or book.

²⁴. UFO: stands for unidentified flying object in English, meaning unidentified flying object.

I have received an email asking about what is known as a "tacit agreement" between pilots that we will not discuss publicly seeing UFOs out of shame and because, according to the email's writer, " the risk of career sacrifices. " I laughed at the notion that a tacit agreement exists between pilots on any matter, let alone flying saucers. And while there are many things in the aviation industry that are the equivalent of sacrificing a career, but among them there is no hiding information about UFOs.

6.

... MUST GO DOWN

Catastrophes, mishaps, and stupid frenzy

AIRPORT SCENES AT AIRPORT STATION: WHAT IS AIRPORT SECURITY?

• In the United States and around the world, the security enhancement measures taken after the September 11, 2001 disaster are drastic and fall into two categories: or

practical and effective, or irrational and meaningless.

The first is deployed almost entirely behind the scenes. Comprehensive detection of explosives in checked baggage, for example, should have been done long ago and is perhaps the most welcome addition. Unfortunately, the latter has dominated the entire aviation experience. I'm talking about div scans, X-rays, div scans, and seizures going on at thousands of checkpoints at airport terminals around the world. These processes waste time, money, and humiliate millions of people every day.

There are two fundamental flaws in our approach: The first is the strategy that anyone gets on an airplane - whether old or young, healthy or ill, domestic or foreign, passenger or pilot - also capable of being a terrorist. Do

So that means we're looking for a weapon instead of looking for people who might actually use the weapon. This is an impossible and unsustainable task in such a giant system. In the US alone, up to 2 million people travel by air every day. Even the most strict guards could not guarantee that there were no knives in maximum security cells, anymore was the notion that the security guard would get out of everything that could be used as a weapon. gas in a crowded station.

The second mistake is our persistent preoccupation with the tactics of 9/11 terrorists - the great irony and tragedy of which is that the success of the attacks in 2001 was mostly It has nothing to do with airport security. The popular opinion is that 9/11 terrorists have taken advantage of a weakness of airport security by sneaking paper knives on planes. But that popular opinion is wrong. It was not the failure of the airport security that allowed those people to attempt to gain control of the aircraft. Instead, the main cause was the failure of national security - the collapse of communications and surveillance systems at the FBI and CIA level. In fact, what these people take advantage of is a weakness in our thinking - a series of speculations based on decades-old hijackings that are expected to happen. how. In previous years, hijackers meant diverting flights to Beirut or Hanava, negotiating hostage rescue and standoff; Accordingly, the crew is trained under the concept of passive resistance. The presence of the paper knives was just accidental. They can use just about anything else - silver airplane items, plastic knives, broken bottles wrapped with tape - especially when accompanied by a fraudulent claim there is a bomb. The weapon that was playing a role here was an invisible one: the element of surprise. As long as they don't give up because of their cowardice, surely hijack means redirected flight to Beirut or Hanava, negotiate hostage rescue and deadlock; Accordingly, the crew is trained under the concept of passive resistance. The presence of the paper knives was just accidental. They can use just about anything else - silver airplane items, plastic knives, broken bottles wrapped with tape - especially when accompanied by a fraudulent claim there is a bomb. The weapon that was playing a role here was an invisible one: the element of surprise. As long as they don't give up because of their cowardice, surely hijack means redirected flight to Beirut or Hanava, negotiate hostage rescue and deadlock; Accordingly, the crew is trained under the concept of passive resistance. The presence of the paper knives was just accidental. They can use just about anything else - silver airplane items, plastic knives, broken bottles wrapped with tape - especially when accompanied by a fraudulent claim there is a bomb. The weapon that was playing a role here was an invisible one: the element of surprise. As long as they don't give up because of their cowardice, surely Broken bottles wrapped with tape - especially when accompanied by a fraudulent claim to have a bomb. The weapon that was playing a role here was an invisible one: the element of surprise. As long as they don't give up because of their cowardice, surely Broken bottles wrapped with tape - especially when accompanied by a fraudulent claim to have a bomb. The weapon that was playing a role here was an invisible one: the element of surprise. As long as they don't give up because of their cowardice, surely

they will be successful.

For a number of reasons, today the opposite is true. The hijack pattern changed forever even before the Twin Towers first collapsed, when the United 93 passengers realized what was happening and protested. The element of surprise is no longer a useful tool. Today's hijackers will be faced with not just an armored cockpit, but an entire plane filled with people who believe they are about to die. It was hard to imagine a pirate, whether with a paper knife or a bomb, made two steps along the path without being punched and kicked in a bag of dust. Likewise, it is hard to imagine that organized terrorists would be willing to devote precious resources to a conspiracy with such a high likelihood of failure.

Despite this real situation, it seems that we are still willing to spend billions of dollars-Tax money and an uncountable number of hours of labor for a delusional attempt to thwart an incident that has occurred and cannot be repeated - where security personnel dug through our luggage to hunt Look for objects that are practically harmless: handmade knives, nail clippers, screwdrivers. Not to mention that even kids know that you can make deadly weapons from almost anything, from the ballpoint pen to the broken plate used to hold first-class food.

Likewise is the ridiculous restriction on liquids and gels, which is in place after a London-based conspiracy that intended to blow up civil aircraft with liquid explosives broke down in 2006. The liquid explosives threat does exist. We still remember the Ramzi Yousef detonation of a nitroglycerin bomb on a Philippine Airlines flight in 1994 - a test run for the so-called Project Bojinka, al's forgotten conspiracy.-Qaeda aims to destroy 11 at the same time

wide div aircraft over the Pacific. But explosives like that are not easy to dispense, and the notion that confiscating snowballs and ice cream will make us safer is, let's admit, ludicrous.

But among the half-hearted measures that we are familiar with, there is hardly a more dumb one than the regulation that requires pilots and flight attendants to undergo the exact same process of X-rays and outputl detection tests. passenger. As the book hits the press, it is finally in the United States testing a program that will soon allow mission pilots to bypass the regular testing process. The pilot's identity verification process is as simple as comparing professional credentials provided by the airline and the government with information stored on the database. However, it took 12 years to do so, it was a national shame that tens of thousands of ground workers at US airports, from luggage handling staff to cleaning staff. aircraft cabin and mechanical personnel, exemptions from inspection from the start. Many of them can reach the plane from the inside out without being accompanied by anyone. Some are employees of airlines, while a majority are contract employees of outside companies. Civilian pilots who used to fly airplanes armed with nuclear weapons lost credibility and had to go through outputl detectors. And those who put food into the plane's kitchen, tossed suitcases into the luggage compartment, and cleaned the aisles were allowed years of freedom on the plane's parking lot without being disturbed. If there is a clearer and easier to explain scenario anywhere in aviation security, I would gladly speak. Though no one was implying that the food employees,

Amazing, unbelievable.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will show how privilege granted to ground personnel depends on fingerprint identification, criminal background investigation over ten years, and matching lists wanted for terrorism, and that in addition to that ground personnel were subjected to occasional random physical checks. Okay, but the pilot has also been investigated equally thoroughly. As for those random spot checks, a ground worker told me that he had never been intercepted or physically examined for more than three years. “All I need to do is swipe my ID through the security revolving door. We only met TSA when those blue-shirted staff went down to the cafeteria to buy food. ”

Here's a true story: I am at a security checkpoint at a major US airport. I am at work, wearing full uniform, carrying all my belongings for work. I picked up the luggage and placed it on the conveyor belt for the X-ray, then passed through the outputl detector. When I was on the other side, I was waiting for my belongings to reappear when the conveyor belt suddenly moaned and stopped.

"Check baggage!" the security staff sitting behind the screen shouted. It is the most annoying saying in the aviation industry.

The luggage in question turned out to be my carry-on suitcase. Security staff discovered something inside. Every second passed while she waited for a colleague to come to discuss it. A minute passed. Then two minutes. Then three minutes. During that time, the line behind me grew longer and longer.

"Check baggage!" Finally, another security guard slowly walked over to me. Two people consulted. For some reason

Then, situations like these require secret football-style consultation, with lots of whispers and tricks, and then the conveyor belt is turned back on. Why can't it simply pull the illegal baggage off the conveyor belt and check it separately? This is the topic that will be discussed on another occasion, but think about how much time is wasted each day from these tests.

Finally, the second security hand, with a level of anger inferior to her shoulder weight, lifted my towed suitcase off the conveyor belt and walked towards me. "Is this yours?" she asked.

"Yes, it's mine." "You left the knife in here?" "That knife?" "Dao," she shouted. "Or silver knife and fork?" Right. Always. I carry a spare travel-sized set in my suitcase - a spoon, a fork, and a knife. Along with some instant noodles and snacks, they are part of my hotel survival equipment, useful in the case of a short transition time leading to no food. They are exactly like the dining tableware that comes with your meal on a long flight. All three are made of stainless steel and each is about 5 inches (13 centimeters) long. The knife has a rounded tip and a short row of teeth - which I call serrated but using the word too strong. Whatever the purpose or use it is, it is just a miniature butter knife.

"Yes," I told the security guard. "In it was a outputl knife - butter knife."

She opened the suitcase and pulled out a small vinyl bag containing the three. After she removed the knife, she held it straight with two fingers and stared at me coldly. Her gesture was like an angry teacher preparing to berate

a child who dared to bring chewing gum to class.

"You can't bring this over," she said. “Do not bring knives [original^first]. You can't bring knives through here. ”

^first. Originally: "No knifes".

It took me a while to realize that she was being serious. "I ... but ... it ..."

She threw it into a box and then started to look away. "Wait a second," I said. "Those are the airline's eating utensils." “It doesn't matter what it is. You can't bring knives through here. ”

“Teacher, that is the airline's knife. That's the knife that people give out on the plane. ”

"Good afternoon, sir." "You must be joking," I said. Hearing that, she took the knife out of the box and walked over to one of her colleagues at the end of the security check, sitting in a folding chair. I followed her.

"This person wants to bring this." The person sitting on the chair lazily looked up: "Are there serrated?" She showed the knife to this man. He looked over it and turned to me.

“No, this won't work. I can't bring it. " "Why not?" "It has serrated." He's talking about the tiny row of teeth on the blade. Honestly, I've been using this knife for many years, actually it's smaller and blunt than most of the knives given by airlines to their first and business class passengers. It's difficult to cut a slice of toast

this knife.

"Oh, stop it." "What do you call these?" He ran his fingers over the tiny cogs.

"That ... but ... they ... it ..." "Serrated knives are not allowed. You can't bring this with you. ”

"But, you see, why is it not allowed to carry it when it's the same knife that people give out on the plane?"

"That is the law." "Impossible. Can I speak to a manager?

"I am the manager." In life there are moments of time standing still and the air around you seems to thicken. You stand there in the ridiculous scene, just waiting for the crowd to laugh and the program staff Candid Camera² appeared from a far corner.

². A reality television program made in America, sneakily filming ordinary people facing pre-arranged situations with the intent of laughing. And as soon as the filming is finished, the program crew will meet the victim directly at the scene and shout the slogan: "Smile, you are joining Candid Camera!". This program with this kind of hidden camera has been sued by many individuals or organizations for violating personal life.

Only thing, the manager is taking it completely seriously. When I realized I wouldn't get the knife back, I tried winning a consolation prize that made the other person admit that the rule was absurd. "Come on," I argued. “The purpose of confiscating knives is to prevent people from carrying them on planes, right? But the passenger is given knives with them

food. At least admit that is a stupid rule. ”

"It's not a stupid rule." "Yes." "No, it's not." Just like that, until he asks me to leave. This regulation is so erroneous on many levels that it is difficult to fully explain it all. Just one simple thing, do I really need to point out that a civilian in control of an airplane doesn't need to use a butter knife if he really wants to cause damage?

I know what I've been presenting all this time sounds like a purposeful complaint for myself, but essentially the problem is not the pilot, but our approach to the problem. Security in general how sick. Like most of the other crew members, I have no problem being tested if it is done fairly, logically, and properly. In a way, TSA is solving the problem in the opposite direction. They are looking to implement a system to exempt pilots from checking security, while what they need to do is improve regulations for everyone.

Meanwhile, thousands of passengers were in the same situation as me: the girl had her wallet confiscated because it had pistol-shaped beads embroidered; the woman had her cupcakes stolen; a San Francisco pilot's newborn baby girl confiscated a rocking toy because it contained liquid. This makes me think. Why did the TSA not occasionally demonstrate a little basic understanding of common sense? If we have to believe that TSA screening staff are professionally trained professionals as they claim, then why wouldn't their staff be held accountable to be able to come up from time to time? a subjective assessment? Why them

Not empowered to make on-the-spot decisions? If the screening staff finds that a 170-gram toothpaste is clearly only half left, is there really a need to confiscate it and throw it in the trash like 90% of the time? are not?

A TSA spokesperson told me: “Our screening staff is given flexibility in certain circumstances. They are trained to think critically and have an obligation to think critically. " Maybe, but I don't see flexibility or thoughtfulness anywhere. I'm just seeing a stark obsession with the weight of the container and the size of the object, to the point that and includes whether the pilot's tiny knife is serrated or not, as if That makes the difference between safe and unsafe. Enforcing this kind of regulation is too boring and obviously not safe. You must have heard of an experiment in which TSA's screening staff received a suitcase containing a fake explosive device and a bottle of water right next to it? Of course they pull out the water bottle, and the bomb is let go. Take note of TSA's uniform. The screening staff is now called "officer," wearing a navy blue shirt and silver insignia. It is no coincidence that their shirts and badges are identical to those of the police. This is called mission spread³. In fact, TSA employees don't have such law enforcement authority - they just did a great job of fooling people into believing it. TSA has the proper authority to inspect your belongings and prevent you from passing through the security checkpoint. They have no right to hold, interrogate, arrest, force you to read the Vow of Allegiance, or harm your rights in any other way. Both the TSA and the passenger community need to remember this.

³. The word used in the original text is "mission-creep. "

It is the concept of a military operation with a purpose that gradually changes over time, often resulting in the militarization of civilian affairs or engaging in longer-term military purposes. concentration.

In 2010, after the failed bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, regulations were further tightened by the introduction of a full div scanner. This is one of the most controversial - and frustrating - developments in our long war against the abstract term, terrorism. The first generation machines produced scans-still- what-to-thought-statues, which have been replaced by new machines that only show contours around the div. Doing so somewhat reconciled the privacy controversy, but still did not address the tactical shortcomings of the other machines.

These scanners have been raised as a key component of airport security, but with airports equipped, and not airfields. There is a scanner on this check pin but the pin next to it is not; this station has, the other station does not. Are the terrorists that stupid? And if someone was going to sneak a bomb through the security check, the chances of it happening somewhere in Europe, Asia, Africa, or the Middle East were much higher than in Peoria, Wichita, or Cleveland. Yet these machines are most commonly installed at domestic airports; while at international airports, it is rare.

It's easy to be skeptical. Is the use of full div scanners really for the purpose of keeping passengers safe, or for the sake of corporations making billions-la from the design and implementation? Do they keep us safe?

otherwise they have to be considered, but they are certainly enriching someone. But the problem just stops here, and our reaction beyond a complaint or downside is just shy submission.

Equally annoying is the forced view that, starting from 9/11, the airline industry suddenly entered a new period of danger and threat. The magnitude of those 2001 attacks, coupled with Hollywood sensational scenarios and fireballs adding salt to it, has ruined our memories. We talk about the "post-9/11 era" while the politically motivated violence of civil aviation has been around for decades until now. In fact, today this situation has decreased a lot compared to before. The period from the 1970s to the 1990s resembled the Golden Age of Aviation Crime, rife with hijackings and bombings. Over the five years from 1985 to 1989, at least six major terrorist attacks against commercial aircraft or airports, including two bombings of Libyan terrorists' flights Pan Am 103 and UTA 772; the bombing of a 747 by Air India left 329 people dead; and TWA's flight-oriented school novel 847. Flight 847 from Athens to Rome in June 1985 was attacked by a group of Shiite militias armed with grenades and pistols. The hijacked 727 then embarks on an unusual 17-day adventure to Lebanon, An Flight 847 from Athens to Rome in June 1985 was attacked by a group of Shiite militias armed with grenades and pistols. The hijacked 727 then embarks on an unusual 17-day adventure to Lebanon, An Flight 847 from Athens to Rome in June 1985 was attacked by a group of Shiite militias armed with grenades and pistols. The hijacked 727 then embarks on an unusual 17-day adventure to Lebanon, An-damn-ri, then come back. At one point, passengers were taken off the plane, divided into groups, and imprisoned in central Beirut. The photo of TWA's Captain John Testrake poking his head out of the cockpit window, next to a gun-armed terrorist, was broadcast around the world and became an unforgettable symbol of the siege.

I say "unforgettable" but that's all. How many Americans remember flight 847? It's strange that our memories are so short. And partly because of such short memories, we easily panic and be manipulated. Imagine that the TWA 847 incident will happen tomorrow. Imagine six successful aircraft terrorist attacks over five consecutive years. The aviation industry will perish, the people will be paralyzed with fear. It would be a catastrophe of enormous scale - all-encompassing and, I would venture to suggest, the immediate abandonment of important civil rights. What of us, as a society, has made us so unable to remember and to cope?

But okay, that's enough of what we shouldn't do. What about what should we do? If I spend how much time complaining like that there should be some solutions, right?

In my opinion, airport security in general should be narrowed down to a more streamlined and focused operation. I'm not saying we have too dense security systems, but it's certainly putting too many in the wrong places, out of sync with the threat hierarchy. First, all the money is being spent on finding sharp objects, meticulously inspecting people's identity cards, and confiscating harmless liquids that need to be reallocated.

The primary threat to the commercial aviation industry was, is, and will always be, a bomb. Therefore, all types of luggage, both carry-on and check-in, as well as cargo, must be thoroughly inspected for explosives. This has been done officially, but I think we can do a more thorough, more emphasis on airports outside of the US. The place most likely to receive bombs was not Omaha or Tucson, and

I recommend that 35% of TSA's resources be transferred to overseas locations. If this requires sensitive negotiations with foreign airport authorities, then well. And like it or not, it's time to pay more attention to passenger classification. Categorization for some is a mean word but this process is not just a one-way concern about skin color or nationality. Indeed, in the words of security experts, the racial or ethnic categorization didn't work. Practice means weakness, and the more predictable our methods are, the more susceptible they are to failure. An effective classification must use a multi-point approach, which is a universal encompassing both tangible and behavioral traits. TSA has always trained employees on the more sophisticated points of behavior pattern recognition. Which is good, although so far the screening staff is still more adept at detecting scissors and shampoo than detecting terrorism.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has proposed a plan to classify passengers into three risk groups and screen them accordingly. Biometric evidence for identification, such as a fingerprint or encrypted passport, will be compared against a saved biography that includes various types of personal data, and against a wanted list. This, together with flight booking data, determines which row a passenger is assigned to. Those in the first row will only have their baggage checked.

Those in the second row will be examined a little more closely, while the third row will be faced with the same inspection procedures as TSA's current process. This method is not perfect - and like many people, I also get nervous when I hear the words "biometrics" and "biography including many types of personal data" - but so far this is probably Best idea to restore

restore the integrity of airport security. IATA says the initial version of the three-tiered system is likely to be completed and operational in less than three years.

That is if the government cooperates. IATA is acting reasonably, but I am afraid it does not have the influence of the US Department of Homeland Security, the federal arm of TSA's work. To enact such a systematic change, the most important thing is the political will and courage of the heads of Congress. So far, we have seen almost no political opposition from both parties to the TSA wasting our time and money. While I don't want to speak like the one behind conspiracy theories, our leaders say and do as if they are enjoying the status quo, unwilling to deprive any aspect of what has become. a security complex-Industry is huge and profitable.

To be fair, there are many more intelligent and resourceful people at TSA who understand the challenges of airport security a lot better than I do. They openly admit that there is a need for a change of philosophy - to focus on the passengers themselves instead of their belongings. They understand that this is the most sustainable strategy for the future. But after all, the TSA is still a bureaucracy. There is no doubt that they, like other similar agencies, see the IATA proposal as a threat to their capital and power. This is a hastily set-up div that is empowered with considerable authority with little transparency. Any idea, no matter how useful, is faced with a disproportionate war against such a powerful entity of government,

What TSA has signed up for are third-party programs run by external contractors whereby passengers submit biometric and personal data in exchange for the result of screening. Promotion - and it takes a fee. I am one of those who find these programs a sight to behold. Instead of solving the problem, residents can pay for priority in queuing. Your taxes will continue to be used to pay for a disruptive system, and now you can pay even more to encourage that system. This is progress?

It doesn't have to be this superficial. Solution does exist. If we have a good intelligence and law enforcement system, along with random on-site scans, thorough explosives screening, and intelligent passenger classification, what will we get? A security strategy must be said pretty good.

Anyway, it's only good enough. Somewhere after all is a tense fact that is rarely acknowledged that no matter how hard we try, it will never be possible to make aviation completely safe. All the determination in the world or the most profound regulations that we dare to codify, do not surpass a cunning enough spoiler. A fully capable security system will greatly improve our chances, whether it be before a single madman's bomb concoction or an organized persecution from Chinese caves.

• But with each new technology and committed to better security, we are also inspiring the imagination of those who desire to defeat us. There will always be a detour.

Which brings us to the third fundamental mistake of our approach, which is that we refuse to admit that in the first place,

Preventing terrorists from accessing the real plane was not the task of the screening staff at the airport. Instead, it is the task of government agencies and law enforcement. The real work of tracking down terrorists takes place very far from the stands, depending on the diligent work of the police, spies, and intelligence officers. Aviation crime needs to be prevented from the planning stage. By the time the terrorist has reached the airport, it is likely too late. The rage of angry radical, though dangerous, is a enduring anthropological mission, to be dealt with separately; it is not an excuse to turn airports into fortresses and undermine freedom.

In the end, I'm not sure which is more troubling, the absurdity of the current regulations or the way the general public is accepting it. There should have been a tidal wave of opposition to this frantic approach. Where is it? The voice of the most powerful airline passenger community is only grumbling and resigned to it. The independent comment pages are silent; The scholars have nothing to say.

As for the airlines, they are in a certain tethered position. The airlines and the airline industry seemed contented by the rising anger of their customers, suggesting a bizarre self-torture and self-destructive business model. But on the other hand, try to imagine the rage emerging in certain circles if airlines are caught lobbying for what is seen as deregulation and liability in a dangerous way. dangerous - though that is not the case. The airlines have been heavily criticized, most of them injustice, after 9/11. It is understandable that they do not want to take charge

that mission too.

The process by which we have come to this point is an interesting study of reactionary politics, the trade of fear, and that people are willing to accept things whether they are illogical, inconvenient, or unreasonable. level, in the name of security. Deceived and filled with fear, what we have is not real security but just a security silhouette. The notion that this image "makes the passenger feel safer" is the only excuse for its existence, and is not enough to justify continuing to pour money and operate it. And while a large percentage of passengers and most security experts would agree that the image doesn't keep us safe, and at times increases the risk, there is hardly any problem. any objections. In this regard, we probably have the right system we deserve to endure.

Relational Perspectives: The Golden Age of Aviation Crime

1970: A Pan Am 747 destination New York was attacked by hijackers after taking off from Amsterdam. The flight was diverted to Cairo, where 170 people on board were released. After that, the extremists blew up the plane.

1970: In what became known as the Black September hijackings, five Israeli TWA, Pan Am, and El Al aircraft were requisitioned to Europe within three days by a the group is called the Palestinian Liberation Front (PFLP). After the passengers were released, three of the five planes diverted to a remote runway in Jordan, filled with explosives and then blown up. A fourth plane was flown to Egypt and was destroyed there.

1971: A user pseudonym DB Cooper attacks and threatens to blow up a Northwest Orient 727 flying from Portland, Oregon to Seattle. As he flew southwest of Washington, he parachuted off the stern with a large ransom. Since then, no one has seen or heard of him.

1972: A DC-9 JAT company (Yugoslav Airlines) on the way from Copenhagen to Zagreb has exploded at an altitude of 33,000 feet (10,000 meters). Ustashe, or the Croatian National Movement, has admitted the bomb explosion.

1972: The explosion on a Cathay Pacific plane traveling from Bangkok to Hong Kong left 81 people dead. A Thai police lieutenant is accused of hiding the bomb to kill his fiancé.

1972: In the arrival hall of Lod airport near Tel Aviv, three people from the Japanese Red Army recruited by the Palestinian PFLP group opened fire with machine guns and grenades, killing 26 people and injuring 80.

1973: When passengers were boarding a 747 of Pan Am at Rome airport, terrorists opened fire on the plane and threw grenades into the compartment, killing 30 people.

1973: 81 people were killed after an Aeroflot plane exploded over Siberia in a hijack attempt.

1974: A TWA 707 was on its way from Athens to Rome when it crashed into the sea near Greece, caused by an explosive device hidden in the cargo compartment.

1974: A man detonates two grenades on a plane

727 of Air Vietnam when the crew refused to take him to Hanoi.

1976: A DC-8 Cubana firms crashed near Barbados, killing 73 people. One exile against the Castro administration and three alleged accomplices were brought to court but then acquitted for lack of evidence.

1976: Air France Flight 139 on its route from Tel Aviv to Athens to Paris was attacked by a group of hijackers combined between the German PFLP and Revolutionäre Zellen (RZ). The plane was diverted first to Benghazi, Libya, and then flew to Entebbe, Uganda. In Entebbe, 105 hostages were held captive until the machine was raided by commandos of the Israel Defense Forces. During the siege, three passengers, seven hijackers, one Israeli, and about 40 Ugandan soldiers perished. (The dead Israelis, Yonatan Netanyahu, is the brother of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.)

1977: Both pilots on a 737 Malaysian Airline System (now Malaysia Airlines) were shot dead by a hijacker. The plane fell into a swamp.

1985: The Abu Nidal group killed 20 people in two coordinated attacks at the ticket counter at Vienna and Rome airports.

1985: A group of Shiite militias attacks TWA flight 847 flying from Athens to Rome, and holds hostages for two weeks. The only person killed was a US Navy diver who was shot dead and thrown into the apron. All the remaining hostages were eventually released, but that was after the Israeli government agreed to release more than 700 Shiite prisoners.

1985: A 747 from Air India is en route from Toronto

Arriving in Bombay, they were bombed flying across the North Atlantic by a group of Sikh militias. The number 329 people died as a result of the one-plane terrorist attack that is considered the worst in history (see tenth of the worst plane crashes, page 234).

1986: When TWA Flight 840 descended 10,000 feet towards Athens, a bomb exploded in the passenger compartment. Four people were shot out through a hole in the 727's fuselage.

1986: At the airport in Karachi, Pakistan, a 747 of Pan Am was about to depart when four members of Abu Nidal's group, carrying them with weapons, suddenly took the plane. As Pakistani forces stormed the plane, the terrorists began to fire and throw grenades. 22 passengers were killed and 150 injured. Although all four terrorists were arrested and jailed in Pakistan, they were released in 2001.

1987: A 707 Korean Air Lines vanished in the Andaman Sea while en route from Baghdad to Seoul. One of the two Koreans suspected of hiding a bomb committed suicide before being arrested. His assassin, a young woman, confessed to having left explosive devices - made of explosives in both plastic and liquid forms - on a luggage rack before leaving the plane in one stop. Transshipment. Originally sentenced to death, the woman was pardoned by the President of South Korea in 1990.

1987: At Los Angeles International Airport, a recently fired ticket salesman named David Burke sneaked a loaded gun through security and boarded a plane operated by Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA). San Francisco. When the plane was at full cruising altitude, he broke into the cockpit, shot and killed both pilots, and then flew the plane crashing into the ground nearby.

Harmony, California, kills all 44 people on board. (It sounds unbelievable, but the government's response to this crime was to conduct a security screening not against the ground personnel but with the pilot and the flight attendant.)

1988: Pan Am Flight 103, carrying 259 people, was destroyed by a bomb explosion above the town of Lockerbie, Scotland. One of the most extensive criminal investigations in history resulted in two Libyan spies, al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah and Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi appeared in front of a horseshoe in the Netherlands. Fhimah was acquitted. Al-Megrahi was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison but was released by British authorities in 2009. Until before the incident.-but-Who-also-know-was-service-what-then the bombing of Flight 103 was considered the most terrible terrorist attack targeting civilians in America. (see tenth of the worst plane crashes, page 234).

1989: Libya was also responsible for the bombing of UTA Flight 772 nine months after Lockerbie. Most Americans do not remember this incident but it has never been forgotten in France. 170 people from 17 countries were killed when a device exploded in the front luggage compartment of the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 in flight from Brazzaville, Congo to Paris. Plane debris crashed into the Tenere region of the Sahara desert, north of Niger, one of the most remote places on the planet. A trial in France eventually sentenced six Libyans in absentia for murder, including Muammar Gaddafi's brother-in-law.

1989: In a plot to kill police informants, members of a cocaine gang blew up Avianca flight 203 flying from Bogotá to Cali. No survivors among 110 passengers and

crew.

1990: A young man claims to have an explosive on his div bursts into the cockpit of a Xiamen Airlines 737 and asks to fly to Taiwan. Due to running out of fuel, the crew tried to land in Canton (Guangzhou's former international name), leading to a struggle. The plane deviated from the runway and crashed two other planes.

1994: While on a plane as a sub-crew member, Auburn Calloway, a full-duty Federal Express pilot about to be terminated, attacked a three-man crew aboard a DC-10 with a fish gun and hammer, almost killed all three. Before he was overpowered by the other three bloody pilots, his plan was to crash the plane into the FedEx headquarters in Memphis.

1994: An Air France A300 was raided by four Islamist extremists in An-damn-ri. The plane was forced to fly to Marseilles, where seven people were killed when the French army stormed the plane to rescue it. The footage shows an Air France pilot plunging himself out of a cockpit window as a stunner grenade flashed behind him.

1996: An Ethiopian Airlines 767 aircraft was attacked by hijackers over the Indian Ocean. The plane ran out of fuel and prepared to make an emergency landing in the waters of the Comoros Islands. The hijackers grappled with the pilots, and the plane crashed when it hit the sea, killing 125 people.

1999: An All Nippon Airways 747 landed safely after a deranged man burst into the cockpit and stabbed the captain to death with an 8-inch (20-centimeter) knife.

1999: Captain Chris Phatswe of Air Botswana stole a short, empty ATR plane and then flew it into two nearby parked planes, killing himself and destroying nearly the entire fleet. our country's tiny aviation.

And in order not to forget what might have happened, I will remind you of Project Bojinka's nearly successful 1994 plot to bomb 11 simultaneous widediv planes over the Pacific. Bojinka, or "big bang," is the brainchild of Ramzi Yousef, master of liquid explosives, and his uncle Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed then went on to plan the 9/11 attacks, and Yousef at that time was wanted for his role in the opening of the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. Bombs made of nitroglycerin, sulfuric acid, acetone, and other chemicals are hidden in life jackets under the passenger seats. In 1995, Yousef completed a successful small-scale test run on a 747 Philippine Airlines, killing a Japanese businessman.

Please say something to encourage those who are afraid of flying?

Can I cure your phobia? It depends on the nature of your fear rather than on my skill of interpretation. I am not a psychologist and not everyone's fears are valid. In most cases, what the fearful of flying people really fear has little or no relation to the flight itself and cannot be solved by explaining, giving statistics, or talking.

must be disturbed. They don't need a pilot but need a mentor or mental health professional.

It is normal to be scared to a certain extent, whether it is a person flying for the first time or a seasoned crew member. I am not surprised to learn that millions of people who understand the story cannot reconcile the notion of traveling hundreds of miles per hour so far above the Earth, inside tubes pressurized to the payload. tens, hundreds of tons. It is an unnatural activity for humans, and while it is not necessarily a violation of the laws of physics, it does seem to violate all common sense. Technology has done that, but while air travel statistically is not dangerous, it's essentially a different story.

Statistically, baseball scholar Bill James said, "Don't use numbers if you don't have to." Usually he is right, and I am not interested in citing insignificant numbers. We are so used to the abstract assertion of flight safety that it no longer makes us think. However, it is also worth spending some time learning about some statistics. For example, the following figure, you can almost imagine: every day, in the US alone, about 25,000 commercial flights take off. According to the extrapolation method, there are about 50,000 flights a day worldwide. That's just every day, every week, every month. Only the 10 most popular airlines alone fly nearly six million flights a year. Inside,

How little? In America, we are firmly in the security phase

most in commercial aviation history. When this manuscript was being written in 2013, for more than 11 years we have never seen a large-scale plane crash by any major airline. That is a record since the invention of civil aircraft. The most recent US catastrophe was American Airlines flight 587 near Kennedy airport in November 2001. Since then, the only casualty that has happened to the major airline has been the case of a boy. died when a Southwest Airlines 737 plane overshadowed a snow-covered runway in Chicago in 2004. That boy was sitting in a car when he was hit by a plane slipping on the road. It is true that there have been a few non-lethal incidents (eg the Sully incident on the Hudson River) and a few tragedies that happened with regional aircraft,

We have this ratio, despite the unprecedented financial woes in the industry. 9/11 resulted in thousands of layoffs and four major firms declared bankruptcy, followed by a sharp oil price crisis in 2 years 2007.-2008, followed by a terrible recession. Any comment about customer service is fine, but even though our biggest airlines have faltered financially, they maintain impeccable safety.

Further: In a 2003 study published by the American Scientist magazine, researchers at the University of Michigan reevaluated the controversy over whether to travel by plane.

• bowl. To be as cautious as possible, their probabilistic calculation technique was not based on the number of kilometers traveled but the number of takeoffs and landings, which were two stages that occurred in more than 90% of crashes.

fly. They also only looked at data from rural federal highways - some of the safest driving environments. Their data shows that if a passenger chooses to ride a car instead of a plane for the long distance of a regular flight, then that passenger will have a 65 times higher mortality rate.

• In other parts of the world, the statistics are equally impressive. The number of commercial aircraft in the world today is twice as many and carries twice as many passengers as it did in 1980. Yet, for every mile a passenger flies, flying is estimated to be safe. more than five times. In the past 10 years alone, the number of annual air passengers has increased by about 20% to more than two billion. During that period, the number of continuous fatal aviation accidents was about 20 per year. According to the Aviation Safety Network, 2012 was the safest year in the world since 1945.

To achieve that is not easy. It is mainly the result of better pilot training, evolving cockpit technology, and a less recognized collaborative effort in the aviation industry, lawmakers, pilot groups, and crews. international organizations such as ICAO. (ICAO - pronounced Eye-kay-oh, the International Civil Aviation Organization - is the United Nations aviation governing div, which sets global principles for a wide range of safety issues, from tarmac to access process.) Not long ago, when the aviation industry began to expand rapidly in places like China, India, and Brazil, experts warned of a tipping point. They say that if certain deficiencies are not addressed then disasters will spread like an epidemic at a rate of almost one crop per week. Fortunately they have been resolved,

lead to plane crash.

However, maintaining such high standards requires a certain amount of effort. And even though it shouldn't be, I still have to say this: At some point, our luck will end. There will be a catastrophic accident again. Confirming this today is a great way to relieve shock later on. It is not to say that we can be less alert; but to recognize the inevitable and acknowledge that no system, no matter how good, can be perfect. And when that happens, maybe we should prepare ourselves for the wave of reactions. The media's immense interest in minor accidents, preventive landings, and harmless glitches in recent years is a sad foreshadowing of what will come when one incident. really serious happened. The next worst thing about the next serious plane crash is the loss of life. The second worst thing is overreaction and hype.

Most of us accept the safety of commercial aviation. We understand this. However, what are the nightmare situations in the pilot's mind? What are the emergency situations that scare them the most?

This is a difficult question. Even the hint that the pilot "fear" a certain situation was enough to convince passengers who are afraid of flying believe that situation will happen. The last thing I want to do is scare someone who has come to this chapter for comfort again to fear death. However, this is also a reasonable question and deserves an answer.

In general, pilots are afraid of what they have no control over. We are not afraid of making fatal mistakes by being blamed for the mistakes of others, or being in the right of birth

of forces that do not recognize our skills and expertise. At the top of my list are lithium battery explosions, bird bumps resulting in multiple engine shutdowns, catastrophic mechanical malfunctions, and ground collisions. We talked about birds in chapter two (see Clashing birds, page 59), and will talk about collisions later in this chapter. “Catastrophic mechanical malfunctions” is a generic term for things like loss of flight control (loss of tail-wing control, altitude rudder, or pitcher), a converter deployed even though unmanaged. , and the horrors of the worst-case scenario can make a plane fly. Although hard to hear, all of these situations have happened once or twice.

In terms of sparking batteries, the blocks store high-energy lithium - both types of lithium batteries-ion (Li-Ion) and lithium-polymer (Li-Po) for many laptops and other devices - can all experience what is called a thermal runaway, a chemical chain reaction that causes them to heat up rapidly and uncontrollably. . The hazard is not a small fire in the passenger compartment that can be extinguished immediately with a fire extinguisher, but the possibility of a large, invisible fire in the luggage compartment or cargo compartment. The frightening thing is that tests have shown these fires against the Halon fire suppression systems in the cargo hold that are used on commercial aircraft.

The FAA has recorded more than 70 incidents involving lithium battery explosions since the 1990s. Two of the most serious are the fatal crash of a UPS 747 near Dubai in 2010 and a near fatal fire on a DC-8 by UPS

• Philadelphia in 2006. Both fires are attributed to shipping large blocks of lithium batteries. And in 2013, all

Boeing 787 aircraft were temporarily banned after a series of lithium battery fires in the aircraft's electronic chambers.

Currently, regulations banning the carriage of large-volume lithium batteries on passenger aircraft, as well as prohibiting the carrying of removable (spare) lithium batteries in checked baggage. However, there is always a possibility that a cargo of lithium batteries will get through. If you think the probability of a lithium battery explosion is very small, you are right. But in my opinion, in order to be healthy and for safety in general, we pilots should still be mentally prepared for certain situations.

As someone who is afraid of flying, I kept trying to read out the expressions on the faces of the crew members. Is it a general policy not to notify passengers of emergencies to avoid causing panic? Can I guess by looking into the flight attendant's eyes?

The daze in the flight attendant's eyes was probably exhaustion for many reasons, not from fear. Anxious passengers tend to envision a catastrophe quietly hanging overhead, with anxious flight attendants pacing the aisle and secretly whispering to each other. In fact, passengers will be notified of any serious emergency or incident.

And even the least serious incidents. If you have been told that the airframe has been disordered, has pressurization problems, engine malfunction, or needs a precautionary landing, do not assume this is a life-and-death situation. It's almost always just a small matter - you'll be kept up-to-date anyway. Even with the fragile possibility of evacuation, you must be kept up to date.

On the other hand, the crew will not notify passengers of minor problems that do not affect flight safety. Even small issues that must be said will cause passengers unnecessary worry, not to mention the salt sauce added. “Gentlemen and ladies, I am the captain. I just want to report that we have just noticed that the back-up circuit of the smoke alarm system in the rear cargo compartment has failed. " In this example, the passenger will go home and recount: "Dear God, the plane was on fire." It's not that people aren't smart enough to understand what is dangerous and what isn't, but that we are dealing with highly misleading terminology and technical words.

This theme is reminiscent of jetBlue's unhappy flight 292 novel, an Airbus A320 that had to make an emergency landing in Los Angeles in 2005 because of a crankshaft problem. Although it was only a minor incident from a technical perspective, the problem was that the whole incident was broadcast live, attracted the attention of millions of Americans and scared everyone on board. dreaded even if not necessary:

Seconds after taking off from Burbank, California, the pilots realized that the plane's front forks were not retracting properly and were warping at a 90 degree angle. Since they can't get it back in place, they'll have to make an emergency landing with the tire's tires twisted to the side. The jetBlue's flight crew and dispatcher agreed to redirect the aircraft to Los Angeles, mainly to take advantage of the long runways of LAX airport. But the first problem was that the weight of the aircraft at that time exceeded the maximum weight allowed to land. Like other small aircraft, the A320 does not have a fuel discharge function (see Exhaust section, page 55). This means that the plane was kept flying for three hours in the Pacific

until the aircraft's load is reduced to a suitable level.

It was those three hours that turned a relatively normal situation into a live broadcast phenomenon. California news agencies are wandering around looking for car chases and traffic accidents, now just point the camera in the sky to get the Airbus flying around. On the plane, 146 souls are ready for what, according to commentators, will be a catastrophic plane crash. The adult men are also crying clearly in tears. The other passengers were scribbling farewell letters with relatives. Words like "fear" and "pain" will later appear in the interviews of "survivors."

Those who know better are not panicking like that. In our eyes, it was a situation where a somewhat disturbing plane was preparing for a compelling television landing but completely controllable. And that's exactly what happened. The plane landed smoothly with its main tires, the nose of the plane gently lowered as the speed slowed down until the more stubbornly it swept across the road surface, sparks a series of ponytail sparks. No one was injured.

As if that live-broadcast novel wasn't enough, the media spent the next three days suffocating in their own hype and hype, replaying slow-motion footage, interviewing passengers, and Overall, there is more to jetBlue ad free than they might wish for.

For those on the plane at that time, the TV screen on the back of the jetBlue's seat contributed to the panic, spreading hasty live images from the media. What that

Passengers need a calm and accurate explanation of what's going on, and what's likely to happen upon landing. What they get in return are sensational comments from people who don't understand what they're talking about. The whole thing creates a bizarre and annoying nosy triangle: frightened passengers assume they're watching themselves, when in reality they're watching us watching them. . But during that process, there was no shortage of other better programs to watch on TV.

But given that the level of safety is really that high, then why are airlines so timid? Firms rarely advertise safety. Why not take advantage of it?

As a rule, airlines in the US do not use safety as a marketing tool. All use this word in a vague and general way, but rarely to describe specific programs or improvements. If they use it to advertise, then on the one hand it is a statistical gimmick, and on the other hand a form of market suicide, unintentionally breaking the assumption that the entire aviation industry is generally safe. That's not to mention the humiliation that an airline will suffer if a disaster strikes. If Firm A advertises that they are safer than all others, it will lead to speculation that their competitors have an element of danger. Such advertising requires the use of statistically opaque tricks. Since the terrorist attacks in 2001, American Airlines has had a fatal accident; No other network airlines were involved. If United or Delta bragged to outperform American, then mathematically correct, it would still be a lie.

We are all accustomed to thick, persistent advertising

business, but in this case there is a risk factor that pushes all airlines into collective silence. Because the number of casualties is so rare, the factor that changes statistically from a "safe" to a "dangerous" airline depends entirely on a few events out of hundreds of thousands of flights. Firms can lose their reputation because of a foolish act or a mishap. It is quite understandable that firms do not want to put their competing eggs in such a precarious basket.

Moreover, as soon as any airline dared to take out safety to advertise, this issue no longer has statistical significance but becomes a joke with human emotion. All airlines will suffer consequences if, in doing so, encourages passengers to ponder their deaths while surfing Travelocity4. Flying is a safe way to travel, and most people, even those most afraid of flying, agree with this fact almost or without question. For the airlines, that was enough.

⁴. An online travel agency in Dallax, Texas, USA.

That said, there is still a way to play a few tricks. Airlines are never blamed for bragging that their crews are the best trained; rambling safety instructions on the seat belts and oxygen masks; Nothing was more important than the safety of everyone on board. But these are not public advertising gags. Regulations allow all airlines to perceive themselves as safe. As long as you don't feel like you're safer.

Just because airlines don't advertise their safety measures doesn't mean they don't exist. Nostalgic people

The suspect will eagerly point to a series of traces of greed and negligence: firms are blamed for certain plane crashes, fined for violating maintenance procedures, etc.But I need a reminder. You immediately know how much damage a airline will lose if one of its aircraft crashes. The damage can sometimes reach billions of dollars-la, and just one disaster can completely ruin an airline. It might be difficult for some to accept, but to say that the airline industry and federal regulators are toying with the lives of passenger communities it is a terrible distortion.

The Ten Most Injuring Air Disasters of All Time

Even the most serious passengers will get bored at times over the monotonous reminders of the safety of the airline. For those brave enough to satisfy their unhealthy curiosity, I present the list below - of course in an elegant and educational way. As you will see, I have ignored the World Trade Center attacks. The phenomenon of using planes as weapons actually bent the definition of an "aviation disaster," so if you list the Twin Towers collapse it would be an extension of the concept. Is a Cessna detonating a bomb over a populous city considered an aviation disaster? Or an overburdened Russian propeller plane crashed into a crowded market in Zaire in 1996, killing more than 300 people, Only two of you on the plane? It is difficult to define clearly. Probably the fairest approach would be to subtract all of the above casualties-face-land from total casualties per incident (both on the plane and on the ground)? Until there is a formal definition here is a list of the worst plane crashes in history that have been reported.

widely received today:

1. March 27, 1977. Two Boeing 747s⁵ exploited by KLM and Pan Am on a misty runway in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands of Spain, killing 583 people (61 survivors are both Pan Am). Due to the vague instructions, the KLM plane started to take off without permission and crashed the other while it was rolling in the opposite direction on the same runway. Several factors contributed to this incident, including a blocked radio call that prevented the command post from recognizing KLM's error (see Tenerife story, page 263).

⁵. Type of charter flight exclusively for a travel agent.

2. August 12, 1985. A 747 from Japan Air Lines crashed near Mount Fuji during a domestic flight, killing

520. people. A rear pressure baffle cracked due to lack of repair after an accident seven years ago, allowing a blast of air to damage the tail and tail spoiler. Later, a JAL maintenance manager committed suicide. The company's president resigned, officially accepted responsibility, and he personally visited the families of the victims to send his personal apology.

3. November 12, 1996. An Ilyushin IL plane-76 cargo ships flying from Kazakhstan collided in the air with a 747 operated by Saudia near Delhi, India; All 349 people aboard both planes were killed. The Kazakhstan crew did not follow the instructions of air traffic control, and neither aircraft were equipped with collision avoidance technology of today's standards.

3. March 3, 1974. A DC-10 by THY (Turkish

Airlines) crashed near Orly airport, killing 346 people. An improperly installed cargo door has popped out of the doorframe, reducing the pressure resulting in a collapse of the cabin floor, damaging the cables connecting the rear spoiler and the steering wheel. The plane lost control, crashing into the woods northeast of Paris. McDonnell Douglas, builder of the DC-10, forced to redesign the store compartment system.

5. June 23, 1985. A bomb installed by an extremist Sikh blew up an Air India 747 on its way from Toronto to Bombay. The plane crashed in the eastern sea of ​​Ireland, killing 329 people. Canadian investigators cite deficiencies in baggage screening and staff training.

5. August 19, 1980. One L-1011 Saudia airline's journey to Karachi had to return to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia after there was a fire on the plane shortly after departure. For reasons never fully disclosed, the plane rolled to the end of the runway after a safe emergency landing, and stayed on the spot with the engine continuing to operate for more than three minutes. There was no emergency evacuation. Before rescuers with the wrong equipment could open any door, all 301 passengers and crew members were killed by a fire that covered the cabin.⁶.

⁶. A later investigation revealed that all victims on the flight died from asphyxiation, not from burns from the fire.

• ND.

7. July 3, 1988. An Airbus A300 operated by Iran Air was shot down by the US Navy cruiser Vincennes over the Strait of Hormuz. The crew on the Vincennes were lost

concentrated because a gun battle was going on, mistakenly thinking the A300 was an enemy aircraft so he shot it down with two missiles. None of the 290 people on board survived.

8. May 25, 1979. When a DC-10 of American Airlines took off from the O'Hare airport runway in Chicago, an engine pulled out and severely damaged an aircraft wing. Before the crew could understand what was going on, the plane tilted at an angle of 90 degrees and turned into a fireball. With 273 casualties, this is still the worst plane crash to happen on US territory. The reason is both the engine cylinder design process and the company's maintenance process. All DC aircraft-10 are temporarily suspended.

8. December 21, 1988. Libyan spies were later blamed for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. The plane exploded in the night sky of Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people, including 11 on the ground. The plane's largest debris was an array of flaming wings and fuselage that fell over the Sherwood Crescent neighborhood in Lockerbie, destroying 20 houses and creating a hole as deep as a three-story building. The shock was so strong that the measuring instruments registered a force as strong as 1.6 Richter.

8. September 1, 1983. Korean Air Lines Flight KL007, a 747 carrying 269 passengers and crew from New York to Seoul (with a technical stop at Anchorage) was shot from the air near Sakhalin Island in the North Pacific by a machine Soviet combat flight (old) after the 747 deviated from its route into Soviet airspace. Investigators attributed this deflection to "a significant degree of lack of alertness and attention from the crew."

Summarizing 10 events this way leads to hasty conclusions.

One can surmise, for example, that the 747 is the deadliest plane in the sky because it is involved in seven of the ten worst catastrophes, ignoring its enormous capacity. However, we also see something strange, such as the failure of the crew, ie the pilot's error, in seven out of ten cases. In total, these crashes included 12 aircraft and 10 airlines. Pan Am was involved in two cases, as did the less well-known Saudia (now renamed Saudi Arabian Airlines). An interesting analysis also found:

• Number of incidents occurring in the US: 1

• Number of incidents occurring before 1974: 0

• Number of incidents occurring in the 1970s or 1980s: 9

• Number of cases in which pilot failures were recorded as direct or indirect causes: 3

• Number of cases that happened due to the destruction of terrorism: 2

• Number of cases caused by mistakenly shot down: 2

• Number of crashes due to mechanical problems or design errors: 3

• Total number of people killed: 3,530

• Total survivors: 65 (61 people Pan Am in Tenerife, and

4 people of JAL)

The total number of people killed the 3,530 above is equivalent to about one-tenth of the annual auto deaths in the United States.

In the West, we sometimes hear about clues

The danger of flying with certain foreign airlines. Is such fear justified?

It should start with a confirmation that there is no such thing as a "dangerous" airline anywhere. Some firms are safer than others, but even the least safe is still very safe.

By far the worst-known region in the world is sub-Saharan Africa, home to a plethora of small companies operating without the scrutiny or resources of Western airlines. But even here, the statistics are sometimes misleading. It is important to differentiate between mainstream African airlines from lower class carriers and non-regular carriers. Flying with South African Airways or Ethiopian Airlines, for example, has a fairly excellent track record, is not like flying on a Congo scheduled airline or a charter plane from Guinea. Africa's "dangerous" airlines are not even the right airline as most people think.

"Americans have no reason to fear foreign airlines," said Robert Booth of AvMan, an aviation consulting firm in Miami. "Many of these companies have a safety culture that meets or even exceeds our standards," he points out.

That's a fair assessment, but some companies have struggled to shake off their bad reputation. Such as Russia's Aeroflot. In the past, when calculating the total number of plane crashes, Aeroflot had a relatively poor performance. At least on the surface. Some captions are needed here, not to mention that in its heyday, Aeroflot was an entity.

a giant equivalent of the size of all American airlines put together, and engaged in a wide variety of business operations up to the most remote outposts like Antarctica. In the 1990s, Aeroflot split into dozens of independent firms, one of which - still the largest but far from the size of the original company - inherited its name and adopted brand appearance of Aeroflot. Headquartered in Moscow, the existing Aeroflot airline operates around 120 aircraft and carries 14 million passengers a year. Since 1994, they have had only two serious accidents, one of which was caused by a subsidiary.

Another example is Korean Air. In 1999, Korean Air was fined by the FAA, and temporarily cut off its agreement to share an airline code with Delta Air Lines after a series of fatal accidents at the beginning. People still hold the stereotype about the airline even though the Korean government has ambitiously reformed the entire aviation system, and although ICAO issued a confirmation critique in 2008. ICAO assessed the target. Korea's aviation safety standards, including pilot training and maintenance, are among the highest in the world, beating out more than a hundred other countries.

In fact, in certain areas I would feel more comfortable flying with a local airline that knows their territory and what characteristics of flying there. One example I want to mention is the Bolivian LAB - Lloyd Aereo Boliviano - which was previously the national airline of one of the poorest countries in South America. The LAB no longer exists, but between 1925 and 2008, they flew over the dangerous peaks of the Andes to and from La Paz, the world's highest commercial airport. Since 1969, LAB has suffered only two fatal plane crashes on regular passenger flights, killing a total of 36 people.

While they are not a mainstay airline operating thousands of flights a day, two plane crashes in 34 years between the mountains and the dangers of the Altiplano plateau are exemplary. What about Ethiopian Airlines? This is also a poor country surrounded by rugged mountainous terrain. Yet their national airline's performance in more than seven decades of operations - three fatalities, one of which was hijack - is rare. Ethiopian Airlines is one of the proudest airlines and arguably one of the safest in the world.

Below is a list of airlines that have not experienced a fatal incident in the past 30 years. All of these firms have been in business since at least 1980:

• Aer Lingus (Ai-wool)

• Air Berlin

• Air Jamaica (now part of Caribbean Airlines)

• Air Malta

• Air Mauritius

• Air New Zealand

• Air Niugini (Papua New Guinea)

• Air Portugal

• Air Seychelles

• Air Tanzania

• All Nippon Airways

• Austrian Airlines

• Bahamasair

• Cathay Pacific

• Cayman Airways

• Finnair

• Hawaiian Airlines

• Icelandair

• Meridiana (Italy)

• Monarch Airlines (UK)

• Oman Air

• Qantas

• Royal Brunei

• Royal Jordanian

• Syrianair

• Thomsonfly (former name is Britannia Airways)

• Tunisair

• Tyrolean Airways (Austria)

I chose 1980 to best record the transition period

from the first generation of jets and propeller aircraft to the modern aircraft squadron. Most of the companies listed above have had a perfect track record in the period prior to that year. Several carriers, including Air Jamaica, Oman Air, and Tunisiair, have never recorded any fatalities. The carriers of a fatal accident since 1980 are Royal Air Morocco, TACA, and Yemenia. Even the airline frequently blamed as Air Afrique, a collection of West African airlines that went bankrupt in 2001, has suffered a single crash in more than three decades of operation. Ghana Airways, another African star until its transfer in 2004, had an even cleaner background, with only one single death toll in 1969.

Whether the fortunes of some of these firms are proof of exemplary professionalism and professionalism or simply luck is perhaps still to be considered. Royal Brunei Airways, for example, is just a tiny airline with a fleet of several aircraft. Compare that with American Airlines, which has hundreds of planes and thousands of flights that depart every day. American defeated Royal Brunei with a score of 5-0 on the number of plane crashes since 1980, but clearly such a comparison is lame. Anyway, any resume after 30 years that still hasn't tarnished is impressive in itself, especially when the context is an underdeveloped country with equipment and infrastructure. standard downstairs.

• America, the FAA whose passion for safety is less than the annoyance of using acronyms from the initials, has written it up.

Program International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA⁷) to assess the safety of other countries, using criteria based on the ICAO guidelines. Safety is classified by countries, not by individual airline. Category 1 is for the qualifying countries, while Type 2 is for the qualifying countries

for countries that do not "conduct safety monitoring of airline operators in accordance with minimum safety standards." Since this is a country-by-country classification, not company-specific, and because the restrictions are applied unilaterally, the IASA is subject to criticism. Type 2 carriers can still fly to and from the US, but not increase capacity. Yet, the reverse service is not affected. Robert Booth argues that the logic of this program is misleading. “If the level of supervision of a given country is found to be inadequate, then why can our airlines fly there without problems, and their airlines cannot fly to our country? ? " Booth proposes bilateral capacity limits to balance and encourage governments to strive for higher standards.

⁷. Abbreviation for International Aviation Safety Assessment.

In 2005, the European Union began to blacklist its own airlines. This list is updated monthly, banning firms from a wide range of countries, as well as all firms from several countries, such as Congo, Benin, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, and Gabon. But importantly, most of the banned operators are airlines that ordinary passengers never fly. They are mainly marginal carriers, mostly located in West and Central Africa. As you might imagine, the top spots on this blacklist once belonged to the national flag carrier of Indonesia, Garuda, North Korea's Air Koryo, and Afghanistan's Ariana. Ariana is a company with a history of more than 50 years but for obvious reasons, it lacks the resources to meet today's European standards.

Didn't Qantas, that Australian airline, ever have a fatal accident?

It is a widely circulated myth - and it is no surprise that Qantas is in no rush to seek reform. However, looking at your background, you will see that Qantas' operating history has been tarnished by at least seven fatal cases. To be fair, all of these cases happened before 1951, and since then the company has been operating perfectly. So, although the details are not really accurate, the Qantas legends are essentially intact: their profiles are extremely prominent.

Qantas resembles the reverse image of Aeroflot. While many people's views on Aeroflot are based on silly caricatures - vodka pilots gulping over rusty Cold War wine barrels, and old ladies scowling. shouting at passengers - even more people have been deceived by the myth of the Pure Qantas firm. This historical confusion is also made by Hollywood forever through a dialogue between Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman in the 1988 movie Rain Man.

"All airlines have crashed airplanes from time to time," Cruise told Hoffman. "That doesn't mean they're unsafe."

"Qantas," replied Hoffman. "Qantas never crashes a plane." I liked that dialogue because it was Cruise's character, not Hoffman's, who made a more accurate and valuable comment.

So if Qantas is not the safest company, which one?

I am constantly being asked this question. I have no answer because there really is no answer. Considering that crashes are very rare

So the comparison is just like theory. People who are afraid of flying tend to differentiate in the abstract, purely statistically, not based on reality. But such a distinction makes no sense when there are only a few incidents that spread over thousands or even millions of flights. Sites like Airsafe.com happily provide airline safety data, but why drive yourself crazy by mulling the less than 1% difference in mortality? of one firm compared to another? To be honest, is Firm A having a plane crash in 20 years is safer than Firm B that has suffered two incidents in the same time period? If you are more comfortable choosing United over Aeroloft, or Lufthansa over China Airlines, then go ahead. Are you really safer? Maybe, if you compare the figure in the thousands, but factual and reasonable, the firms are the same. Fares, schedules, and service are the only criteria that you really need to consider. The same logic can be applied to the equally frequently debated problem of comparing one aircraft to another. Which is more reliable, the 737 or the A320? The answer: it is your choice. Virtually every reputable airline and all registered commercial aircraft are safe by any useful definition. The same logic can be applied to the equally frequently debated problem of comparing one aircraft to another. Which is more reliable, the 737 or the A320? The answer: it is your choice. Virtually every reputable airline and all registered commercial aircraft are safe by any useful definition. The same logic can be applied to the equally frequently debated problem of comparing one aircraft to another. Which is more reliable, the 737 or the A320? The answer: it is your choice. Virtually every reputable airline and all registered commercial aircraft are safe by any useful definition.

What about the safety of low-cost airlines?

Please see above. What exactly is a low-cost airline? Southwest would probably be classified as this in the eyes of most people, but the only lethal event in more than 40 years of its operation was a Chicago runway that killed a boy in a cell. bowl. For a long time, suspicions have existed that the newly established airlines are hung

Aggressive competition tends to be snatching. This is an affirmation that sounds plausible but never proven. In the US, looking back the past 25 years, considering all the emerging airlines from the time the aviation industry was deregulated in 1979, from PeoplExpress to jetBlue, there are only a few fatal plane crashes and The accident rate is also proportional to the firm's market share in the industry. There are and always will be newer and smaller airlines operating extremely professionally and traditionally at the highest possible standards. Other low-cost carriers were more sloppy and paid the price. At the same time, some of the most established and established airlines are sometimes held accountable for fatal negligence.

How are pilots involved in accidents treated? Were they rewarded for saving a plane from disaster? And what about the surviving pilots being held accountable? How will their careers be?

Compliments are usually in the form of a compliment letter from a superiors, shaking hands in congratulation at a party, and possibly a medal. The Airline Pilots Association (ALPA), the industry's largest pilot association, awards outstanding pilots each year. A beautiful glossy commemorative plaque or a free standing party is nothing bad, not to mention the feeling of personal and professional satisfaction for doing well under pressure. High, but no, you will not get a promotion or any additional bonuses. You can be rewarded with a vacation, but nothing, even if you save hundreds of lives, can beat the long service system.

There is another type of leave that pilots hope to avoid. Minor transgressions do not cause damage or injury - false

slightly deviated from an injunction, for example - seldom results in a severe punishment, but in the case of serious negligence the forms of punishment can range from compulsory repeat training to strike suspension or dismissal.

The FAA's “certificate action” is not dependent on penalties imposed by the airline. The FAA sends out a warning letter or punishes the pilot - in what the pilot calls a "violation" - or suspends or revokes the pilot's certificate. They can still continue in the profession, but any administrative fines that appear on the pilot's resume could be a huge, even fatal, hurdle if they intend to find a job later. .

• The United States, airlines and the FAA have all cooperated to launch a program called the Cargo Safety Action Program

no (ASAP⁸) allow flight crews to self-report small-scale unintentional process deviations or violations for penalty exemptions. ASAP protects pilots from punitive actions and helps airline training departments and regulators collect and monitor critical data. Instead of trying to blame and punish someone for the smallest violation, the purpose of this program is to detect unsafe trends and proactively address them. The program is well-received for the benefit of all parties, including passengers, and the concept has been spread to other industries, such as medicine and nuclear power.

⁸. Short for Aviation Safety Action Program.

I have never heard of any cases in the US in which pilots are subject to civil penalties like doctors being sued in court for mistakes in their practice (lawyers realize that airlines themselves and the new manufacturers are the big pockets, not their employees), but many

In another country, the pilot was arrested and brought to criminal court for mistakes while practicing. There has been a famous case in which the court convicted the captain of a crashed propeller plane in New Zealand in 1995. In 2000, three pilots on a 747 Singapore Airlines were caught by Taiwan police. Arrested after the plane crashed at Chiang Kai Shek airport, Taipei. They were forced to

• returned to Taiwan for two months, facing a five-year prison sentence for "professional negligence." Pilots in Brazil, Italy, and Greece have also encountered a similar situation. In 2001, a Japanese flight crew was questioned by the authorities after dodging to avoid a collision with another aircraft. Several people were injured while doing this, so police were sent to the cockpit after the plane landed.

"Fortunately, in the US and many other countries, there is an emphasis on finding the root cause of the accident and solving the problem," an ALPA representative said. “It's not like that in all countries, even in industrialized democracies that I thought they would understand. Pilots, air traffic controllers, and even company officials can get into trouble just because of an unintentional error that is far from reaching the definition of criminal negligence. You can also imagine how frightening that could have an effect on the accident investigation process. ”

As I watched the plane land, I noticed that the tire of the plane must be under a lot of pressure. Does tire explosion often occur?

Not often, but sometimes it does. The tire explosion in front of the nose of the aircraft is essentially harmless. The main wheel tire explosion under the wing and fuselage is slightly different and potentially more severe.

The most likely timing of a tire explosion is during or

immediately after braking at high speed, such as canceling takeoffs or stopping suddenly after landing. Strong brakes produce enormous energy and heat, a part of which is transferred to the tire itself. While aircraft wheels are injected with inert nitrogen gas and locked with fuse valves that allow them to automatically evaporate instead of exploding, the main wheel tires exploding at high speeds on the tarmac can still cause all kinds of discomfort. from reduced braking capacity to explosion. Even worse is the possibility of a single tire failure resulting in damage to the surrounding tires. Aborting a runway with multiple tires exploding at the same time can be quite a dangerous situation, and if a tire explosion occurs when the aircraft is near take-off speed then the wisest course of action is to continue takeoff wing and solve the problem while in the air.

In 1986, a Mexicana 727 crashed after taking off from Mexico City, killing 167 people. An overheated brake causes one of the four main tires to explode, causing debris to cut off the fuel, hydraulic, and electrical lines. That tire was pumped with air instead of nitrogen. Tire tension is also important; Too young tires can cause high temperatures. In 1991, a DC-8 Canadian crashes in Saudi Arabia, killing 261 people. One tire of the plane crashes, transmits energy to another tire, and the two explode together when the plane takes off. Fragments of material then began to burn after the aircraft retracted, causing flames to spread throughout the cabin as the aircraft turned around. An Air France Concorde caught fire and fell in 2000, when the fuel tank was punctured due to the explosion of an aircraft tire.

However, it should be made clear that most tire blasts even at high speeds are harmless. Modern aircraft are protected by highly efficient anti-slip systems, the brake temperature indicator in the cockpit, and the in-chamber fire suppression systems.

planes. All of these disasters have occurred with aircraft that are no longer in service.

One of them is a DC-8 that I am familiar with for having been driving the freighter version for almost four years (see section North Parallel, page 165). Late one night in 1998, we were preparing to take off from Brussels, Belgium with the maximum payload allowed when the ground controller instructed us to take the detour to the 25R runway. Rolling on the apron in the dark at dawn, we suddenly heard a loud bang and felt a shake. Concluded that that's just that

• Small chickens, we kept going because the plane was still operating normally. As soon as we entered the runway and were allowed to take off, we heard a second explosion, then quickly a third, then a Wednesday. So the plane - all 355,000 pounds (161 tons) - stuck and could no longer move.

The first sound we hear is the sound of eight tires under the wing of the DC-8 strong explosions. With maximum payload and after a few sharp turns on the taxiway, it is not long before the next tire suffers the same fate. Losing two more so the pressure put on the other two makes them explode as well. We were glad that it happened at that time, not 150 knots (277.8 km / h). The runway must be shut down until all the people and cargo on board have been dismantled, moved, drained of fuel from the aircraft, and towed for repair.

Can a person who is not a pilot fly a plane safely? If the entire flight crew lost the ability to fly, could a person without formal training be able to somehow get the plane to the ground?

It depends on the level. You mean someone who is completely ignorant of flying? Or a private pilot who used to fly an airplane

Four seats, or someone who is passionate about computer simulation and has studied aircraft systems and controllers? The results in all of these cases can be catastrophic, but in one case it will be better than the other. It also depends on the definition of the word "landing." You mean when it's only about 100 meters from the ground, in ideal weather conditions, the plane is stable and heading straight towards the runway, and someone is guiding you every step of the way? Or do you mean the whole process of getting to the airport, from flat altitude to landing?

In the first case, even a countryman has many chances of success. The best ground will shake, but with a little luck you will not be turned into an acrobatic fireball. In 2007, Discovery Channel's Mythbusters program set up a simplified NASA cockpit to resemble a "conventional commercial civilian aircraft." The hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman are in the helm, and a seasoned pilot placed in an imaginary command station will carefully guide them through radio. On the first attempt, the plane crashed. The second time, they succeeded.

But all they really did was just land a fictional plane down from a point that was already close to the runway. The situation most people envision is that while flying at flat altitude, the crew suddenly falls ill, and it takes a brave passenger to save everyone. He would sit in the pilot's seat and try to land with instructions fluently delivered from a radio voice. For someone with no knowledge or training, the chances of success in this situation are zero. This person will be instructed to descend from 35,000 feet (10,668 meters) down to a point where an automated, complete approach can be completed.

along with a variety of redirects, descent, deceleration, and configuration changes (proper setting of front flaps, rear flaps, and landing gear). I think it's as easy to do as giving instructions for organ transplant surgery over the phone to someone who has never had a scalpel. Even the most passionate private pilot or computer enthusiast is difficult. Our future hero will have to sweat to find the microphone on switch and radio control panel configuration, let alone steering, programming, navigation, and configuration settings. shape needed for a safe landing.

Some people still remember the movie Airport '75. A 747 was hit by a small propeller plane near the cockpit while in the air, and all three pilots were ejected. I hate to say this, but letting Charlton Heston swing under a helicopter and drop him through the hole in the fuselage isn't much of an exaggerated solution to reality. That was probably the only way that large plane could get back to the ground with less than a billion pieces. The scene of Karen Black as a flight attendant coaxing a disabled plane flying over a mountain range, if technically inaccurate is also helpful to illustrate how difficult the average person would be. just to do the simplest flight.

A few years ago, in New England, when the lone pilot on a Cape Air short-haul plane fell ill, a passenger drove a replacement and made a safe landing. Television reported a lot about this incident even though the passenger was a certified private pilot and that plane was just a 10-seater Cessna. In addition, there have never been any cases where passengers must be summoned to duty on the cockpit. I guess this means it never happened, or was intended to be

It's going to happen soon, depending on how suspicious the statistics you are.

Okay, but what about the pilots who hijacked planes on September 11, 2001? They drove a Boeing 757 and 767 into their target successfully, which is not at odds with what I just said and illustrates that a non-pilot can still fly a plane and do well. other?

No, not really. Those hijackers, including Mohammad Atta, are certified private pilots, and he and at least one other man involved in the conspiracy paid money to train in the simulator for several hours. . In addition, they have obtained documentation and video instructions on how to operate the 757 and 767 (the two aircraft used in the attacks), which are publicly available in aviation stores. Either way, they do not need or show any specialized technical knowledge or skills. Their purpose is nothing more than to fly an airplane that is already in the air, in ideal weather conditions, crashing into a building. Which follow the trace on out-and calls from passengers are in the process of controlling the aircraft violently and precariously.

American Airlines hijack pilot Hani Hanjour is notorious for being an incompetent pilot, having never piloted anything bigger than a four-seater. Yet according to some, he is said to have performed an excellent series of acrobatics before plunging into the Pentagon. But if you look closely, you will see that only his recklessness is respectable. His swirling swings and swirls above the nation's capital show that he's just as lousy a pilot as people say about him. To hit a building he needed a bit of luck, and got it. To

crashing into a fixed object, even a large object with five edges beckoning, at high speeds and very steep downward angles, is very difficult. To make it easier, he flew at an oblique angle, knocking over the lampposts while flying across the Pentagon lawn. If he flew that way ten times, then seven times he would either fall before it hit the target or completely out of it.

This question may sound crazy, but why don't commercial jets carry parachutes for every passenger? It is true that a first-time skydiver could lose life or lose limbs, but this is still a better option than plunging into the ground at 400 mph (643.74 km / h).

Leaving aside the issue of cost and weight for the time being and the likelihood that you'll kill yourself jumping from an airplane you've never tried before, consider the nature of aviation disasters. They tend to occur with little warning, and often during takeoffs and landings, when there is little effect. Conventional parachuting takes place under strictly controlled parameters. The most basic condition for a person jumping from a passenger plane to land safely is that the plane must be flying very steadily at a low enough speed and altitude - but high enough for the parachute to open properly. . In the history of civil aviation, how many times have the crew know for sure that a serious accident will occur, but still have enough time and control to prepare for a mass evacuation? Maybe once, it was the 1985 disaster Japan Air Lines (see the worst disasters section, page 234). After the baffles cracked and the spoiler was damaged, the Boeing 747 staggered for a few minutes before crashing near Mount Fuji. If we had a parachute on the plane then we could surmise that some passengers might have survived.

Some single-engine private aircraft are equipped with parachutes

for certain emergency situations, such as engine failure on mountainous terrain. I know what you're thinking: imagine that crippled JAL 747 floats to the ground under a giant parachute. But that kind of accident is extremely rare, and the size and weight of passenger jets would make any commercial installation extremely difficult.

In such a crowded sky, is there any serious danger when an air collision occurs?

Airplanes sometimes violate each other's airspace boundaries. Usually only a temporary violation, on the contact area of ​​each other. Almost always we detect this error and take safety measures to minimize the risk. Pilots, for example, are required to report all designated landmarks and altitudes.

As a precaution, airlines today are equipped with anti-collision technology in aircraft. Linked to the cockpit transponder, the Aircraft Collision Warning System (TCAS⁹, pronounced Ti-Cat-fiber), which graphically shows pilots on nearby aircraft. If the aircraft exceeds a certain threshold of distances and altitudes, TCAS will issue increasingly threatening verbal and visual signals. If the two planes continue to fly towards each other, the two systems will coordinate, issuing the command "INCREASE!" for this plane and "DOWN THE LEVEL!" for the other plane.

⁹. Short for Traffic Collision Avoidance System.

In 1978, a 727 Pacific Southwest Airlines crashed a Cessna while it was preparing to land in San Diego. In 1986, a DC-9 of Aeromexico rushed down

a Los Angeles suburb after crashing a Piper wandering into restricted airspace without permission. Ten years later, a Saudi 747 was hit by a Kazakh cargo plane over India. It was all tragedy, but these accidents happened when the TCAS was not a mandatory standard equipment and the air traffic control processes were not as sharp as they are today. Thanks to technology and training, the risk of an air crash has been significantly reduced.

But for things to work in harmony, it requires a mix of human and technological factors. This is reminiscent of the 2002 collision between a DHL cargo plane and a Tu-154 by Bashkirian Airlines above the border between Switzerland and Germany. Air traffic control flaws have placed the two planes on a collision course. A Swiss controller finally noticed the conflict and instructed the Bashkirian crew to lower. At the same time, both aircraft's TCAS systems correctly understood the dangers and issued their own instructions in the last seconds. TCAS instructed DHL to reduce the altitude, while Bashkirian instructed to increase the altitude. DHL followed the instructions and began to descend. However, the Bashkirian flight crew disregarded TCAS orders to increase the altitude, but instead reduced the altitude as originally proposed by air traffic control. This is a mistake. According to standard procedure, since TCAS is the last indicator given when a collision is about to occur, it will be more valuable than previous air traffic control instructions.-deviation. Instead, they dropped straight in height, killing 71 people.

There was an even worse disaster over the Amazon in 2006. A Boeing 737 crashed into an Embraer jet. The specialized emergency landing safely,

The Boeing plunged into the woods, killing everyone on board. The investigation revealed a string of procedural flaws in Brazil's air traffic control, adding to further evidence that the jet's TCAS system may have been inadvertently shut down.

But what about the dangers of America, which has the most crowded airspace in the world? Isn't our air traffic control system out of date and most of the equipment in it no longer usable? Isn't there really in need of improvements? To a certain extent that's true, and with the largest number of airplanes ever, the airport terminal area

- the airspace inside and around airports, where a collision is most likely - has never been as crowded as it is today. At the same time, the need for improved air traffic control doesn't mean the system is swaying and fraught with the risk of a crash. Airspace penetration rates in the US, measured annually, show occasional spikes. It sounds frightening, but even the rarest of the intrusions is just the sort of thing that almost happens to worry passengers. Overall, we have a stellar track record, and that is testimony to the reliability of the US air traffic control system, even though it is archaic and heavily criticized.

What about the risk of a collision on the ground?

You've probably heard of some recent stories about the rise of so-called runway intrusions at airports across the United States. It is a smart way of saying a situation where an aircraft or other vehicle by mistake enters or crosses a runway without the permission of air traffic control, leading to the risk of a collision. touch. Most of the intrusions are just minor breaches, but the number is increasing and a few incidents have resulted in near real collisions.

The problem is not the number of aircraft, but the cramped environments where many planes operate. La Guardia, Boston, and JFK are among those planned decades ago with a small capacity compared to today's demand. The runways are crossed and the taxiways are confusing, essentially more risky than the parallel and staggered arrangements at newer airports. This does not imply that the stated locations are unsafe, but they pose challenges for both crew and air traffic control, especially in poor visibility conditions.

The FAA is still very actively developing new programs and technologies to reduce the number of errors and / or reduce the consequences when they do occur. Among their efforts were upgrading of the apron marking system and mandatory anti-intrusion training programs for pilots and air traffic controllers. They are also testing improvements to signal lights on runways and taxiways, as well as an emerging satellite technology called Cockpit Air Traffic Information Display (CDTI).^ten) will help pilots see the details of the surrounding air traffic while operating the aircraft both in the air and on the ground. More and more airports are equipped out- The sophisticated multi-set track both aircraft not only in the air but also on the runways and taxiways.

^ten. Abbreviation for Cockpit Display of Traffic Information.

These are all good ideas, but the FAA still has a habit of designing complex solutions and machines to simple problems. There will be no miraculous technological solution. In essence, this is a question of the human factor. The FAA's most valuable contribution to solving this problem is probably exactly what it did: awareness. In terms of the core, the best way

In order to prevent a collision, pilots and air traffic controllers must always be aware of the possibility of such a situation.

In the meantime, I don't want to draw an unhealthy conclusion but still have to remind you that the worst airline disaster, which happened in Tenerife in 1977, is that between two 747s has never even been. leaving the ground (see Tenerife story, page 263).

What was your experience on 9/11, and how has it changed from a pilot's perspective from then on?

One of my most vivid memories of that morning is a giant black cockroach crawling across the Government Center subway station I saw at 7am waiting for the train to Logan Airport. On the train, I chatted a bit with a United Airlines flight attendant whom I never knew by name, and who knows, possibly one of the flight attendants on Flight 175. I am on board road to Florida, from there will be re-assigned on the same day. My plane took off just seconds after American Airlines Flight 11. I watched it back out of departure gate 25 at Logan Airport Terminal B and then start to fly my plane.

When we were about halfway to Florida, we began to descend. According to our captain, because of a "security issue," we, along with many other planes, had to change direction immediately. Pilots are very professional drivers, and this phrase "security issue" is the most ridiculous understatement I've ever heard a teammate utter. Our new destination is Charleston, South Carolina.

I guess there was a bomb threat notice. My worries are not about war or dull destruction. I worry about being late for work. Must come when I join the crowd of passengers

• Charleston is gathering around a TV in an airport restaurant, I just understand what's going on.

I was watching a second plane shot, shot from the ground, like a Zapruder movie¹¹21st-century version. Pan to the left shows a view of the 767 from United Airlines moving rapidly. The plane jerked up, lifted its nose, and like an angry gabber rushing into a bullfighter frozen with fear, it crashed into the center of the south tower. The plane disappeared. For the next millisecond, there was no debris, smoke, fire, or any movement. Then, from inside the building exploded white smoke, spewing fire and matter.

¹¹. A silent color video captured by citizen Abraham Zapruder with his camera of a convoy of US President John F. Kennedy passing through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, accidentally recording the scene. assassination of the President.

In my eyes, if those two planes crashed, exploded, and turned the top half of the two buildings into dry burning ruins, the whole event would still be more than unbelievable. If the two towers did not collapse, I suppose our dull pain after 9/11, still sore today, would not have lasted so long. It was that collapse - roaring explosions inside and storms like volcanic lava sweeping through lower Manhattan - that turned this event from a common disaster to a historic disgrace. . As I stood like heaven in that pathetic airport restaurant in South Carolina, the TV showed the two World Trade Center towers.

gender. They were not only on fire, spewing debris and emitting black smoke. They are collapsing. The image of those two ugly, splendid towers collapsing completely is the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed.

And the pilots, like firefighters, policemen, and all the others whose careers are involved, have no choice but to, well, feel offended. Among the victims, there were four crews on duty. They were outraged in the worst way, killed after the machines were taken from their eyes and crashed into buildings. Among them is John Ogonowski, the kind captain on American Airlines Flight 11. Of the thousands of people that were victimized that day, Captain Ogonowski was the first, if not literally, figuratively. He lives in my state; His funeral was reported on the front pages of newspapers, where he was praised for his charitable contributions to local Cambodian immigrants.

In explosions lasting ten seconds long enough to cause the Twin Towers to collapse, I knew that something in the jetpack would change. It would be an exaggeration to say that the whole world, or the aviation industry, too, has "changed forever," but yes, it's clear that things are now different - even though it's for reasons that don't. it has to be all the time. More than any clash between civilizations, the real and enduring legacy that Mohammed Atta leaves is something more tedious: boredom. Think about it. Long queues, baggage search, div search; Conventional warnings according to color, the prayer book is full

inconvenient rules and protocols we must now follow - all nonsense fanfare in the name of security. Out of all the procedures of modern life, there is hardly anything more boring than flying. We call it "flying." How misleading. We do not fly much but just stand and wait for endless hours. The most troubling thing is that we seem comfortable with this. The chorus is repeated over and over that the terrorists won, and perhaps it is. Not exactly how they wanted it to be, but they won nonetheless.

Why not install a separate side door for the cockpit to allow hijackers to access the cockpit?

First, you can't simply cut a hole in the side of the plane and install a door. To do so would have to redesign the structure on a large scale and extremely expensive. It must also be fitted with a toilet for the cockpit. And what about the resting place? Long-haul flights with enhanced crews work in shifts (see crew break, page 109), in which case pilots not on duty will need a suitable place to relax. That would have to double or triple the usual cockpit size, which would take up the space originally used for kitchens, storage, and passenger seats. In addition, there are times when pilots need to approach the passenger compartment directly - to check for certain mechanical problems, to help flight attendants solve passenger problems, etc.

Even if this is an easy and inexpensive thing to do, which is actually not the case, is it really worth it? In terms of strategy, the 9/11 suicide plane robbery plot is done according to Formula one- play, one-times. Today's hijack methods are different (see security essay, page 207)

and in my opinion, the perceptions of the passengers and the crew, along with the armored cockpit doors, are sufficient to do the job well enough. In a nutshell: placing an obstacle in the cockpit to protect the crew is more problematic than solving the problem.

How disturbing is the shoulder missile? Should airlines install safeguards?

The threat from mobile missiles - often known as MANPADS, the weird acronym made up of the phrase Man-Portable Air-Defense System - has become a hot topic, evoked by the media about possible, even imminent, attacks that use type This small and easy-to-hide weapon. It is estimated that there are about half a million such missiles worldwide, owned by more than 30 terrorist organizations and other rebel groups. Some experts say that all US aircraft should have anti-missile electronics, as well as military and specialized aircraft. Each of these systems costs about $ 1 million-la, and the US government has begun to do feasibility studies.

However, the media has not widely reported on one thing, that is the technical defects of this weapon. They are very difficult to use, and when shot at close range they can only get close to the target. Two Strela rockets-The (former) Soviet 2M was fired from a truck against an Israeli charter plane departing from Mombasa, Kenya in 2002. Both missiles missed their target. Even a direct hit on the target is unlikely to destroy the plane, as evidenced by the shot of a DHL Airbus over Baghdad in 2003, and the incident of a DC-10 survived being hit in 1984. It is true that we should not underestimate this weapon or any other danger just because

They may not lead to disaster. The problem is that once again we are chasing the illusion of absolute security without regard to costs. Out of all these aviation safety projects can cost tens of billions of dollars-la, I do not think this is a reasonable project in terms of the efficiency of the investment and the number of lives it can save.

It has been proposed to develop software on aircraft so that hijacked aircraft cannot be directed into confined airspace or into cities.

This idea is called "soft wall" and is one of the main reasons the writers for Popular Science^twelfthhave to be busy. Fine, but it's the equivalent of the idea of ​​building a Mars base: within our technical capabilities, it's extremely expensive, and the usefulness is only vague. When we read the comments of people working on these ideas, we get the impression that they are passionate and passionate but not with the prospect of safety or practicality but simply with technology. In essence this is not bad, and it is a good testament to the devotion of a scientist or engineer, but the application of these concepts is limited. Completely sci-fi illustrations and narrations. In other words, it fulfills the nation's cult of safety. Believing we can protect ourselves from all directions, now we want to hang barbed wire coils in the midst of the clouds. With me,

^twelfth. An American magazine specializing in routine science.

There is a certain conspiracy theory followed, after nearly every plane crash that attracted the attention of the public. You can clear up the doubts and suspicions that are still going on around one

Can some cases be?

Where should I start? Bullshit conspiracy theories arose after the death of Dag Hammarskjöld¹³and the golden age of the Bermuda Triangle. Modern times began with the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 by a (former) Soviet fighter jet in 1983. Since then, the Internet has become a incubator of myths and false news. effectively, spreading false truths just by smugly pressing the Submit button. Just five minutes with the keyboard and mouse and you will be involved in the heated speculative debates that the people at Go Co¹⁴never dared to dream.

¹³. Swedish diplomat, economist, author. He served as Secretary-General of the United Nations from April 1953 until he died in a plane crash in September 1961. The incident had many suspicious details and the official cause of his death is still controversial so far.

¹⁴. The Grassy Knoll is a grass-covered mound located in Dealey Plaza, near the place where President John F. Kennedy was murdered. From there, mound became a outputphor for the suspicion, secret conspiracy, or the rhetoric used to evade the problem.

Before 2001, the TWA tragedy of 1996 was perhaps the one most mulled over by intellectual eccentricians. Flight 800 exploded like a giant tube cannon during the July twilight near Long Island, due to a short circuit that ignited and ignited the heat in an unused fuel tank. It was followed by a side performance of at least four books and lots of controversy online enough to power a 747 across the sonic line. Even popular commentators have expressed skepticism

so strong before flight 800 could fall like that. After all, the fuel tanks do not naturally explode.

However, in very unusual situations they do explode. The likelihood of this situation occurring is not much, but also not impossible or unprecedented. There has been a fuel tank explosion on at least 13 commercial planes, including a Thai Airways 737 that caught fire while parked at the station door in Bangkok, killing a flight attendant. Aircraft 747-100 older generations on TWA 800 on a journey to Paris, were heated on the hot apron until takeoff, thus heating the steam in the empty central fuel tank ( the 747 does not need to fill all the fuel tanks can still fly across the Atlantic). Then, a spark caused by a short circuit deep in the intestines in the middle of the fuselage was ignited. According to the FAA directive, airlines have gradually started adopting a system that uses inert gas as nitrogen to fill empty fuel tanks.

We hear more gossip after the 587 flight of American Airlines crashed in New York City less than two months after the terrorist attacks in 2001. According to official information, the cause of the crash The accident was caused by the flaws of the crew, along with an anomaly in the design of the A300's tail-wing system, but the dealers thought differently: a bomb destroyed the plane, and the government together For the airlines, fearing the economic paralysis, decided to conclude this was just an accident.

The 9/11 main season was also dissected. If you don't pay attention, the virtual space is full of conclusive conclusions that these attacks are insiderable. These conclusions are too many and complicated to list them all. There are all kinds of words scattered

Web site after site, overlapping, stressing, complementary, frantically contradictory with each other. The Pentagon was hit by a missile rather than a 757; the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center were remote-controlled military jets; flights 11, 175, 77, and 93 did not actually exist or were diverted to secret bases; The Twin Towers were collapsed on control; etc

You would have assumed that the same technological miracle that spread these indiscriminate guesswork so easily would have made it no easier to object and get rid of them. Seriously, it really is. But it depends on who is concerned, that today, the human tendency to believe in conspiracies is much stronger than the tendency to analyze and debate them. Perhaps it is human nature, or the reverse / excessive effect of technology. Either way, many people are more eager to make us believe something than to make us believe something. A website that favors conspiracy is definitely better and gets more hits than a conspiracy website. Both types exist, but it is those who spread conspiracy theories,

Admittedly, some aspects of the attacks in 2001 deserve more scrutiny than what Council of 9/11 did. But those who urgently expect us to believe this most are making themselves difficult by extending their controversial points beyond justification: details in conspiracy theories vary from convincing. to insane. I am really curious why the security video

Captured from the Sheraton hotel near the Pentagon was confiscated and never made public - if it really did. On the other hand, I've heard that the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center were just laser simulations and that there were no flights. There is so much speculation that it is difficult to tell which mystery is truly worth considering and which is nonsense. (I don't have enough space in this book but on my website I have analyzed some of the legends related to the plane in 9/11, according to each point.) I propose a conspiracy theory that conspiracy theories themselves are part of a conspiracy that lessens the veracity of the notion that there is a conspiracy - and to divide and overpower those who can find certain truths.

I do not deny that sometimes important facts are hidden from public opinion. But we also need to remember Carl Sagan's famous quip that the extraordinary assertion requires extraordinary evidence. It is worrying that so many people are infatuated with an irrational view based solely on misinterpretation of a few photographs and how to select and manipulate evidence. This can be seen in 9/11, in the “chemical vapor streak” hypothesis (don't let me start talking about this case), and many more. And I have learned to be cautious when trying to argue with those people. After all, it's like arguing about religion. The evidence, or the lack of it, has little to do with what motivates the believers, and they simply do not accept any of the opposing truths. Deep down in their conviction is something that depends only partly on reason. That is faith.

We Gaan: The Horrors And The Paradox of the Worst Airplane Crash in History

Most people have never heard of Tenerife, a small pan-shaped spot in the Atlantic. It is an island in the Canary Islands, a volcanic ring under Spanish rule, off the coast of Ma.-a few hundred miles away. The largest town on the island of Tenerife is Santa Cruz and its airport, Los Rodeos, lies under a series of gentle hillsides. There, on March 27, 1977, two Boeing 747s - one from KLM and the other from Pan Am - collided on a misty runway. Five hundred and eighty-three people were killed in what is by far the largest aviation disaster in history.

The seriousness of the crash is obvious, but what makes it particularly memorable is a series of amazing ironies and coincidences that unfolded earlier. It is true that most plane crashes happen not due to a single error or failure, but by a series of unimaginable flaws and failures, along with one or two enormous misfortunes. This has never been so blatantly illustrated - almost ludicrous - as it was on the fateful Sunday afternoon of nearly forty years ago.

In 1977, when it was only eight years into service, the Boeing 747 was the largest, most influential, and perhaps the flashiest commercial jet ever made. For these reasons alone, it's hard not to imagine what the story would have been like - and what the damage would be - if these two giant airships crashed into each other. Come to think of it, it just happened - it would be a Hollywood script if someone would write it.

Imagine we're there: Both 747s in Tenerife are charter planes. Pan Am's car came from

Los Angeles after transitioning in New York, while KLM's aircraft came from the main base in Amsterdam. Neither of these aircraft should have been in Tenerife. As scheduled, they had to land in Las Palmas, on the nearby island of Grand Canary, where many passengers were preparing to board cruise ships. After a bomb detonated by Canary Island separatists in a flower shop at Las Palmas airport, they headed for Los Rodeos, along with a few other flights, to land around 2pm.

Pan Am's aircraft with the N736PA registration number was inherently infamous¹⁵. In January 1970, the same aircraft completed the first commercial flight of the 747 line, from New York's Kennedy Airport to London's Heathrow Airport. Somewhere on the nose of the plane there is a dent in a bottle of champagne. Painted white with a navy blue stripe along the windows of the plane, it bears the name Clipper Victor along the front fuselage. KLM's 747 is also white and blue, and is named the Rhine.

¹⁵. In its first year of service, the aircraft became the first 747 to be attacked by hijackers while en route to Cuba on August 2, 1970.

And let's not forget the two airlines: Pan Am, the most celebrated business in the history of the airline industry, no further introduction is needed. For its part, KLM is the oldest and most continuous operating airline in the world, founded in 1919 and famous for its safety and punctuality.

The captain of the KLM plane, Jacob Van Zanten, who would make the erroneous run that killed nearly 600 people, including himself, was the airline's flagship 747 guide pilot and was the famous star of KLM. If the passenger recognizes him, it is thanks to his square, confident face as it swirls from the KLM advertisements in the magazine.

Later, when the leaders of KLM heard about the accident, they even tried to contact Van Zanten in the hope of sending him to Tenerife to assist the investigation team.

The normally languid Los Rodeos airport was suddenly filled with diversion flights. The Rhine and Clipper Victor were parked side by side in the southeast corner of the apron, the ends of their wings nearly touching. Finally, around four o'clock, Las Palmas airport began to allow traffic again. The Pan Am was quickly ready to depart, but due to the lack of room and the angle at which the planes were facing each other, the KLM's began to roll forward.

The weather was fine until just before the crash, and if not because the KLM needed last minute refueling both planes would have departed earlier. In the process of waiting, a dense fog poured down from the hills, covering the airport. Adding fuel also means increasing weight, thus affecting the 747's ground-to-air speed. For reasons explained below, that will be a key thing.

Because the airport was congested, the regular route leading to runway number 30 was blocked. The planes about to depart will have to roll on this very runway. At the end of the runway, the plane will turn 180 degrees and take off in the opposite direction. This process, which is rare at commercial airports, is called a "back"-taxi)." In the Tenerife case in 1977, the procedure would place two 747s on the same runway at the same time, the two aircraft being invisible and the command station seeing both planes. The airport is not out-multi-track aircraft on the ground.

The KLM rolled onto the runway first, and the other

Pan Am's Clipper was leisurely following a few hundred yards behind. Captain Van Zanten drove the plane to the end of the road, turned around, then remained in the waiting position until allowed to take off. The instruction for the Pan Am is to turn onto a left taxiway for the other to take off. Once off the safe runway, Pan Am will report to the command post.

Due to the inability to distinguish taxiways in limited visibility, Pan Am pilots missed the designated turn. It was not difficult to proceed to the next turn, but now they stopped at the runway for a few more seconds.

At the same time, already in his position at the end of the runway, Van Zanten stopped. His co-pilot, Klaas Meurs, communicated by radio and received instructions on the route of air traffic control. This is not a takeoff instruction, but a summary of the diversion points, altitudes, and frequencies to use in the air. Usually these instructions were communicated long before a plane entered the runway, but pilots were too busy with checklists and rolling directions up until now. They were tired, irritable, and wanted to be set off quickly. The command post and other pilots noticed the discomfort in the voices of the KLM pilots, especially Van Zanten.

There are still a few dominoes that haven't fallen, but now the finale has begun - literally. Because the route injunction was given at that place and time, it was confused with the take-off order. The vice-captain Meurs, sitting to the right of Zan Vanten, took in the elevation, the destination, and the landmark, and ended in an unusual, somewhat hesitant tone, in the sound of increasing engines: "Right now we're, um, at the take off position." (Original: "We are now, uh, at takeoff.")

Van Zanten released the brake. "We gaan," the cockpit voice recorder recorded his quote. "Let's go." Just like that, his giant machine began to sprint on the foggy tarmac without permission.

"At takeoff" is not the pilot's standard owl language. But this phrase is clear enough to get the attention of the crew of Pan Am and the command post. Both sides were hard to believe that KLM was actually moving, but both grabbed the microphone to confirm it for sure.

"And we're still on our way to the runway," continued Bob Bragg, Pan Am's lieutenant.

Right at that time, the command station also texted KLM via radio waves. "OK," said the controller. “Please wait to take off. I'll call you. "

No answer. This silence is understood that they have tacitly noted the answer, although that is not necessarily the correct format.

Just one of these two pieces of information was conveyed enough, it would be enough to stop Van Zanten. He still had enough time to stop the momentum. The problem is that since these two messages are transmitted at the same time, they overlap.

The pilots and control staff communicate via two-way VHF radio waves. The process is the same as talking through a walkie-talkie: one person activates the microphone, speaks, then releases the button and waits for an answer to be received from the other. It differs from telephone, for example, that only one party at a time is allowed to speak and does not know how the message will be recorded on the other end. If two or more microphones are pressed at the same time, the broadcast waves cancel each other out, causing loud jamming or shrill squealing.

the ear is called the heterodyne wave. This wave is rarely dangerous. But in Tenerife, this is a drop of water that spills a glass.

Van Zanten only heard the word "OK" followed by a shrill five-second sound. He went on.

Ten seconds later is the final dialogue, which can be heard so clearly on the tape recorded after the accident. "Please report when you get off the runway," the bridge said to Pan Am.

"We will report when we get off the runway," confirmed Bob Bragg.

Since they were so focused on the takeoff, it seems that Van Zanten and the co-pilot didn't hear this. But the second vice-captain sitting behind he heard it. Panicked because the plane was traveling at 100 knots (51.44 m / s), he leaned forward. "Are they not out of the runway?" he asks. "That Pan American?"

"Oh, yeah," Van Zanten replied flatly. In the cockpit on the Pan Am side, directly facing the intruder, still hidden but coming very fast, the feeling of unhealth is rising. "Let's get out of this hell," said Captain Victor Grubbs worriedly.

A few seconds later, the light from KLM's 747 emerged from behind the gray fog, right in front of it, just 2,000 feet (610 meters) away and approaching very fast.

"There it is!" Grubbs shouted, pushing the levers that propelled the engine to full force. "Look! Damn, that bastard is coming! " He jerked the rudder of the plane, turning to the left as hard as possible

May, head towards the lawn at the edge of the runway.

"Stay away! Stay away! Stay away!" Shouted Bob Bragg. Van Zanten saw them, but it was too late. Trying to leap, he pulled the rudder back to high altitude, dragging the plane's tail 20 meters off the side of the road, firing a series of sparks. He almost succeeded, but as soon as his plane landed, the crankshaft and engine crashed through the ceiling of the Victor, immediately destroying the mid-plane and igniting a series of incidents. explosive.

Heavily destroyed, the Rhine crashed down the runway again, slid hard on the lower abdomen by about 300 meters, and burned before any of the 248 people on the plane could escape. What's unusual is that out of the 396 passengers and crew present aboard Pan Am's giant aircraft, 61 survived, including all five in the cockpit.

- Three-person crew and two auxiliary seat pilots are not on duty.

✰✰✰

Over the past few years, I have been very fortunate to meet two of the survivors on a Pan Am plane in what year and have them tell their own story. It sounds lethargic to me, but maybe this is the only chance I can say that I have met a hero - for no other word makes more sense. Romanticizing the tragic death of 583 is like romanticizing war, but the Tenerife disaster still has a mystical feel, a gravity so strong that shaking hands with survivors makes me feel. It's like a kid meeting his favorite baseball player. These people were there, emerging from the wreckage of what is, for some of us, a myth.

One of those survivors was Bog Bragg, the vice-captain of the Pan Am plane. I met him in Los Angeles, on the set of a documentary produced to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the accident.

It was Bragg who uttered the sentence: "And we are still rolling on the runway" - simple words that could have saved, but disappeared forever in the click and the high-pitched shriek of the line was blocked. Just thinking like that makes my spine cold.

But there is no sense of darkness in Bob Bragg - nothing, at least on the surface, reminiscent of the nightmare of 1977. He is one of the most pleasant people you'll ever see. Gray-haired, glasses, and fluent, he looked and spoke exactly the way he was: a retired airline pilot. God knows how many times he told others about the crash. He spoke of the accident with ease because he had to speak so many times, with a moderate indifferent voice as if he were just a watcher from afar. You can read all the transcripts, pore over studies, watch documentaries a hundred times. But it's not until you sit with Bob Bragg and listen to the untouched story, with all the weird and startling details that are often missed that you get a full sense of what happened. The basic story is already well known; it is the extra details that make it so emotional - and unreal:

Bragg describes that the initial impact was like "a hit and a little shake." All five people are in the cockpit

• the head of the upper deck, characteristic of a 747, saw the approaching KLM and bent down. Knowing he had been stabbed, Bragg instinctively reached out to pull the "ignition levers" - a set of four

The canopy flaps allow fuel, air, electricity, and hydraulic power to be transferred to and from the engines. His hand groped helplessly. When he looked up, he saw that the cockpit's ceiling was gone.

When he turned around, he realized that the entire upper floor had been trimmed right behind his chair. He could see all of the plane's tail, 200 feet (60 meters) behind him. The fuselage was shattered and on fire.

He and Captain Grubbs were sitting alone in their seats, in the tiny cockpit, completely alone at 35 feet (10 meters) above the ground. Everything around them was lifted like a hat. The second co-pilot and the two passengers in the extra seats were still wearing their seat belts, hung upside down to what was still first-class ceiling.

There was no choice but to jump. Bragg stood up and plunged down from the side. He landed on the lower lawn at a distance of three stories, his first foot touching the ground, and miraculously only injured his ankle. Grubbs jumped down and was almost unharmed. The rest of the people in the cockpit took off their seat belts, crawled along the wall to the floor of the main compartment, and then jumped off in safety.

Once on the ground, they heard a shrill roar. The plane was squashed to the grass, but because the cockpit control lines were broken, the engines were still running at full capacity. It took a few seconds before the engines began to burst. Bragg still remembers the giant turbofan (propeller running a jet turbine) mounted in the front of one of the engines coming out of the sleeve, hitting the ground with a bang.

The fuselage was engulfed in flames. Some passengers, most of them

Sitting in the front part of the passenger compartment, had climbed off the left wing of the plane and was standing on the front edge, about 20 feet (6 meters) off the ground. Bragg ran over, encouraging them to jump down. A few minutes later, the aircraft's central fuel tank exploded, blowing out bursts of fire and smoke three hundred meters away.

Meanwhile, the airport's poorly equipped rescue team was operating on the scene of the KLM, the first wreckage they approached after learning of an accident. They have yet to realize that there were two planes in the crash, and one of them had a survivor. In the end, the management decided to open the airport perimeter doors, urging everyone with a means of transport to drive to the accident site to help. Bob Bragg recounts the joking story that he was standing there in the mist, surrounded by survivors still stunned and bleeding, watching his plane on fire, when a taxi did not know from nowhere. Suddenly came out.

Bragg returned to work a few months later. He eventually moved to work for United Airlines when it took over Pan Am's Pacific flights in the late 1980s, then retired after holding the position of captain of a 747. He lives in Virginia with your wife, Dorothy. (Captain Grubbs later passed away, as did second lieutenant George Warns.)

In the documentary scene, I accompany Bob Bragg and the producers to the hangar in Mojave, California, where he is interviewed next to a sheltered 747, depicting an extraordinary jump from the floor. on the airplane.

The day before, with a fake plane, director Phil Desjardins filmed a simulation of the crash in Tenerife, with a trio of actors playing the crew of KLM. To illustrate the actors, Bob Bragg and I were asked to step into the machine

fly fake and do a one-off maneuver.

Bragg took the captain's seat and I sat in the captain's chair. We read through a temporary checklist and perform the steps of a simulated takeoff. That's when I looked over and suddenly realized: This is Bob Bragg, the only pilot that survived the Tenerife incident, sitting in a cockpit, playing the role of Jacob Van Zanten, who made the whole mistake This incident happened. Bragg, of course, does not want to participate in this pitiful karma, and I am not brave enough to comment - that is if he has not realized the situation. But it was difficult for me to keep that surprise to myself. One more scary irony in a story full of scary ironies.

✰✰✰

Concluding this section: On the thirtieth anniversary of the accident, a monument has been erected, heading towards Tenerife airport to commemorate the people who died here. The sculpture has a spiral shape. “A spiral staircase,” described it by the builders of the monument. "[...] a symbol of timelessness." Perhaps so, but I'm disappointed by

• The more tangible symbolic meaning was left out: the original 747, which included both in the crash, was famous for its spiral staircases connecting the main deck and the upper deck (see High Art , page 29). In the minds of millions of international passengers, that staircase is like the symbol of civil aviation. It was provocative and relevant, poetic for the monument - even when its designers, it didn't think so.

7.

THE Aviation

WHAT I WANT TO KNOW

THE SOUND AND SONG IN BRAND IDENTIFICATION OF Aviation Brands

I. Logo (Logo) and Appearance

• There was a time, not too far back, when the Pan American World Airways logo was among the most recognized brands in the world.

gender. Their emblem was unremarkable - a horizontal, split-up blue and white globe reminiscent of a basketball - but very effective. The globe icon appeared in the 1950s and lasted for almost half a century, until Pan Am breathed its last in 1991. Though aspects of its brand identity have changed over the years. , but during that process, the green ball is preserved. If the Pan Am existed, I assumed that the globe would still be used as the brand's logo. Since the inception of civil aviation, airlines have always invented and modified what they believe are meaningful identities. As surveyed by author Keith Lovegrove in his excellent Airline: Identity, Design, and Culture,

The display represents only part of the entire branding process, which is done on a wide range of dimensions, from aircraft interiors to crew uniforms to maintenance vehicle colors. But it is the logo - the brand, the corporate logo, printed on everything from stationery to boarding passes - that encapsulates the entire identity in a single, important, aesthetic mark. Everything else revolved around this sign.

Many of the most prestigious airline logos incorporate a national symbol or cultural element: Aer Lingus's clover, Qantas' kangaroo, MEA's green cedar (Lebanon ), lotus by Thai Airways. Others have more subtle stylings, such as the design of a Malaysian Airlines native kite, or the calligraphy of Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong's national airline. However, it may or may not have symbolic meaning, but the logo must be simple. There is an opinion that the best way to evaluate a logo is the following: Can a child remember the symbol and then manually sketch it out by hand with moderate precision? Think of the Apple apple. Pan Am's basketball fully meets this standard, as does the Lufthansa's crane, "Koru".^firstof Air New Zealand, and many more. These are honorable, humble, and unobtrusive symbols - and for these reasons, they can be recognized all over the world. They may need a few ditches after a long period of use, but the stereotype of those commercial brands - the ones that really work - is essentially timeless.

^first. The spiral is based on the shape of a young leaf that is slowly expanding into a fern leaf, symbolizing new life, growth, strength, and peace.

If there is such a symbol and renouncing it, it would be a risk. One of the worst branding moves belongs to American Airlines when in 2013 they decided to give up their sacred "AA" logo. Together with the proud flapping eagle, this is one of the most distinctive and enduring symbols in the entire airline industry. Designed by Massimo Vignelli in 1967 but it always looks modern. Its successor was ugly enough to be described - a red and blue vertical line, cut in half by what was supposed to be an eagle's beak. Both symbolically inanimate and hideously ugly, it looked like a plate knife cutting through the bathroom curtain.

Equally disappointing was Japan Airlines' decision to abandon the tsurumaru emblem, the red and white crane image. Since 1960, every JAL plane has had the most elegant aeronautical logo ever designed: a stylized drawing of a crane raising its wings in a circular shape, reminiscent of a face image. Japan's rising sun. In early 2002, this immortal emblem succumbed to perhaps the most regrettable refurbishment in aviation history, replaced by an oversized speck of blood red - a stained ink streak - overflowing. all over the vertical tail of the plane. In terms of aesthetics alone, this was a bad decision, not to mention the cultural importance of the image of the crane in Japan.

However, it seems that enough people have complained, so the tsurumaru logo has been restored since then. This is an incredible move, marking one of the very few times an airline reuses an old logo, but JAL has made a smarter decision. (American Airlines, did you hear that?)

But one can also retain the outline of a classic logo and still ruin it, as illustrated in recent years by some airlines that refrain from stopping to enough.

Such as shipping giant UPS. The United Parcel Service's original logo image was a bow tie above a stylized badge. This is the work of Paul Rand, legendary design master and logo designer for Westinghouse and IBM. This is a great logo that passionately denotes the company's core mission: to deliver packages. The symbol that replaced it was a quaint, quaint, militaristic, bland modernization emblem. The box and string have been removed, replaced by a meaningless gilded diagonal line. Anyone who does not know will think UPS is a bank or insurance company. This is the worst thing ever seen in the shipping industry since the US Postal Service invented the monstrous eagle head emblem.

A similar tragedy happened at Northwest Airlines a few years ago. You may remember the white circular “NW” symbol on the tail of the plane painted in magenta. Released in 1989, this is a work of genius. It is an N; a letter W; a compass pointing northwest². It includes all of these

• in that sense, and perhaps the most memorable brand created by Landor Associates, one of the most powerful brand innovators in the industry. By 2003, it had been thrown into the trash, stretched into a lazy circle and a small triangular arrow. The sentence above uses the past tense, which is fine as well: Northwest and their ruined logo no longer exist, they have been acquired by Delta Air Lines.

². The word "northwest" in Northwest Airlines in English

which means northwest.

For its part, Delta deserves praise for sticking with its three-corner “widget” icon, despite the change in color. This widget represents one thing, and does it in a way that is not overly boastful: Delta. Aeroflot is also worth a mention here. Overall, the Russian airline's latest look is overly colorful but still scores points for retaining the winged hammer and sickle logo, which has barely changed since the 1940s.

What about the logos that should have been changed but not yet? First of all, we have to mention the "Mr. Turtle" logo of Cayman Airways, which looks as if he has just crawled from a painting of Bosch.³.

³. Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516), an early stage painter of Dutch fine arts.

But of course, corporate brands are only part of the overall visual information of airlines. An airplane is a giant canvas on which you can present or ruin your manifesto. This is the time when the role of paint cans is needed.

Decades ago, Braniff International was famous for painting entire aircraft in one color - blue, green, even pastel pastel. Likewise, it is imperative now that the aircraft be seen as a whole rather than separate the div and tail. Traditional painting approaches these two surfaces separately, while contemporary painting attempts to transform the div and tail into a seamless picture. This made the "cheat line" popular for a while - a thin strip of paint covering the row of windows, extending from head to tail.

plane - standing on the verge of extinction. At one time, almost every plane was decorated with horizontal stripes, this custom is now gone with the elevator and epic in-flight meals.

The fuselage no longer has horizontal stripes, so the tail becomes a highlight. Some airlines, such as Qantas, decorate the tail of the aircraft with a powerful effect to take on the visual responsibility of the entire aircraft. Others, such as Emirates, balance tail and div by using oversized billboard-style characters. Still others chose extreme aircraft decoration like a flight depot - an empty space, with no details other than a nameless name somewhere.

But the main theme of today's aircraft appearance is motion. There are too many streaks, waves, arcs, twists, swirls, and curls enough to make people dizzy. Sadly most of those designs look indistinguishable - they're fussy, showy, and awkward. The three worst examples are TACA, El Al, and Pakistan International. “The smallest common denominator of a brand identity is what I call the 'Swoosh Mark⁴General Nonsense, '' said Amanda Collier, a master of graphic design. According to Collier, "The 'Common Nonsense Swoosh Mark' occurs when any company tries to develop a new look. Leaders will say they want something that shows the company 'radical thinking' and 'moving,' then at least three of them will mention Nike, the inventors of Swoosh. original. The design team smiled, nodded, then secretly stabbed themselves with their handmade knife. "

⁴. The name of the Nike logo.

The result is the number of designs that make a lasting impression

as much as before. The airplanes mingle together on an anonymous color palette that is themed with movement. Somewhere in there is a vending machine. The airline leaders put in a million dollars in consulting fees, the machine spitting out another curvy, curvy variation of the 'Common Swoosh Mark of the Common Nonsense. With a few exceptions (including the Aeromexico), these designs are all boring to bleak, hard to see without yawning. They should be subtle and evocative of movement and energy, but all they really do is make it impossible to distinguish your airline from other airlines. As they look out from the airport terminal window, people are asking the same question they should never have asked: Which airline is that?

Based on all that mentioned, let's review the latest looks of North America's 10 biggest airlines:

1. United Airlines

When United and Continental Airlines announced a merger in 2010, they introduced a paint scheme that combines Continental tail and fuselage with United's typeface. Let's call it "Continented." This is a beautiful design, and we understand the sentiment behind it, but United's decision to remove the friendly and familiar "U" emblem was a mistake. The U-shaped, feathery, trimmed tulip in its complete pre-merger shape - was never particularly eye-catching, but Continental's longitudinally sliced ​​globe replacing it now looks Just as boring as a PowerPoint presentation. Also, I regret that the full text "United Airlines", used in the 1990s, weighs more than the current sly "United". Definitely, gentle, extremely corporate. Overall rating: B plus

2. Delta Air Lines

“Delta in the evening gown” is how it is described. It is a sophisticated, stylish appearance. The font is very nice, as well as the new "widget" on the tail now in two tones (seemingly a nod to collaboration with Northwest after the studio became part of Delta in 2010). The downside is the pale fuselage and the thin, blue stripe under the belly of the plane. If the belly of the plane was designed to be bolder, maybe a red accent, it would have surpassed the top.

Neat, confident, fashionable. General assessment: B

3. American Airlines

As one of the few veteran airlines, for 40 years, American has never changed its paint color, absolutely loyal to the glossy silver fuselage, the tail of the aircraft painted a bird in style. gothic, and tricolor cheat. It was never pretty, but what gave them a scent resisted four decades full of fads of design. The new look of American was launched in 2013, both boring and flashy. As discussed above, the real crime here is the removal of the timeless "AA" logo. I can accept the piano-key airplane tail and gray font, but destroying that mark is inexcusable.

Tragic, destructive, patriotic. Overall rating: D minus

4. Southwest Airlines

In the past, Southwest used red and orange overlays

Long down the fuselage, at the top is a peculiar kaleidoscopic color that the company calls the "golden desert of the desert." This design is unbearable, but modest and geographically correct. After the company had expanded so far, its appearance, if not even its name, was deemed too local so it was, well, renewed. New to the point that a Southwest plane now looks like a roller coaster in an amusement park, or an overly creamy dessert made by a hungry kid. The top of the plane is purple like cotton candy, clearly delineated with a neon red belly by a yellow band extending from the nose to the tail of the plane. Even the engine shell and the aircraft wheel core were colored with paint. Who signed and approved this design? Next time remember to hide the Peruvian cacti⁵ go.

⁵. Peruvian cactus stalk contains mescaline, a stimulant capable of distorting the user's vision.

Flare, too much, can cause tooth decay. Overall rating: F

5. US Airways

Until a few years ago, US Airways still possessed one of the most beautiful looks in the sky, with its post-apocalyptic smoky gray and clever red accents. The current design was released in 2005, after the company merged with America West and attempted to incorporate motifs from both studios. The flag and font are of US Airways; faded paint spray on the fuselage of America West; And the feeling this design brings is that of Walmart. Can't they observe all the other firms? The glide under the nose of the plane was especially pointless and ugly.

Popular, cheap, fake. Overall rating: D (Note: We'll see less of this after US Airways merges with

American.)

6. Air Canada

At the suggestion of US Airways, friends from the North of America ignored the proverb "Healing a lame pig" and ruined one of the most impressive designs. The maple leaf is retained, which is a good thing, but it strangely breaks apart. The fuselage is soapy blue - how to say it? - it's unique. I guess it has a certain icy pale greenness to keep it Canadian. It also reminds people of the floor of the men's restroom at an airport.

Pure quirky. General assessment: D

7. jetBlue

jetBlue uses a variety of different airplane tail designs, with different geometries painted in different tones, guess what, blue. Square, rhombus, polka dots, and checkered. There is a pattern that looks like a circuit board. It sounds fun, but they're actually pretty monotonous. The rest of the plane is nothing but white top, blue bottom, and the name jetBlue is designed in a timid font, too small.

Pale, indigo, ugly. Overall rating: C minus

8. AirTran

I think no artist in this world can make white, teal, royal blue (a dark blue), and the red of apple candy come together beautifully, but this is not prevent AirTran from trying. In case that's not bad enough, they throw in more curves and

idle swoosh sign. I have to admit that I like the big A italic on the tail of the plane, but someone needs to control the practice of painting website addresses on the engine cover and wing tip.

Assertive, unique, demented. Overall rating: F (Note: Southwest's takeover of AirTran means the design is slowly deprecated.)

9. Alaska Airlines

Regardless of the fact that Alaska Airlines is actually located in Seattle, we like the iconic Eskimos wearing fur coats with a smiling face that adds grace to the tail. This image evokes a sense of familiarity with home - wherever exactly home is - and very effective. Reviewers tried to demean the face by asserting that it was Snow Old Man, Johnny Cash, or even Che Guevara, but its media department assured me that this is a native. Either way, he is not a problem. What spoiled the company's appearance was the dreaded mess of billboard-style handwriting on the fuselage, in front of the wings.

Affordable, ethnic, cannot read. General assessment: D

10. Hawaiian Airlines

Interestingly, states 49 and 50 both have a face shape on the tail. One side was male, the other was female, they looked at each other earnestly across the vast Pacific. Both have personalities, but the girl on the Hawaiian Airlines island is colorful and colorful

prettier than the frozen guy of Alaska Airlines. The blooming lavender petals that crawl along the tail of the fuselage is a bit odd, but overall there's a good balance between the front and back. Perfect typography.

Enthusiastic, playful, a little erotic. Overall rating: A minus

Know what to do, I am a difficult scorer. Don't know Sister Wendy⁶ or Sir Robert Hughes⁷ How would you feel when you died.

⁶. Wendy Beckett, commonly known as Sister Wendy, is an English nun and art historian. She was single, isolated, and became famous in the 1990s by making a series of documentaries about the history of art for the BBC channel.

⁷. Famous art critic is conservative Australians.

Reflecting on the now-defunct airlines, one of the things that I regret is that old PSA smile. California-based Pacific Southwest Airlines once stuck a smiley sticker on its nose. Not anything too ostentatious but just a thin black curve. It was an unpredictable Da Vinci smile that was not offended - as if each aircraft was expressing contentment simply because it was an airplane. The PSA name, and their cheerful mood, was retained by its successor, US Airways, to one of its subsidiaries specializing in regional aircraft operations. In Ohio. It is worth a frown.

One day I will put together a reporting list of European and Asian carriers. Perhaps it is widely assumed that US firms have been outmatched by their foreign competitors

design, but this is not necessarily true. For example, take a look at the newest look of EgyptAir sometime, a perfect example of all the airline branding mistakes in the 21st century. So words, it looked like an amateur hockey team uniform. Likewise is the latest look at Air India. They shrunk the windows in the Taj Mahal style to the point of not being able to see them anymore, then attached a sunburnt-like spinning reel to the tail of the plane.

British Airways contributed to the shame of the marketing industry when in 1997, along with the buzzing advertisements, they released a "world images" look (roughly translated: "world images"). About a dozen different motifs, each representing an area of ​​the world, are decorated on the tail of BA's aircraft. There are no more a quarter of the Union Jack flag and the badge line, instead Delftblue Daybreak, Wunala Dreaming, and Youm al-Suq. Very radical, multicultural, and freakish.

Newell and Sorell, the creators of the campaign, called it "a series of bright acclaim." A more cynical source called it "a catalog of wallpapers." Margaret Thatcher once covered the tail of a 747 with a handkerchief and said, "We fly with the flag of the United Kingdom, not these horrible things." World Images was scrapped in 2001, replacing the entire fleet red, white, and blue design still in use today, a design that makes each BA plane look like a giant Pepsi.

And yes, I saw Shamu, Southwest's killer whale 737, and such new designs. The automaker gave fuselage paints to celebrate everything from civic identity

race to the Olympics. One of the outstanding designs is the 747 by Qantas which is somewhat Aboriginal, called Nalanji Dreaming. By the mid-1990s, this stance finally crossed an inevitable threshold, where rental airlines would advertise airplanes like a bus in Manhattan. Ryanair took advantage of this tactic too rudely, like the late Western Pacific Airlines - which was located in Colorado, had 737 "iconic planes" advertising for hotel casinos and companies. car rental, among other things. FOX-TV paid to advertise The Simpsons on one of those 737s - with Marge's beehive-blue hair taking over the plane's tail. Western Pacific went bankrupt at a time when The Simpsons could no longer be viewed (1996 was the last movie season it was tolerable), and for the time being, this way of painting aircraft into billboards is an exception. it is not a rule. Let's hope this situation will be maintained.

II. Name, slogan, and salt pack

The truth is that all graphic design geniuses in the world will rush straight to the toilet when their work is dumped into the river by a bad name. Branding is not just about visual impressions, but also in the sound - the raw intonation of the airline name, and what it evokes or alludes to.

If you want to look for the biggest chinks, just go to Russia, home to firms like Adygheya Avia, Avialesookhrana, Aviaobshchemash, and Khalaktyrka Aviakompania. But those are just short names. The longest names have been securely encoded into abbreviations or shortened names. You just need to know KMPO - but if you insist

For the full name, Kazanskoe Motorostroitel'noe Proizvodstevennoe Ob'yedinenie sounds like the sound of people gargling with gravel in an aquarium. Equally, there is an airline in Kazakhstan named Zhezkazan Zhez Air. There are five Zs in this name. I don't know how to pronounce it but it must be like a big sneeze.

The prevailing trend these days is to use super weird names - or should the word "humorous" be used? We have Zoom, Jazz, Clickair, Go Gly, Wizz Air. Enough is enough. Yes, it feels refreshing, but you can actually buy a plane ticket from an airline called Bmibaby (a regional arm of British BMI) and still feel satisfied with yourself the next morning. are not? Perhaps their idea was to personify the ease and affordability of modern aviation. Well, it just truncates the last remaining dignity of the flying experience. Likewise, we guess that the purpose of the Clickair name is to evoke the sound when we conveniently book air tickets online. Very logical, but still annoying. Hungary's emerging low-cost carrier Wizz Air also conjures up a sound,

Meanwhile, the regional consortium Mesa Air Group, which owns a huge fleet of regional jets and jet-propelled aircraft in codeshare with a few major airlines, is succeeding with a ego. replacing that they shaped about five years ago. Taking advantage of a certain spirit of the times, Mesa's subsidiary was named Freedom Airlines⁸. Hmm. Once I met a Freedom Airlines pilot at Kennedy airport. He looks around 17 years old, and I'm trying to guess which company he flies for. I couldn't understand the staring logo on his name tag so I had to ask. “I fly for Self

do, ”he said.

⁸. Temporary translation: Airline Freedom

I'm not sure he's answering my question or making a political statement. I want to put my hand on his shoulder. “We all do, son. We all do. ”

Talking about two-meaning names, nothing surpasses the humor of U-Land Airlines⁹Taiwan, now discontinued. Before it was shut down - for violating safety rules - the airline seemed to have taken the low-cost airline concept to the next level. And don't forget the daring confidence of Russia's Kras Air airline, just adding a letter H to make it infamous.^ten.

⁹. Translated by: Airline You Landed

^ten. Krash is pronounced like crash, meaning plane crash.

Saying I'm old-fashioned is fine, but I've always liked deeper and more iconic names - ones that evoke the image, history, or culture of the country. Such as Garuda, the national airline of Indonesia. Borrowed from ancient Sanskrit, Garuda is the name of the eagle that often appears in Buddhist and Hindu mythology, and is one of the three Hindu deities. This is a bit confusing because Indonesia is a country with the largest Muslim population in the world, but don't argue if the airline is renamed "Air Indonesia." Likewise, Avianca is a beautiful word; "Air Colombia" sounds terrible. Iberia sounds quite rich compared to "Spanish Airways" for example, while Alitalia has a more funny effect than "Air Italy." "If you are forced to call your country name directly, please be a little more sophisticated. Royal Air Maroc and

Royal Jordanian are acceptable examples. Aeromexico also heard it.

By the way, Qantas is not the name of a marsupial native to Australia. It is an acronym for the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service, which was established in 1920.

In 1992, an airline named Kiwi International was founded by a group of former Eastern pilots, based in Newark. No stranger to the setback, the Kiwi founders ironically suppressed their start-up optimism, naming their airline after a flightless bird. In New Zealand, another Kiwi International operates flights between Auckland and Australia. The second Kiwi company is only better geographically because this flightless animal is the symbol of their country, but in both cases the name is a joke of fate. God, neither did it last long. It can be said that they have chosen this outcome for themselves.

Some airlines still cling to the name they literally overtook. Thirty-five years ago, Southwest was a company with limited operations within the state of Texas. Northwest is no longer active, but it has kept the old geographic name of the country until the very end - this is not an easy task because its compass needles. fast. Originally named Northwest Orient, the airline merged with Republic Airlines in 1985. Republic itself is a mixture of North Central Airlines, Southern Airways, and Hughes Airwest.

Wait a second, isn't there a company called Republic right now? Indeed, and this leads us to the phenomenon

Unusual is recycling airline names:

The Republic that exists today, one of the largest regional airlines in the US, was unrelated to the original Republic. They just used this name again (using the suffix Airways instead of Airlines). We have seen this before. At one point or another, we have two reincarnated versions of Pan Am, two from Braniff, and one of Midway. All of them have names only, and neither airline has lasted long before joining the contingent of predecessor firms on that giant skyfield. When USAir - the then-US Airways name - acquired Piedmont and Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) in 1987, these brands were so popular that the decision was made to keep the names. They are located for two subsidiaries of USAir Express. So all of a sudden PSA was based in Ohio, while at airports along the East Coast, passengers can still (both then and now) board a Piedmont plane again. Kind of.

By the way, Republic's parallel twin recently acquired a struggling firm Frontier Airlines. As you may have guessed, Frontier is also an appropriated name. The original Denver-based Frontier was in operation from 1950 to 1986. At this point, we have a bunch of scrambled names.

Although it uses a stolen name, Frontier has designed a very clever aircraft cover as a comprehensive marketing tool. The tails of the airline's Airbus carry images of typical North American animals and birds, from wild ducks to sea otters to lynx. "A Whole Different Animal" is the slogan of the company. This brings us to another aspect of airline identity: the slogan

Commerce).

Like the logo and the plane's appearance, the slogan doesn't need to be too clever to be successful, but a reasonable combination of sentiment and music will definitely work. “We like you too” is what jetBlue tells their clients - maybe a little overconfident, but so is proof of competence. “Excellence in Flight” is also my favorite slogan of “Excellence in Flight” or “Excellence in Flight”. It is pleasantly condensed and has two layers of very wise meaning, rather than the we-do-everything-for-you meaning that we often see in airlines.

There have been some classic slogans over the years. United scored with the warm and sensitive feeling of the sentence "Fly the Friendly Skies" (roughly translated: "Flying in the Friendly Skies"), while the slogan "The World's Most Experienced Airline" (roughly translated: "The airline The Most Inexperienced In The World ”) by Pan Am says it all. KLM's "The Reliable Dutch Airline" excelled for its straightforward humility. With Braniff, the airline pays attention to the most image of all time, their slogan is "Coming Through with Flying Colors" (roughly translated: "Passing the American Man"). Reasonable to perfection, especially with Braniff's fleet of rainbow-colored aircraft.

On the other hand, Eastern used to advertise himself as "The Wings of Man", which is clearly too much, as well as the British Airways slogan "The World's Favorite Airline" (roughly translated : "The World's Favorite Airline"). I think BA was under pressure at that time to come up with a cute British English-style slogan that Americans already have.

passion¹¹But to be exact, in terms of number of passengers boarding, BA is the 21st most popular airline in the world.

¹¹. The word "favorite" in American English is "favorite", while in British English it is "favorite".

Other unfortunate promotions include at least two Delta Air Lines slogans. The affable slogan "Delta Is Ready When You Are" has been replaced by the bland slogan "Good Goes Around" (roughly translated: "The Good Lan Tạ ”), sounds like an advertisement for a diet soft drink. The slogan for an earlier period was "We Get You There". Passengers don't expect much from the airlines anymore, but I'm just talking about bottom-down expectations.

If you can't do anything else, at least be coherent. When entering the cabin of the SAS (Scandinavian Airlines System), we will immediately notice the impeccable decor of the furniture with elegant, gentle colors. All of them are very Scandinavian, except for a few years ago, when SAS decided to design the interior of aircraft with scattered slogans translated into odd English. “There are three ways to travel”, this sentence was printed on a poster near the door up front. “In an armchair. In your imagination. Welcome to the third. ” (Roughly translated: "In an armchair. In your imagination. Welcome to the third way.") What does that mean? Then, when your meal arrives, the tray has several bags of salt and pepper linked together, written on it:

The taste of tears,

The enormity of oceans.

(Roughly translated:

The color of the snow,

Taste of rate,

Immense gills of the ocean.)

Ah, nothing more beautiful than quiet moments at an altitude of 37,000 feet (11,278 meters) than existential thoughts of the Scandinavian salt poet.

And finally the advertising: We've come very, very far since National Airlines' "Fly Me" campaign in the early 1970s. "I'm Lorraine," a glamorous flight attendant speaks into the camera. "Take me to Orlando." Braniff has a similar promo called "aerial striptease," which shows attractive young flight attendants changing their uniforms in mid-flight on provocative music.

But perhaps the most memorable airline ad I've ever seen, though not entirely for reasons the airline intended, was British Airways' 1989 "wink." Conceived by Saatchi & Saatchi and Hugh Hudson (Chariots of Fire^twelfthdirected, this trailer shows hundreds of people dressed from diverse cultures around the world, gathered in a dramatic landscape near Salt Lake City, Utah. The voiceover is by actor Tom Conti, and the soundtrack is from Leo Delibes' opera "Lakme" has been adapted by Malcolm McLaren (famous for Sex Pistols and

Bow Wow Wow¹³). Seen from above, the actors form a giant face, thanks to the magical timing that the choreographer is given his face "wink." It was 30 seconds of extreme dizziness and overall hair growth. It was very impressive (you can watch it on YouTube), but I panicked when the tons of strangely dressed people winked at me. Worse, when I think of British Airways, I will forever think of the footage of the crowds in the Korean stadiums forming the giant faces of the Dear Leader.

^twelfth. The 1981 film, adapted from British historical events, was nominated for 7 Academy Awards and won four awards, including Best Picture and Best Screenwriter. The film is ranked 19th in the list of the 100 best films of the UK.

¹³. 2 famous groups in the UK managed by Malcolm McLaren.

Meanwhile, as if you should be prompted, "DING, You Are Now Free to Move About the Country." (Interpretation: “DING, Now You Have Freedom to Move Nationwide.”) Southwest's iconic bell-ringing trailer is a clever way to highlight a key point in its success. This cheap airline: affordable fares for everyone. Unfortunately, after listening to the 5000th time, anyone who is wise will be so upset that they have to scramble to find another competitor.

How does the standard of service of airlines in the US compare to those of other countries?

It is clear that US airlines are far from catching up, like

can be seen from customer surveys and industry awards year after year. Almost everywhere - Asia, Europe, South America, even Africa - American firms are completely outmatched by foreign competitors. To be fair, I can mention the gap between the two rows of seats that cause the knees to curl and the dangerous cuisine of EgyptAir and Royal Air Morocco, but exceptions of this type are also rare.

How we have come back to such an embarrassing position remains the subject of controversy. Financial problem? Cultural? Or both? It was a long, brutal slide, and most would agree that it started exactly or about the moment President Jimmy Carter put pen to paper on the 1979 Aviation Deregulation Act. Since at that point, an uncontrolled slump had begun, the competitive turmoil sparked such a fierce battle that, under the eyes of the airlines, the elimination of the competitor was becomes more important than customer satisfaction. By 2001, the few remaining extravagant airlines had also been cut, starting after 9/11.

In my opinion, there is a clear systematic cause that surpasses the result of the business. It is easy to surmise that declining margins lead to poor product quality, but our present situation is the bottom point of a decline that lasted through the mid-1990s - the period of greatest prosperity. of airlines throughout history. Meanwhile, in a foreign country, even companies in financial trouble have almost always maintained their reputation. For them, profit and customer service cannot be compensated for a sum of zero.

It's about time that the popular seats are on the overseas market

usually on par with first class seats in the domestic US market. I can guarantee so. My recent experiences flying with Korean Air, Emirates, Cathay Pacific, Turkish Airlines, Thai Airways, and LanPeru, all in Economy Class, are equal to or better than many of the first class seats I've ever seen. sitting while flying within the US. To do so is through a combination of tangible and intangible things; both the comfortable amenities and the extremely attentive staff on board. We will talk about employees in the next section. Amenities include things like an ultra-wide personal video monitor with comfortable headphones, retractable footrest, a USB hub behind the seat, a curved dining table, comfort packages, and meals. Eat well even on short flights. Cathay Pacific long-haul planes have a scalloped economy class seat as mentioned in the previous section (see seat classes section, page 193), which even when fully reclined, does not disturb the rear occupant. For Thai Airways Economy Class, hot towels are distributed before take-off. This is not a version of cotton towels distributed in luxury compartments, but thick tissue from a box that can be used in the microwave. This is a fine detail, which costs only a few dollars per flight. All planes are spotless, from seat bags to restrooms. but thick tissue from a box that can be used in a microwave. This is a fine detail, which costs only a few dollars per flight. All planes are spotless, from seat bags to restrooms. but thick tissue from a box that can be used in a microwave. This is a fine detail, which costs only a few dollars per flight. All planes are spotless, from seat bags to restrooms.

You will notice that these are not particularly luxurious. Honestly, in such a low-cost situation coupled with the thin margins that airlines earn, luxury is impossible. No problem. What the airlines do not really understand is that the service to please customers does not need to be too elaborate. Ordinary passengers do not expect pampering. What they expect and deserve is convenience, respect for staff, and a bit of comfort. No one has been lobbying to return to the demanding demands on planes of decades ago. In the luxury cabin,

you have the right to some grandiose pleasure if you want, after paying $ 7,000 for a bed chair from London to Tokyo, but the backpacking college student sitting in row 45 is not interested with fanciful 1940s fantasies. He doesn't bother with a velvet trolley filled with cheese or a plate of grilled salmon with cumin and finely decorated leeks. What he wanted was a clean space, half a comfort to sit, something to see or listen to, maybe a sandwich, and please add a bottle of water.

And one more thing: the polite and professional staff. It may seem boring to say this, but it is clear that, after all, passengers who are loyal or leave their company are not due to the physical comfort but the attitude and devotion of the airline staff. I never say that anyone's job in this crazy industry is easy, but if the crew can't be as conscientious as necessary, there's a problem. system face and needs to be fixed before anything else is taken into account. The extra legroom, video on demand, and free drinks are all welcome, yes. But it's all pointless when you're dying of thirst in the middle of an overnight flight, Trash of meals served three time zones ago remained on the table as the flight attendants were busy reading magazines for five hours in the kitchen compartment and ignored the passengers. Or when the staff at the station entrance grabs a boarding pass without making eye contact with you. What I remember most about flights from Korean, Cathay, Emirates, and other airlines was the thoughtfulness of the crew on board. During the entire flight time, the flight attendant constantly walks along the aisle asking if the passenger needs water, coffee, juice, or anything else.

Be aware that in an industry where the average training time is six weeks, the flight attendants of Singapore Airlines have to go through years of training. This is considerably longer than the time spent training pilots at most carriers. I'm not implying that the Singapore model is a sensible target for major US firms - because it is not. Any US airline that wants to re-establish Singapore's stature in the world, if put it mildly, is an illusion, and at worst it will lead to financial exhaustion. But the deeper point here is, the most valuable service asset of an airline is professionalism, respectful attitude, and employee courtesy. End.

Here's my advice: if you're going to do something, don't half-heart. Even the smallest details can make an impression. If you plan to equip the aircraft with pillows, have useful ones. When cruising across the Atlantic with Air France, Economy Class passengers are given a comfortable, fluffy pillow covered in a beautiful fabric. This is not something substantial or expensive, but it is thoughtful, and you will remember it. When flying with an American airline, if a passenger can get a pillow, it will only be a thin sponge as big as a slice of bread, the pillow cover is as ragged as tissue. Thanks for nothing. Or if you're going to give out free cocktails, be respectful. Do not be like a certain company that I hear, before serving a meal must also announce on the speaker in a strict tone, reminding everyone that their generosity was at "one and only one drink per passenger." It couldn't be more rude. The problem is not with the one-drink rule itself, but with scolding passengers as if they were children.

So what exactly are the top airlines? Please refer to the review of SkyTrax. SkyTrax is a prestigious group of aviation advisors that ranks airlines by scale

score from one star to five stars. Currently only six airlines meet this group's rigorous criteria to achieve a five-star rating, which is reserved only for those “top in product and service excellence, often placing set trends for other airlines to follow. ” Here is a list of brands in alphabetical order:

• Asiana Airlines (South Korea)

• Cathay Pacific (Hong Kong)

• Hainan Airlines (China)

• Malaysia Airlines

• Qatar Airways

• Singapore Airlines

Less than one class, 32 airlines have achieved four stars. Among these you will find most of the key Asian and European carriers: Air France, Emirates, British Airways, Lufthansa, JAL, Korean, Qantas, Thai, Turkish, and South African Airways. Add a few surprises, such as Kazakhstan's Air Astana, Oman Air, and Canadian tiny Porter Airlines. The only US company that makes it into the top tier is jetBlue (in my opinion it doesn't deserve it, but for some reason jetBlue is always in favor).

The rest of the US firms are in the three-star rating, achieving “satisfactory core product standards across most travel categories, but low or missing employee service / product quality standards is consistent with certain features on the plane or at the airport. ” So far, this is the largest group. Delta, United, Southwest, and American are tied

with airlines such as Ethiopian Airlines, Aeroflot, Aerolineas Argentinas, Pakistan International, and China Eastern.

Not too bad. None of the US firms out of about 25 firms received a two-star rating. The list includes names such as Cubana, Sudan Airways, TAAG Angola, and Biman Bangladesh. And Ryanair.

One-star rating has only one player, which is the mysterious North Korean Air Koryo.

I think the biggest general failure of the airlines

• The US is not about in-flight services but about communications. Airlines have lost the ability to properly or accurately communicate information to customers.

Contrary to the belief of most people, airlines policy is not intentionally lying or giving false information. What passengers consider a lie should be called information that has been distorted due to malfunction in the transmission of information. It's the rigidly split structure of airlines, in which the details of a situation are passed from department to department, each with its own preferences, jargon, and expertise. . A lot of details are missed in the transmission and processing of information, just like an elementary school game where everyone gives each other a short story, through each person the story becomes more and more shuffled. At airports, the person on duty holding the microphone announcing that your flight is delayed often has only a limited understanding of what really is going on.

And a diverse team of employees is sometimes extremely sensitive about sovereignty. A few years ago I was the captain of a short-haul plane that had to delay flight due to blizzards. We have about 20

passengers and they did not understand what was going on, and the staff at the gate did not clarify the situation. So, in the boarding lounge, I asked everyone to pay attention and began to explain the situation. Perhaps it was true that I went too deep in terms of defining things like "new takeoff time," but a few seconds later there was loud footsteps and loud voices behind me, asking: " What the hell is this bastard doing? " It's the station manager, and he doesn't like the fact that a pilot usurped the customer service department at the airport.

Whatever the reason, over and over again, despite my wishes, the airlines still cannot convey the truth, and that's the problem. This not only violates the usual principles of customer service, but also allows rumors, legends, and conspiracy to flourish without control. It ignited a flames of anger and distrust, and supported and instilled fears among passengers who were afraid of flying. Airlines have a bad habit of responding to unusual situations - whether it's a slight schedule change or something more serious - in one of two ways: either complete silence or, perhaps worse, resorting to an overly simplified explanation. As a result, passengers have little respect for the airlines. People don't like the airlines and don't believe what they say - partly because they never really say anything. Or when it comes to speaking, these are the words that look down on passengers or even frightening:

The flight was canceled because "it was too hot to fly." One crew canceled landing because "a plane cut through in front of us." One day, in Flagstaff, Arizona, the ticket booth staff informed a group of delayed passengers that it was necessary for some people to voluntarily skip their flights. When passengers ask why, they

the answer was: “We need to reduce the load. The plane has a problem and we fear that one of the engines might stop working. "

Out of all the frontline workers, potential pilots are the most valuable, able to defuse stress and interpret unusual situations. Unfortunately, due to fear of being held accountable, much of this potential is wasted. Pilots are concerned about saying they shouldn't, fearing being blamed, being fined, or being rebuked if something is misunderstood or taken out of context. It is true that people write letters and threaten to sue in court for the most absurd, but really this is an aviation culture and a training problem. Firms often insist on how information should not be communicated - which phrases should never be said, what disturbing terms and buzzwords to avoid. The result is the tendency to say as little as possible - a default policy is simplified to evade.

That was clearly counterproductive, especially when minor irregularities made it difficult: Once I sat in a economy seat on a flight to Boston. Just before landing, the pilots cancel the landing and wait. There was no reason to believe that anything serious had happened, but I could feel a sense of panic emanating from the people around me. Finally, one pilot gave an explanation. "Ah, um, sorry", he began to say. “Another plane crashed our heads on the runway, so we need to stop landing. We're circling around and will land in a few minutes. ”

There is no other explanation. I sat there, painfully silent. "Please add more," I mean. "You need to say more." But he said nothing more, and instead quelled the anxiety

of the passenger, he just made things worse. "An airplane hit us?" a man sitting a few rows behind me raised his voice, followed by a frightened laugh. A college student sitting diagonally from me was trembling clearly. That evening, without a doubt, he will serve his friends with the story of his "narrow escape" experience. That is not the case. Waiting (see section cancel landing, page 92) is the result of simple spacing - not a narrow escape, but a move done long before it happened. ; That's right, to avoid a narrow escape from death.

“Airlines in general should better communicate information,” admitted an airline spokesperson. In fact, it can be said that it is difficult to be overly conveyed. " However, it must be recognized that there are risks in disclosing all information; may lead to a lawsuit solely because comments or actions appear harmless or even helpful. And there's no point in cramming people with the know-how of flying a plane. Explaining the problem in too many technical terms can make people suspicious and shake their heads in confusion. "If you try to get too technical, it can cause the hearing problem to be very serious when it is actually just a daily malfunction," the spokesperson added. In my opinion, most passengers want timely updates on delayed flights, and generally receive a sincere explanation of what led to the condition. Other than that, I don't think digging into the details would be of much help. ” Maybe he's right. When passengers on jetBlue Flight 292 were faced with a trapped jet and the risk of an emergency landing in 2005 (see jetBlue incident, page 232), the crew did their best. can let the passenger know that this situation is less dangerous. However, instead The crew did their best to let the passengers know that this situation was very little dangerous. However, instead The crew did their best to let the passengers know that this situation was very little dangerous. However, instead

accept the explanation, according to some people present at the time, many passengers said that the pilots were lying. I receive letters all the time from people who accuse airline personnel of misrepresenting "facts" about situations they consider life-threatening. No matter how wrong it is, this is already an ingrained conception.

Perhaps the essence of the problem, though, is that airlines simply have to pay very little for playing their own worst foe. If they keep encouraging and reinforcing misconceptions about air travel, it doesn't help their balance sheets. Profit is a completely different matter, but planes are still full of passengers, and most people, rationally or even emotionally, still understand that flying is safe. Why have to roll everything up?

Which airlines are the biggest?

It depends on how you measure it. The easiest way is to calculate the number of passengers per year. The problem is that this does not take into account the network coverage of the airline - how many cities does the airline operate, how far is it to fly, etc.

The second way is to calculate the number of available seat kilometers (ASK¹⁴). This is the total number of seats the airline has for sale, multiplied by the total number of kilometers the airline has flown. (ASK is commonly referred to as ASM¹⁵, which uses land miles instead of kilometers.) A 777 flying from New York to London is at about 1,200,000 ASK; a 757 flying from LAX to Chicago is about 450,000. In other words, a large jet flying long haul will cost more than a small plane flying short - although the airline can compensate for the gap by exploiting more flights. The problem with this ASK calculation is that it includes the empty seats. A 747 with 400

where the ASK number is greater than a 767 with 200 seats on the same route, but what if the 767 is full and the 747 is empty?

¹⁴. Short for available seat-kilometers.

¹⁵. Short for available seat-miles.

¹⁶. Abbreviation for revenue passenger-kilometer.

The third way is to calculate the kilometer paid by passengers, or RPK¹⁶. This is basically the ASK, adjusted for the number of seats sold, or “load factor” as an industry term. One passenger flying one kilometer is equivalent to one RPK. In my opinion, this is the most accurate and fairest assessment because it takes into account everything: flight distance (network size), number of seats available (aircraft size and aircraft squadron size), as well as the actual number of sold seats (total number of passengers).

At the present time, Delta is the largest airline in the world by both the number of passengers served (164 million people per year) and RPK (310 billion). Upon completion of the merger with US Airways, American Airlines will come in second, pushing United down third place. The more you go behind the list, the more calculation methods make a bigger difference. Emirates is currently the fifth largest airline in the world according to RPK, but failed to make it into the top 20 in terms of passenger numbers. Ryanair ranked sixth in passenger numbers but failed to make it into the top 25 in the RPK.

The 10 largest airlines in the world, according to RPK

1. Delta Air Lines

2. American Airlines (including US Airways)

2. United Airlines

2. Southwest Airlines

2. Emirates 6. Lufthansa

7. Air France

7. China Southern

7. Qantas

7. Cathay Pacific

Looking at Southwest up there, it's not surprising that this fourth-ranked airline - third in passenger volume - doesn't have a single wide-div plane, and doesn't operate a flight route. outside of the US?

Firms swap positions each year, and by the time you read these lines it's entirely possible that another merger took place. Even so, the list above will probably still look roughly the same in the near future. (Note: this list deducted KLM's data from Air France's data. These two companies merged in 2004 but still maintain separate operating structures, with the aircraft fleet and staff members. separate tablets.)

It is easy to assume the biggest airline is the one with the most aircraft, but this does not explain the difference in capacity. American Eagle has more planes than half of the top ten names listed above, but all of them are aircraft.

area. So far, the American / US Airways complex is at the top with about 960 aircraft, followed by Delta with 750 aircraft. China Southern's 368 planes are the largest outside of the United States. (These numbers change each time an aircraft is bought, sold, sheltered, or scrapped, but according to the RPK the list remains virtually unchanged every year.) The largest firms operate only divplanes. The largest are Emirates, Cathay Pacific, and Singapore Airlines. The smallest aircraft in their fleet is the Airbus A330.

Currently, there are less than a dozen airlines around the world capable of membership of what I call the "Six Continents Club" - offering regular flight to at least one destination at each continent of North America, South America, Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Australia. At this time, Delta and United are representatives of the United States, along with Emirates, British Airways, South African Airways, Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways, Korean Air, and Etihad Airways. In terms of the total number of destination countries, Turkish Airlines wins. Turkish is a much bigger player than people realize. Their service is at the forefront, and their network now extends to 95 countries - more than any other airline in the world.

✰✰✰

Size is one thing, profit is another. Here are the top 10 most efficient airlines at the time of publication of the English text for this book, in terms of net profit:

1. Japan Airlines

2. Air China

3. China Southern

3. Delta Air Lines

3. United 6. China Eastern

7. Ryanair

7. Cathay Pacific

7. Aeroflot

7. Emirates

Quite a few stars appear on this list, but not many stars and stripes. To be fair, the US airlines do get periodic returns, but it seems we get the results much more difficult and inconsistent. Another whole book would be needed to conclusively discuss the cause of this condition. The competitive environment, state ownership and subsidies, and labor cost all played a role.

Of the airlines listed above, not all are privately operated, leading to the problem of governments allowing tax reductions, subsidies, and other biased benefits over airlines they sometimes owned. Think of the statement by Tim Clark, the president of Dubai-based Emirates airline, which has quickly become one of the fastest growing and most profitable airlines in the world: “Cargo assistance policy The Dubai government's non-radical and persistent government is a key driver of this solid, long-term growth, ”Clark said at an industry-wide luncheon in 2012.

For its part, the US government plays a major part in hindering and detrimental to its own commercial aviation infrastructure. But looking for the answers in a foreign country is stupid. The problem is not between the US airlines and other countries, but between the US airlines themselves.

Even before 9/11, America's largest firms were suffering from overload and a stagnant economy. It was followed by the toxic ramifications caused by terrorism and war, the unprecedented surge in oil prices, and then the catastrophic economic recession. Between 2001 and 2012, United, Delta, Northwest, American, and US Airways all filed bankruptcy - US Airways went bankrupt twice. Damages amounted to billions of dollars, layoffs numbered in the tens of thousands.

Overall that bleeding has stopped, but while the veteran firms are entrenched and have to pay the costs, restore the business model, and regain profit - a decade-long process. century, which ultimately resulted in three super mergers - the low-cost opportunity airlines like jetBlue, Southwest, Spirit and AirTran took advantage of the opportunity. With no obstacles to high labor costs or the need to support complex fleets and decades-old infrastructure, these adaptable emerging firms provide seamless service. and the tickets were irresistibly cheap, quickly taking over a huge segment of the US domestic market. The proliferation of low-cost airlines, this and not any other factor, has dramatically changed the competitive dynamics.

And this is not just an American phenomenon. In Europe

Likewise, low-cost airlines like Ryanair and easyJet are making the mainstays smoke in the profit race. Brazil's Gol currently has more annual passengers than British Airways. AirAsia, which is expanding, has more passengers than Singapore Airlines, Thai, or Korean Air. Other low-cost airlines have also leaped in markets like Australia, Kuwait, Hungary, Mexico, Canada, and Slovakia, among many others.

Experience has shown that the survival tactic is to hire regional aircraft operators to do several flights. Today, regional planes make 53% of flights departing within the US. Initially, these planes were often operated in a similar way to their predecessors - as we used to call the "commuter plane" - by flying short distances. , a maximum of 300 miles (482.8 km), to international transit stations. But the larger second generation regional range planes show the ability to take advantage of longer flights, an array that was previously exclusive to Airbus and Boeing jets. Whether flying from Chicago to Peoria or Chicago to New York, regional planes are profitable in many market segments.

Today, at any major airport, veteran airline planes are huddled near the gate, looking hurt and anxious. Around them are swarms of nimble, fast-paced and low-cost aircraft, either gobbling up or happily taking care of themselves, depending on your perspective.

However, has not such fierce competition been beneficial for consumers?

It is true that passengers benefit from cheap airline fares. As I stated in the introduction to this book, in 1939, price

round-trip tickets from New York to France are equivalent to more than $ 6,000 today. Even in the 1970s, it would cost almost $ 3,000 to fly from New York to Hawaii. On the bookshelf at home I have an old American Airlines ticket receipt. Here's a receipt from 1946 that I got on the flea market. That year, a man named James Connors paid $ 334 to fly each way between Ireland and New York. That fare equates to $ 3,690 today

- for each direction. In 2013, you could get a round trip ticket for that sector, out of peak season, for less than $ 600.

The real cost of traveling by plane - adjusted for inflation - has plummeted over the years following deregulation (in 1979), despite several spikes in oil prices. . In the period from 2005 to 2010, when airlines were struggling and oil prices rose sharply, average fares for economy class were at an all time low. Not much has changed as the next decade is added, even with the addition of surcharges passengers hated (see next question). Facilities and customer service are no longer the same, but what do you expect when profit margins drop to a few cents per passenger? Airlines sell what their customers want. Above all, customers want the lowest possible fares.

If traveling by plane seems expensive, in part it could be due to the myriad taxes added to the fare. There is domestic itinerary tax, security surcharge, passenger surcharge¹⁷, fuel taxes, international cruise taxes, and customs fees - these are just a few of the taxes. The US government adds 17 separate taxes and fees to airline tickets, accounting for at least a quarter of the total cost of tickets, depending on the fare. (For a $ 300 round-trip flight, taxes and fees are around $ 60.) As a percentage, the rate is usually double the rate on cigarettes and firearms.

short, and alcohol - products subject to the so-called sin tax, which is intended to prevent their use.

¹⁷. Passenger Facility Charge (Passenger Facility Charge) is a surcharge issued by government or airport authorities. The proceeds are often used for airport renovation projects.

In addition to affordable fares, another benefit that is rarely recognized by air travel today lies in the airline's network of itineraries. You can travel between nearly any two airports in the US, and in the worst case, only have to transfer once. A few decades ago, flying just half a mile across the country required a nagging transition across at least two cities. At one time, flying to Europe or Asia meant departing from one of the few gateway cities in America; Today, it is possible to fly directly from many smaller transit airports (Pittsburgh, Portland, Charlotte), resulting in significant time savings.

Please clarify the increasingly common practice that airlines charge for things that were previously free. Check-in baggage, food, a blanket ...

As everyone knows, airlines are resorting to the so-called "separate billing" practice as a way to increase sales. Flying has become an à la carte type¹⁸: $ 50 for a second consignment; $ 20 for a ruffled blanket and less-irritating pillows, ready-to-use can take home; The old beef or chicken appetizer is now a sandwich wrap¹⁹ cost 6 dollars.

¹⁸. Menu type so that customers can order individual dishes according to their preferences instead of set menu (full-package menu) with fixed price, not select dishes.

¹⁹. The sandwich type consists of a flat outer layer of bread wrapped around the inner core.

But actually these extra services have never been "free." They are included in your ticket price. And the fare was previously higher than now. If you want to talk about how to properly charge a separate fee, you must first admit the fact that airline fares are currently very cheap. It's funny to hear one passenger gossip about the checked baggage fee after paying $ 159 to fly from one end of the country. And while this discrete fee approach may make customers feel drained of pennies, it's still a smart idea that those who want the privilege can pay for it, from there. incur a larger portion of the cost than others. Wouldn't it be better to charge a surcharge for certain services that not everyone wants, instead of raising the fare for everyone?

However, this practice should only stop there and not go too far. In 2010, in a controversial move, Spirit Airlines in Fort Lauderdale began charging up to $ 45 for carry-on baggage. This has pushed the concept too far - transcending the acceptable threshold indeed, and against the spirit²⁰(sorry for puns) of separate billing. Let's be realistic: carry-on baggage is not an optional service, but a service that customers enjoy, since the airline already charges a checked baggage fee.

²⁰. Here the author plays words because Spirit Airlines roughly translates as "Airline Spirit".

How far will airlines go to earn maximum revenue? That same month Spirit started collecting baggage fees

By hand, Europe's Ryanair also announced it would start charging 1 euro for each toilet use. (The company eventually pulled the rule back, but Ryanair's cost-saving tricks were legendary and shouldn't be underestimated.) I joked that airlines would soon print ads. luggage compartment and dining table. When I was on a US Airways flight, when I opened my mouth and opened the dining table, I saw a mobile ad in the eye. Saying me is a piece of cake, but perhaps airlines won't be too difficult to win the respect of passengers if they're not willing to sell their souls that much.

We hear about nightmare delays that leave passengers stranded on planes for hours. Why is this happening and what's the solution?

Long waits on the apron attract a lot of attention and are very helpful in igniting public hatred of airlines. On the whole, this situation is extremely rare. Every year, about 1,500 flights in the US experience delays lasting more than three hours; It may sound like a lot, but remember that almost 10 million flights a year depart, 85% of which land on time or before. Even so, there is still no valid excuse for why it is as simple as letting people leave the plane to enter the train station, or to resupply a waiting plane, sometimes. so difficult. In 2007, after a mid-winter blizzard and frost swept the northeastern part of the United States, Hundreds of jetBlue passengers in New York were forced to wait on planes at the apron for up to 10 hours. A few months earlier, an American Airlines plane had to park in Austin, Texas for more than eight hours. And the most memorable is the year

In 2000, thousands of people were stranded on Northwest Airlines planes, sometimes for up to eleven hours in a blizzard during the New Year's holiday in Detroit.

These public relations disasters are symptom of many problems, including the general reluctance of airlines to think creatively, and their failure to fully empower employees. Your captain - the captain, the station manager, and the other staff members in the command chain - can make key executive decisions. Maneuver the ladder. Maneuver the bus. Have everyone leave the plane on the apron if needed.

It can be said that they have started promotion, and since 2010, US airlines must comply with a maximum delay of three hours of departure, or a maximum delay of 90. minute. Passengers must be allowed to leave the aircraft before exceeding the above limits. Failure to comply can result in a fine up to $ 27,000 per passenger. This provision, a key constituent of what is sometimes referred to as the Passenger Bill of Rights, is the stern measure that passengers have long demanded. But is it really necessary, and is it effective? And beware of unintended consequences:

Imagine that you are sitting on a delayed plane from New York to San Francisco. Parked off a taxiway during a blizzard, with only 20 minutes left until the new takeoff time specified by air traffic control. But because it was about to exceed the three-hour time limit, the plane had to return to the gate. When they got to the gate, some passengers, because they missed their transfer flights, decided not to fly anymore and went home. This means their baggage must also be unloaded. And because turned away

Returning from the taxiway to the station consumes a considerable amount of fuel so the aircraft also needs to be refueled. Coordinating all of this requires the participation of a large staff - most of whom are currently handling other flights - and also arranging and printing a flight plan. new. Just to be sure, all the steps are finished taking an hour. Then you will be at least 30 minutes slower than if you did not return to the port. Additionally, there may be a need to break the ice, or replace the flight crew due to the timing of work, if so the situation is much worse. And if you miss the new takeoff time that means you will be transferred to the next one, look, that's another two hours. The flight was three hours late, turned out to be five hours late.

What is the better solution, I don't know. But I do know that delays are complex and uncertain - this is the kind of situation that doesn't really fit the rules based on stiff time limits. Like the mandatory set of conviction formulas that many judges and public attorneys scorn, these time-limit regulations sometimes cause more problems than they do.

Skeptic passengers sometimes claim that the pilots and flight attendants are actually happy to postpone extended flights, as they will be paid overtime. There is no need to go into details as to what treatment the crew was (or should not have) received from this situation, but such a conclusion is absurd. If you are imagining two pilots sitting in a cockpit, rubbing their hands and making an unpleasant sound of a cash register, trust me, that's not the case. We also do not enjoy these situations. Unfortunately, we had to rely entirely on the monitoring and dispatching staff, often from afar. Lack of thing declared a state of emergency, thing

but the captain will have to account to both the FAA and his superiors, he cannot unilaterally decide to let a passenger leave the plane down the taxiway or the frozen apron. Nor could he simply fly the plane to the station and open the door.

And the sometimes suggested idea is that passengers try to solve the problem by themselves and evacuate themselves, I suppose half of them will end up breaking their legs or hitting their hand luggage. when slipping off the lifeboat. The slides are sometimes as tall as a two-story building, and very steep. They are not designed for convenience. They are installed to get all the people on board out of there and away from the aircraft as quickly as possible in an emergency - without carrying your belongings.

Please take a minute to explain the success of Southwest Airlines. Why did their less elegant product perform so consistently well?

Southwest is the most profitable airline in the United States for many years, and the only survivor of a nearly extinct species: an airline with a true personality, making a mass. Large passengers truly love. In response to the tribute, the Southwest logo features a heart with wings, and their three-letter stock code is LUV.²¹(based on the company's headquarters is Love Field, Dallas). Its founder, Herb Kelleher, drives a high-displacement Harley motorcycle, gulps whiskey from a pocket wine jar, and wrestles with a competitor (he loses). Love it or hate it, we should have a toast to Southwest - a domestic drink that's cheap, and in aluminum bottles.

²¹. An acronym for the word "love", meaning "love".

It's easy to conclude that Southwest's success is due to the fact that people don't expect much from them. This company is nothing, if not modest, that has mastered the art of pleasing customers by giving-them-what-they-paid-for-buy. But what passengers expect, the airline almost always can do, and most of all, this has helped them gain customer loyalty. Specifically, customers appreciate the first-come-first-come-first-served placement policy, the cheerful spirit of the staff, and the flexible ticketing and refund policy. If we had to describe Southwest's miracles in three words, it was: easy, friendly, and most of all, predictable. With that final criterion, their rival firms are very inconsistent; one trip is pleasant, another is terrible.

Don't forget, too, that in most people's minds, the aviation experience counts from curb to curb, not from take-off to landing. Southwest has an advantage not only in the way it flies, but also in its destinations. Aiming at off-center targets in many markets, they help passengers enjoy the leisurely check-in in Manchester, Islip, or Providence, instead of the mess in Boston, Newark, or La Guardia . The old giants are too reliant on giant transshipment ports to succeed this way. Southwest is the closest carrier to the so-called suburban official airline. Its smooth operation structure is also a valuable asset. Southwest operates a single aircraft, the 737, is known for its ultra-fast turnaround to serve the entirely domestic market. Comparing this company to network firms, which have a much more distinct and expansive operating structure, is like comparing apples to oranges.

Consistency and predictability are much more difficult when you have four transit airports and a fleet of 600 planes on journeys to six continents.

Southwest has always ruffled up the idea of ​​having to adapt its model to cross American borders, and perhaps so smart. With low fares, large flight frequencies, and only economy class service, they are not suitable for long-haul route and foreign accent.

Just ask Freddie Laker. The unique inimitable Mr. Freddie, who passed away in 2006, dropped out of high school, demonstrates the kind of business that will later help Richard Branson.²²famous (both are knighted). He commissioned Laker Airways 'SkyTrain' flight between London and New York in 1977. President Carter, in a move to prepare for deregulation, agreed to ratification after Laker's six. year to campaign. Even though people lined up for hours to buy a $ 236 round-trip ticket, SkyTrain's margins were very small and they were only successful in such a short time. PeoplExpress and Tower Air are two other airlines that have also tried and failed in the long-haul market without cumbersome service.

²². British businessman, investor, humanitarian activist. He is best known as the founder of the Virgin Group of more than 400 companies, including Virgin Atlantic.

✰✰✰

If Southwest Airlines represents the Walmart -ization²³ the airline industry, whether this is positive or negative, can be said

What about Hooters Air? Yes, I'm talking about that restaurant, once renting four Boeing planes to operate an airline from its Myrtle Beach headquarters. This company has stopped operating but still deserves to be mentioned, if not for any other reason it is also because this is a story worth sighing only in America.

²³. Walmart: a multinational retail group of America, including supermarkets, low-cost shopping malls, and grocery stores.

The first Hooters Air joke I heard was: "In the rare situation of having to land in the water, your flight attendant can be used as a lifeline." The two "Hooters Girls", the image borrowed from the brand of this business chain, are put on every flight strategically. The airline's aircraft is fitted with blue leather seats and ample legroom. The company they call it "Club Class".²⁴, which was the name once used by British Airways for its business class. Hooters Air compared to British Airways was like Hooters versus a banquet at Buckingham Palace, but their planes were probably more comfortable than all other airlines. Hooters Air said a large number of passengers requested to be seated next to the aisle and stated that they wanted to sit like that to "see the scenery." The people sitting by the window can enjoy the mountain view, and when sitting by the aisle ... Well, only one of those two views is real.

²⁴. Club means golf club. Hooters Air is targeting golfers, in an effort to attract amateur and professional golfers to the Myrtle Beach tournaments.

Which airline is the oldest?

Pedigree in the aviation industry can sometimes be very complicated. Many brands have changed their names and identities, or erased their bloodline

through mergers and acquisitions. But most aeronautical historians - there are, indeed - agree that the oldest airline in existence is KLM, based in Amsterdam. This is the abbreviation of Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij in Dutch, and in English is Royal Dutch Airlines. The airline was established in 1919. Here are the five oldest airlines still operating under the original original name:

• KLM (1919)

• Qantas (1920)

• Aeroflot (1923)

• CSA Czech Airlines (1923)

• Finnair (1923)

If including the renamed and merged firms, Colombia's Avianca will be second because it was established in 1919 under the name SCADTA. Unfortunately, Mexicana (formerly ranked third) is out of the list. The company ceased operations in 2010 after 87 years. If you are surprised that places like Mexico, Colombia, Russia, or Australia have such a long history of aviation, keep in mind that the hilly terrain, poor road systems, and too far travel distances make it possible. for these countries is a natural place to lay the foundations for the aviation industry.

In the US, Delta is the oldest firm, starting in 1928.

There has been a lot of discussion about airlines flying codeshare, so what exactly is codeshare?

Code-sharing is a common way in which one

The airline sells tickets under its name, and the passenger who buys the ticket will fly on another airline's plane. This is a way for partner airlines to share passengers and revenue. There is no room to go into the financially complex details of these agreements, and it doesn't matter from the passenger side. It is important to know which airline you are actually buying. One night, I was waiting at a station in Boston when a man approached me, visibly confused as he was searching for the boarding gate. He told me he was on a Qantas flight. I asked for his ticket, of course with the familiar emblem of the brand's red kangaroo. The problem is that Qantas does not and never has a flight to Boston, as opposed to the information from illuminated signage and announcements on airport buses. I explained, "No, you're looking for American."

Almost all of the largest airlines are tied up with at least one other airline, and many join giant transnational airline alliances, including SkyTeam, Star Alliance, and OneWorld. The aim is to cover as much real estate as possible, with at least one participant from each region being the US, Europe, Asia, and South America.

And just as you can codeshare to Paris, Frankfurt, or Mumbai on a 777, you can also codeshare to Syracuse, Montgomery, or Eugene on a regional plane. Almost every airline's flight that contains the word "Connection" or "Express" in its name is a codeshare flight operated by an independent regional airline on behalf of a major airline. You call United to book a ticket from Newark to Buffalo, and then you'll find yourself at the door of an ExpressJet regional plane. Delta's popular shuttle services range from LaGuardia to Boston and Washington

operated by a company called Shuttle America. And many more examples. It is imperative to find out exactly which goods you will fly on. Check the fine print on your ticket. Or look at the flight number. With rare exceptions, any four-digit flight number beginning with 3 or a larger number indicates that it is a codeshare flight. If you buy a United ticket and the flight number is 201, you will be flying on a United plane controlled by a United crew. If the flight number is 5201, for example, it would be an airline operating on United's behalf.

Where does the flight number come from? Is there a rhyme or a reason for such numbering?

Usually eastbound flights have even numbers, while westbound flights have odd numbers. Another practice is to devote smaller, one- or two-digit numbers to the airline's more prestigious long-haul routes. If an airline's itinerary has flight number 1, it is the London – New York itinerary. In addition, it is also possible to divide groups of numbers by geography. At United, trans-Pacific flights have a three-digit number starting with 8, which is considered a lucky number in many Asian countries. As indicated in the previous question, four-digit flight numbers beginning with 3 or a larger number are mostly codeshare numbers.

To be precise, the flight number is a combination of numbers and letters, preceded by the airline's two-letter IATA code. All airlines have this code. The IATA codes for Delta, American, and United are DL, AA, and UA respectively. The code for jetBue is B6. Lufthansa uses the code LH; Singapore uses the code SQ. In the US, we often ignore these prefixes, but abroad they are always used

use. In Europe or Asia, the flight dashboard will show flights of LH105 or TG207 for example. It was a flight by Lufthansa and Thai Airways. (When filling out the immigration form before landing, you should fill in all the characters where the flight number is requested.)

Flight numbers on a given route can be kept intact over the years. The American flight that departed in the morning from Boston to Los Angeles had been numbered AA11 since the 1960s. This ended on September 11, 2001. After something happened, the first thing was that The airline does it to change the number of the affected flight.

Why do flights from the US to Europe always depart in the evening and land in the morning, throwing exhausted passengers to the ground as dawn comes?

There are two main reasons: passengers are in transit and take advantage of planes. For example, when flying from New York to Paris, a majority of passengers will transfer to other destinations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, etc. Landing time must be scheduled to match flights. This transition. Not to mention that many of the passengers departing from New York that night actually started their journey long before - for example, from Salt Lake City, San Diego, or New Orleans; Syracuse, Roanoke, or Harrisburg. The same goes for flying westward: landing in New York (or Chicago, or Houston, or Dallas, or Miami) in the afternoon will have ample time to transit to destinations across North America.

So are the flights to Asia. If you fly from Chicago to Tokyo, you'll take off in the morning and arrive in the afternoon. After that, a series of flights will depart Tokyo for cities deeper inside Asia. Such as Bangkok, you will

landed there around 11 p.m. The plane stayed at the airport overnight, then returned to Tokyo early the next morning, landed in the middle of the day, from where it could be easily transferred back to North America. In the same way, planes spend as little time as possible on the ground. Renting a wide-div plane is hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, and the plane can't make money if it stays idle on the apron. Airlines try to keep their planes in the air as much as possible, scheduling the fastest possible turnaround times (around ninety minutes is the minimum for an international flight).

The headache lies in flights to South America and vice versa because it often takes the whole night at both ends. The plane landed after sunrise in Buenos Aires could not return to New York immediately, otherwise it would land after midnight, when there were very few flight connections. Many airlines have to swallow bitterly, leaving the plane lying idle for 10 or 12 hours before flying back in the evening. (My firm often takes this opportunity to clean up the interior of the plane. Even our often dirty cockpits have been cleaned and vacuumed upon return.)

Some carriers offer a limited range of services that focus only on the so-called start and end journeys (O&D)²⁵), suitable for non-connecting passengers. British Airways, for example, has long been operating daytime flights to London from a handful of US cities. Leaving New York at around 9am, you will arrive at Heathrow airport at around 8pm.

²⁵. The abbreviation of origin-and-destination, means the route that flies straight from the origin to the destination without making any connections.

On each flight, at least half of all passengers are likely to continue flying from their first destination. Some well-known firms wouldn't have reached half their current size without numbers

number of passengers connecting through their transit ports. Indeed, some of the largest and most profitable airlines in the US come from the states²⁶has a relatively small population, where the O&D movement accounts for only a small portion of the total. Such as Singapore Airlines and Emirates. The Singapore Airlines fleet is one of the largest with the largest div of aircraft in the world, located in a country smaller than Philadelphia's CBD. Emirates, home to half the population of Massachusetts, operates nearly 200 wide-div aircraft, and is also ordering more than 50 Airbus A380s. The problem is in their strategic position, literally. Their success is not in bringing people to Singapore or Dubai, but in sending people through Singapore or Dubai. Luckily for their prime location, these countries have made excellent transfer stations on some of the busiest long-haul routes. They also invest heavily in their aviation infrastructure.

²⁶. City-state: an independent or autonomous entity that is not controlled by any other government even though the city state (and possibly the territory surrounding the city state) is within its own territory. the above rights.

When I flew from Dallas to Chicago, I was surprised to find myself riding a 777. Why was such a giant long-haul aircraft deployed for such a short flight?

One night at an airport in Luxor, Egypt, I boarded an Airbus A340, a four-engine wide-div aircraft that can fly almost halfway around the world. Where did I fly that day? Cairo, about 60 minutes away. Why did EgyptAir move its longest-legged plane so it has to take a short flight along the river?

Nile? Umpteen. This is due to the capacity, the layout, and the schedule, rather than the complete capabilities of the aircraft.

The short-haul markets certainly require the use of large aircraft because the demand for these routes is too great. All Nippon and JAL use 747s for the busiest Japanese domestic journeys because it is the most affordable aircraft choice so they can fit 563 seats, an industry leading figure, if this is the way. use the correct word. In other cases, the shorter flights have the advantage of being able to fit in between long-haul flights. Such as a plane from Europe landing

• America does not return to Europe until 8:00 pm. That waiting time allows the plane to go on a crowded domestic flight, a very valuable capital advantage. Likewise, a plane from South America landing in Atlanta in the morning could be scheduled to fly from New York to Europe that evening. Thus, the Atlanta-New York sector is a relocation flight.

And don't forget the merchandise. Airlines make money not only from passenger seats, but also from below platforms and containers. An aircraft that is particularly well suited for a given flight sector may be because the belly of the aircraft has the best advantage. The 747 has a cargo space of 170 cubic meters plus four hundred seats in the cabin.

Where are the longest nonstop flights?

• In chapter one, I explained that aerial hours, not distance traveled, is an accurate measure of flight range. But flight times are not fixed, so knots are the best measure to answer this question. Until recently, Singapore Airlines remained first and second, with the Airbus A340-

The 500 is fully configured for business class, flying from Singapore to Newark (8,190 nautical miles, or 15353.08 km) and to Los Angeles (7,260 nautical miles or 13,445.52 km). These are the longest regular nonstop flights recorded. (Yes, Newark and LAX are 2,100 nautical miles (3889.2 km) apart, but the distance from Singapore to these two places is only half that difference - thanks to the spherical trigonometric function of the large arc, see large arc section, p. 71) However, these sectors were discontinued in 2013, so the position was ceded to Qantas with a direct flight of 7,455 nautical miles (13,806.66 km) between Sydney and Dallas – Ft. Worth.

The list below is subject to change as airlines adjust their schedules, but these are the longest frequent passenger flights at the time the original of this book was printed, in knots. Bring your favorite book (preferably this one) and keep your circadian rhythm at home:

1. Sydney – Dallas: 7,455 (Qantas)

2. Atlanta – Johannesburg: 7,335 (Delta)

3. Dubai – Los Angeles: 7,245 (Emirates)

4. Manila – Toronto: 7,145 (Philippine Airlines)

5. Dubai – Houston: 7,095 (Emirates)

6. Dubai – San Francisco: 7,040 (Emirates)

7. New York – Hong Kong: 7,015 (Cathay Pacific, United)

8. Doha – Houston: 6,995 (Qatar Airways)

9. Dubai – Dallas: 6,990 (Emirates)

10. New York – Johannesburg: 6,925 (South African Airways)

Notice that three of the top ten are flights from Texas to the Middle East. It's all oil.

Now it sounds weird, but about 40 years ago, Pan Am's leadership was sitting in their skyscraper on Park Avenue, scratching their heads and scratching their ears thinking how a 747 could fly to Tokyo. No refueling required. Thanks to airplanes like the 777 and the A340 (see long-haul section, page 14), virtually any two commercial aviation markets in the world can be connected with just one flight. We not only close the technological gap but also the imagination.

A conservative example is the London-Sydney flight, approximately 9,170 nautical miles (16,944 km) long, which is referred to by some circles as the "holy grail route." With a 747-400, Qantas tried to win this elusive award and discovered that, under optimal conditions, the plane could fly all the way without stopping to refuel. But this calculation goes so far as to make the airline's crew and dispatchers tremble when it comes to arranging logistics issues like fuel, weather, and extremely focused diversion planning and exactly. Not to mention that it is impossible to hold up with the ad: “Qantas comes to London. Fly continuously. Sometimes."

Boeing's 777-LR once flew an 11,600 nautical mile (21,483.2 km) promotional flight, and it is theoretically capable of handling this cruise. But just because a plane can do such a gimmick doesn't mean it can do it on regular flight routes. Need to meet the ETOPS limit requirements (range extension performance standards for dual engine aircraft).²⁷),

Local airspace restrictions, wind conditions, seasonal weather variations, etc. all affect flight time. And it doesn't make sense for two cities to be interconnected unless it's possible to tap into a market that's worth connecting the two. London-Sydnet is not the longest flight possible, but perhaps the longest that can guarantee a steady flow of passengers. There are other more intense but at least imaginable ways of pairing, as long as there are enough passengers. The most interesting routes are São Paulo – Tokyo, Auckland – London, and Buenos Aires – Tokyo, all of which almost hit 10,000 nautical miles (18,520 km). Crossing the threshold of 10,000 nautical miles - Buenos Aires – Seoul, anyone want to try it? - still a long way to go.

²⁷. Extended Range Operational Legalities For Twin- Engine Planes

My personal record of time spent on a plane is a relatively modest number, 14 hours and 46 minutes, on South African Airways SA202 from JFK to Johannesburg in May 2000. SAA today uses I used an A340 for this route, but back then it was a 747. I knew the flight took exactly 14 hours and 46 minutes because there was an electronic stopwatch hanging on the cabin wall, activated immediately on the engine. Flight retrieved and updated every minute. Watching every passing hour is a torturous task, until a passenger is daring enough to stick a piece of paper over to cover his watch.

I used to be in an airplane with its own name painted near the nose of the plane. It seems that sometimes airplanes have their own names, like boats?

All aircraft carry registration numbers (in numbers or letters

denotes the aircraft's nationality) on the rear fuselage, but some aircraft also carry names. If an aircraft is named after a place, person, or object, look for its name on the front fuselage. I quite like this approach. Thanks to that, the flight becomes more prestigious and less emotionless. And I feel that which airline is interested in naming the plane, it means that airline really cares about its mission. Turkish Airlines names its pure Boeing and Airbus aircraft after the cities of Anatolia²⁸. You can fly in a Konya, a Goreme, or an Isparta. For the more erotic Virgin Atlantic, you can ride a Tubular Belle, a Barbarella, or maybe a Varga Girl.²⁹. You can fly the St. Patrick arrived in Dublin under Aer Lingus, no surprise, or tried his luck on a Syrianair 747 called Arab Solidarity (roughly translated: Arab Solidarity). For a while, Air Namibia used to have a 747 named Welwitschia, named after a strange desert cactus that grew in wild Namibia and could live for centuries. On the 15-hour South African Airways flight to Johannesburg that I mentioned above, I flew a Durban, and in the afternoon was a Bloemfonetein (names of cities in South Africa). If in doubt, I just need to look back at the wooden medallion near the stairs to the upper compartment with the emblem consisting of the badge and a scroll. I think the commemoration gives a feeling of elegance like a ship.

²⁸. The geographic region of southwest Asia, which occupies most of Turkey today. This used to be the cradle of many civilizations from prehistoric times.

²⁹. All meant for sexy girls.

I remember Austria's Lauda Air, now part of Austrian Airlines,

for it commemorates the artists and musicians with a Gustav Klimt, a Miles Davis, and a 737 named Frank Zappa. KLM is perhaps the most competitive in terms of creativity: cities, birds, writers, and explorers all have blue-and-white Boeing names, and the MD-11s of the brand is named after famous women, including the Florence Nightingale, the Marie Curie, and the Audrey Hepburn.

On the other hand, so many cute, unbearable names related to the blue jetBlue is more than enough. I am not advocating tossing tomatoes at an Airbus, but these are worthy targets. I can stand Idlewild Blue and even Betty Blue, but That's What I Like About Blue, Fancy Meeting Blue Here, or Bippity Boppity Blue is just too much. What did I say above about honor?

A few years ago, United named a few of its planes after the passengers who accumulated the most miles on a regular basis. Imagine not being upgraded on a plane with your name on it.

• Pan Am, each of the aircraft wears the summary Clipper³⁰characteristic, inherited from the heroic years ago when the company's aircraft pioneered cross-ocean routes. Many names related to the sea - Sea Serpent, Mermaid, Gem of the Ocean (roughly translated: Sea Snake, Mermaid, Ocean Gem)

- including a special interest in waves - Crest of the Wave, Dashing Wave, Wild Wave (roughly translated: First Wave, Wave Bucket, Cruel Wave). There are names reminiscent of Greek and Roman mythology, - Jupiter, Mercury, Argonaut - and inevitably crap, pretend-inspired names - Empress of the Skies, Glory of the Skies, Freedom ( roughly translated: Queen's

Sky, Aura Of The Sky, Freedom). Some of these names make you wonder if Juan Trippe and his staff were drinking too much scotch in a Park Avenue conference room: Water Witch? Neptune's Car? Nonpareil? Young Brander? (roughly translated: The Underwater Witch, The Car Of God Neptune, Unparalleled, The Iron Seal of Youth). It all turns out that they all come from the names of ancient sailing ships.

³⁰. Means high-speed ocean liner.

When Pan Am's flight number 103 exploded over Scotland in 1988, the only part that remained relatively intact was the front fuselage, from the nose somewhere near the first door of the passenger compartment. It had broken apart when it landed on the side, but still looked like a piece of an airplane, so much better than the rest of the plane. This fragment was heavily photographed and became a news icon for the following days and weeks. It was there, on the front page of every newspaper and the front page of Time and Newsweek, and it is still easily found today on the Internet. The photo showed debris and debris everywhere, full of wire and scrap outputl, all scattered around the remaining Boeing 747 plane, still impossibly dignified, lying dead there. Still green stripes, paint only scratches lightly. And there, just above the oval windows, with the cumbersome blue handwriting, one can still clearly read the phrase Clipper Maid of the Seas (roughly translated: Speedboat - The Maiden of the Khoi Sea ).

TO SAY VARIETY

IS NOT

Glossary for visitors

DI transfer by air is a unique experience unique is that people are subject to a long chain of powers, most of which are anonymous. From the moment you step through the airport terminal entrance, you are attacked by orders

—Stand here, take off your shoes over there, put your seat belt on, do this, take that away — and an information storm. Most of it not directly but through the microphone, communicated to you by airline personnel with or without your face, in a jargon filled with specialist slang, short words, and difficult camp understand. There are people who fly a plane dozens of times a year, but when encountering many terms, they only stop at a vague level of understanding. To assist, I've put together a glossary, focusing on phrases that are most easily misunderstood or completely incomprehensible. Below is the glossary in no particular order:

Doors to arrival and crosscheck (Temporarily translated: door to arrival mode and recommended cross check)

Example: “Flight attendants, doors to arrival and crosscheck.” (Attention stewardess, door to arrival mode, requires cross check) Meaning: Sometimes there is another version called "disarm your doors and crosscheck" (open the door latches and suggest cross check), due

The flight attendant announced as the plane approached the arrival gate. The purpose is to confirm that the lifeboats mounted at the exits are in disarm mode. When in arm mode (the door latches during flight), the lifeboat will automatically open immediately when the door is opened. While in disarm mode, the lifeboat only inflates when it is controlled manually. When the plane departs, the lifeboats are in arm mode to be ready for emergency evacuation. (You will probably hear this in the form of “doors to automatic”. When the plane reaches the gate, the lifeboats are switched to disarm mode so they don't pop out. have a telescopic bridge, or come down onto the apron during aircraft maintenance.Crosscheck is a generic term for pilots and flight attendants, which means one person has to check on someone else's work. In the passenger compartment, the flight attendants cross-check each other's areas to ensure that the exit doors have been switched to arm or disarm mode as required.

All-call: suggest all reports

Example: "Flight attendants, doors to arrival, crosscheck and all-call." Meaning: This is part of the process to switch to arm / disarm mode, which requires each flight attendant to report via an intercom (internal communication device) from their area - a type of telephone between the flight attendants.

Last-minute paperwork

Example: “We're just finishing up some last-minute paperwork and should be under way shortly ...” (We are finishing up some papers at the last minute and will be rolling in a few minutes ...) Meaning: Everything is in place and the plane is ready to back out of the parking lot. After that, we had to wait for the last-minute paperwork, and it took more

half hour. Often this is a matter of load and balance parameters, adjusting flight plans (see flight plans section, page 83), or waiting for the maintenance staff to finalize the overall report and organize the books. Journeys.

Flight deck

Meaning: synonymous with "cockpit" (cockpit)

First officer (also, copilot) (Copilot, also known as co-pilot)

• Meaning: The cop is the second person in the cockpit. This person sits in the right seat and is fully capable of operating the aircraft in all phases of flight, including takeoff and landing, and takes turns controlling the aircraft with the captain (see section pilots and co-pilots, page 116).

Flight level

Example: “We've now reached our cruising altitude of flight level three three- zero. I'll go ahead and turn off the seat belt sign ”(We have just reached the three-zero cruising height. I will turn off the seat belt sign.) Meaning: There is a definition expertise for the word but I won't give it up so as not to bore you. Essentially, this is a fancy way of saying how many thousand feet above sea level you are. Just add a few zeros. The three-balled flight level is 33,000 feet (10,058 meters).

Holding pattern

• Meaning: A track-shaped route, used when weather delays or air traffic delays occur. The issued ring flight directions are shown on the charts, but

can still improvise a new roundabout flight virtually anywhere.

Ground stop (Suspension on the field)

Example: “Sorry folks, but there's a ground stop on all headed flight south from here.” (Sorry guys, but all flights southward will be suspended from now on.) Meaning: This situation occurs when air traffic control stops allowing one or more flights to depart, usually due to air traffic congestion.

EFC time (Expected time to receive the new order)

Example: “Good news, we've been given an EFC time of 30 minutes after the hour.” (The good news, we have just been told the expected time to receive a new directive is 30 minutes from now.) Meaning: Expect further clearance (EFC) time, sometimes referred to as release time, is the timing of at which the flight crew is expected to be released from the roundabout to return to the runway or exit from ground stop.

Wheels-up time (Estimated time in the air)

• Meaning: Similar to EFC time, this term refers to the moment when an aircraft is suspended on the ground (ground stop) that is expected to be in the air. The crew must plan so that the aircraft is present at or near the runway as close to this time as possible.

Area of ​​weather

For example: “Due to an area of ​​weather over New Jersey, we'll be turning southbound toward Philadelphia ...” (Due to the influence of a weather zone on New Jersey, we will turn south towards Philadelphia ...) Meaning: Usually thunderstorms

or areas with severe rain.

Air pocket

• Meaning: A colloquial expression for encountering a momentary disturbance (see section disturbances, page 40)

Final approach

Example: “Lady and gentlemen, we are now on our final approach into Miami.” (Ladies and gentlemen, we begin our final approach to the Miami runway.) Meaning: For the pilot, the plane is at the last stage of approach, when it has reached the final segment, straight across the direction line. landing guide - means to align and correct the extended midline of the runway, requiring no further movements or changes of direction. The flight attendant understands the "final approach" in their own more general way, referring to the later stage of descent.

The full upright and locked position

Meaning: upright.

Tampering with disabling, or destroying

Example: “Federal law prohibits tampering with, disabling, or destroying a lavatory smoke detector.” (Federal law prohibits interventions that damage, disable or destroy smoke detectors in restrooms.) Meaning: interventions damage.

The off position

Meaning: off.

Deplane (Leaving the plane)

Example: "Please remember to take all of your belongings before deplaning." (Please be sure to bring all your luggage and belongings with you before leaving the plane.) Meaning: Deplane refers to the act of boarding. There are some people who think that the root is "plane".^firstshould not be used as a verb, for fear that this would cause a chain reaction of blind imitation. Imagine using the word "decar" to refer to the act of stepping out of the car, or "debed" for the act of waking up. In fact, dictionaries show that "deplane" has been in use since the 1920s, and it is true that the word does not sound too smooth, but I use it myself. Like "stewardess" (another word for flight attendant instead of the common word "flight attendant"), this is a handy occasional word. Rarely is there any other option that is concise, suitable for an in-flight radio system, but still has a similarly useful meaning. “Disembark” (getting off the plane) is the most elegant word, but it still sounds clumsy.

^first. This is a noun in the English language.

Deadhead

• Meaning: A pilot or a flight attendant means they are being switched positions during duty. This is not the same as commuting to work (see section Moving to work, page 135) or personal mobility.

Equipment (Common sense: equipment)

Example: “Due to equipment change, departure from Heathrow is

delayed three hours. ” (Due to equipment change, flight departure from Heathrow will be delayed for three hours.) Meaning: plane. (Isn't it odd not to call the main subject of the entire airline industry by its real name?)

Direct flight

• Meaning: In the true sense, a direct flight is a route on which the flight number does not change; It has nothing to do with the plane stopping or not. The phrase is a product from a time when flights between major cities regularly stopped at transit airports, sometimes several stations or more. Most airline staff are smart enough to realize that if a passenger asks if the flight is "straight", he or she wants to know where the flight stops, but check nonetheless. look up the fine print when booking.

Nonstop

Meaning: The flight has no hub.

Gatehouse

For example: “If there is a passenger Patrick Smith in the gatehouse, please approach the podium.” (If there is a passenger by the name of Patrick Smith in the lounge area, please proceed to the podium.) Meaning: A characteristic way of describing the boarding gate area or the waiting room on deck. "Gatehouse" has a popular feel that I really like. They should use this word more. Pre-board (To the front deck)

For example: “We would now like to pre-board those passengers requiring special assistance.” (We would like to prioritize passengers

guests need special assistance on deck.) Meaning: This is nothing short of very appealing. It means boarding a plane.

The first thing is to get on the plane.

Final and immediate boarding call (Last and immediate deck call)

• Meaning: A rhetoric to urge slow passengers to hurry up. This expression makes sense of urgency than if only using "final call" or "last call" (roughly translated: "last call").

In range

For example: "The flight has called in range, and we expect to begin boarding in approximately forty minutes." (The flight is in range, and we plan to begin check-in in about 40 minutes.) Meaning: This is a common announcement

• the house is waiting for flight delays, since the plane you are waiting for has not yet landed. Somewhere when the plane starts to descend, the pilot will send an electronic message "within reach" to let people know they are about to arrive. It is difficult to know how long it is going to be, as this message is sent before the queue at low altitude (for landing) and that is in the case there is no congestion on the taxiway after landing. The notice given at the gate is boarding time in the best possible scenario. As a rule of thumb, add 20 minutes.

Ramp (Parking)

Example: “We're sorry, your suitcase was crushed by a 747 out on the ramp.” (We are very sorry, your luggage has been rolled over by a 747 on the parking lot.) Meaning: “ Ramp ”indicates areas

where aircraft and ground vehicles travel closest to the airport terminal - aircraft terminals and surrounding areas. In the early days of aviation, many aircraft were amphibious seaplanes. If the plane is not in flight, it is either above water, or on a “parking lot”.

Alley (Corridor)

Example: “It'll be just a second, folks. We're waiting for another aircraft to move out of the alley. ” (It only takes a few seconds, guys. We're waiting for another plane to leave the hallway.) Meaning: A taxiway or corridor between stations or ramps.

Apron (Parking)

• Meaning: Similar to “ramp”, this term also basically refers to any yard other than a runway or taxiway - aircraft parking or maintenance areas.

Tarmac (Translated: Asphalt)

• Meaning: This is a compound word for "tar-penetration macadam", a material used to cover expressways in England in 1901. After all, the word turns out to be used to refer to any kind of asphalt. In English, people use this word all the time to refer to an airport even though there are almost no aprons, runways, or taxiways that are actually paved with asphalt. Real asphalt will soften in hot weather and will melt under your wheels

a heavy plane. (Reminds me of the Paul Weller episode²mentioned "sticky black tarmac" ("sticky black asphalt") in the song "That's Entertainment!" The Jam's beautiful.) Like many other words, this word has gone beyond its characteristic semantic framework, and there are traditionalists of

Language is concerned about this issue. I am not one of them.

². Band member The Jam.

At this time (At this point)

Example: “At this time, we ask that you please put away all electronic devices.” (At this time, we ask that you please store all your electronic devices.)

• meaning: now, or present. This is the typical glossy expression of the aviation industry.

Do (Auxiliary verb with emphasis in English affirmation)

Example: “We do appreciate you choosing American.” (We really appreciate your choice of American company) Or, “We do remind you that smoking is not permitted.” (We strongly remind you not to smoke on the plane.) Meaning: An unpleasant emphasis, not grammatically meaningful. Why not say “Thank you for choosing American” or “Smoking is not permitted”? People wonder if this is the way airline staff talk to each other. “I do love you, Steve, but I cannot marry you at this time.” (“I love you so much, Steve, but I can't marry you at this point.”)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

• atrick Smith is an airline pilot and www. askthepilotcom. For 10 years he authored a series of articles on Ask the civil aviation

Salon.com's Pilot, part of which is included in this book. He has appeared on more than two hundred radio and TV programs, and his articles are frequently cited in publications around the world.

Patrick started learning to fly when he was 14 years old. His first job at an airline was in 1990, when he was recruited as a co-pilot on a 15-seat passenger turboprop, for a monthly salary of $ 850. Since then, he has piloted cargo and passenger aircraft on both domestic and intercontinental routes.

The punk rock amateur magazines and the self-published poetry journals in the 1980s and 1990s are considered some of the strangest literary works of a man born in Revere, Massachusetts. Patrick travels extensively in his spare time and has visited more than 70 countries. He currently lives near Boston.

INDEXING

A

ab initio program 118

Aer Lingus 190, 240, 274, 319

Aeroflot 221, 239, 242, 276, 294, 300, 311

Aerolineas Argentinas 294

Aeromexico 252, 277, 285

Air Afrique 25, 241

AirAsia 302

Air Astana 293

Air Berlin 240

Air Botswana 225

Airbus A300 15, 26, 38, 224, 236, 261

Airbus A310 38

Airbus A318 38

Airbus A319 33, 38, 175–176

Airbus A320 13, 16, 38, 53, 55, 88, 126, 175–176, 178, 195, 231– 232

Airbus A321 38, 175–176

Airbus A330 12, 38, 55, 126, 175–176, 299

Airbus A340 7, 15, 33, 38, 55, 126, 190, 198, 315, 316, 317, 318

Airbus A340-500 15, 198, 316

Airbus A340-600 15

Airbus A350 8, 38

Airbus A380

long-haul flight 15, 35, 315

Boeing 747, comparing 12–14, 15, 33–36 accommodating 34, 195 payloads 16, 33

13, 88 speed

Airbus compared to Boeing 12–13, 15, 33–36, 176 Air Canada 21, 170, 280 Air China 300

Air Florida 63, 190

airfoil 3

Air France XIX, 193, 194, 222, 224, 247, 293, 299. See also airline

low cost airline

Air India 183, 216, 222, 236, 282

Air Jamaica 240

Air Koryo 242, 294

Airline: Identity, Design, and Culture

(Lovegrove) 273

Airlines, CSA Czech 311

Air Malta 240

Air Mauritius 240

Air Namibia 319

Air New England 68

Air New Zealand 240, 274

Air Niugini (Papua New Guinea) 240

Airplane 24

Airport '75 249

Air Portugal 240

Air Seychelles 240

Air Tanzania 240

AirTran 280, 301

Air Vietnam 222

Alaska Airlines 48, 281

Alitalia 193, 285

all-call 324

Allegheny Airlines 68

All Nippon Airways 21, 225, 240, 315 Al-Megrahi, Abdel Baset Ali 223, 238

ALPA (Aviation Pilots Association) 151, 244

al-Qaeda 209

Altiplano 240

Americana and Other Poems (Updike) 27 American Airlines 302 codeshare 140

transshipment port 101

Flight 77 250

Flight 587 26, 226, 261

contact summary 189

scale 298, 299

disaster / risk 26, 136, 226, 233, 236, 250, 255–257, 261, 306 brands 274, 278

American Eagle 63, 140, 149, 299 America West 189, 279 Andes 51, 91, 125, 149, 239

Ando, ​​Mamofuku 154

Anhedral 4

Hero and courage 147–149 light in compartment 174, 194 security 72, 74, 207–220, 257

airport security outside the US 73, 74, 215, 217

Safety, airborne (general) 225–227, 232–234 Boeing compared to Airbus 13

seat belts 42, 43–44, 174, 191, 233

Aviation Safety Improvement and Pilot Training Act 139

185–187 mobile phones / electronic equipment even for passengers 251

Low-cost airlines 141, 244 non-US airlines 238–241 safety instructions for flight before departure 186, 190–192, 327 test alcohol content 149–152

marketing 232–234

aircraft of the previous generation 65

aircraft versus driver 227

Exhausted pilot 136–138

regulations on takeoff / landing 174

Comparison between firms 243–244

Antonov 37

Antwerp, Belgium 161

AOM (Aircraft Operation Guide) 152 Apocalypse Now 25

pressure drop 49–51, 125, 183, 235, 241, 251 in steam pressure 18

APU (auxiliary power supply) 11, 60, 180

Ariana Afghan Airlines 242

ARTCC (Long Distance Air Traffic Control Center) 104 art deco 76

ASAP (Aviation Safety Action Program) 245 Asiana Airlines 293

ASK (number of seat kilometers available) 298

Atlas Air 131

ATR 63, 155, 225

Atta, Mohammad 250, 257

Austrian Airlines 319

Avianca 224, 285, 311

Â

global warming 43

B

B-52 25

Arctic aurora 202

back-taxi 265

Bahamasair 240

repeal regulation XXI, 290, 303, 309 Aviation Regulations Deregulation Act of 1979 290 parking lots 329

Bamako, Mali XIX

dining table 174, 196, 197, 291, 305

Route map XVIII

bachelor's degrees 119, 120, 133

117, 167, 173 panel

Specialized adhesive tape 57

cloth tape. See the dedicated adhesive tape

ice / freeze 60–63, 91, 97, 305–307 altitude rudders 5, 6, 229

smoke alarm, tamper, stop

operating, or destroying equipment 191, 327 Bar Harbor Airlines 68, 112–113 Bashkirian Airlines 252

fly waiting 93, 296. See also landing:

cancel the operation

flying 149

reverse flight 8

flying red eyes 313–314

long-distance flight. See also transoceanic, Airbus A380 flights 15, 35, 315

Boeing 747 15, 30, 35, 317

longest direct flight 316–318 forwarding passengers 101, 314 exhausted pilots 136–138

Procedures before trip 65, 83–84 health risks 179

Facilities 193, 194, 198, 291

Aircraft speed 14

reinforcement crew 118, 137, 257

flight no returns 157

flight 311

face up 8

flying thanks 158, 327

Direct Flight. See also aircraft: range

Beastie Boys 27

Beechcraft BE-99 68, 109–111, 113 flight safety instruction covers 192 wing profiles 3, 48

Sea Revere, Massachusetts 67–69 acrobatics 9, 250

logo / appearance with animal shapes 165, 190, 274, 283, 285 bird logos 190, 274, 285

logos and appearances 114, 165, 183, 189, 273–282, 287, 308

Biman Bangladesh 294

Black, Karen 249

BMI 284

Bmibaby 284

US Department of Homeland Security 218

Bob Bragg 266–271

Bob Newhart Show 117

Boeing 707 XXI, 8, 30, 37, 38, 56, 68,

69, 195, 221, 223

Boeing 717 38

Boeing 720 38

Boeing 727 XVIII, 3, 11, 27, 33, 37, 64, 68, 98, 195, 216, 221, 222, 247, 252

Boeing 737 12, 13, 16, 31, 38, 48, 50, 53, 88, 101, 222, 224, 227, 243, 253, 260, 283, 309

Boeing 747 XX, 68, 114, 283 Airbus 380, comparing 12, 15, 33–36 short flights 13, 315

long haul flight XXI, 15, 30, 35, 317, 318 aesthetics 23, 26, 29–31, 33, 35 acrobatics 8

Pan Am 30–32, 320–322

Fuel tank capacity 53

passenger capacity of 35, 195, 298

disaster / risk 216, 220, 221, 222, 225, 229, 235–238, 237, 246, 251, 252, 261, 263–272, 321

design changes 34–35

takeoff weight 16, 181–182, 265

Boeing 747-8 35

Boeing 747-100 261

Boeing 747-400 7, 317

Boeing 757 7, 16, 45, 46, 89, 114, 126, 250, 261

Boeing 767 7, 13, 66, 89, 101, 126, 128, 149, 224, 250, 256, 298

Boeing 777 7, 12, 13, 15, 25, 35, 45, 55, 118, 122, 140, 298, 312, 315, 317

Boeing 777-200LR 14, 15

Boeing 777-300ER 15

Boeing 777-LR 15, 317

Boeing 787 8, 35, 37, 39, 142, 179, 230 Boeing, aesthetics 8, 23, 26, 33, 35 Boeing, cosmetology 29–31 Boeng 747

art 36

Bojinka, Project 209, 225

leaving passengers 17–18, 295

Bombardier 39

rain bombs 47

Booth, Robert 238

Borden, Howard 117

Boston-Logan (BOS), Airport

International 67–69, 74, 76, 79, 100, 109–116, 254, 255, 308, 311, 313 Bourdain, Anthony 77

BOW (basic operating weight) 16 Bow Wow Wow 289

Braniff International 68, 130–131, 276, 286, 287, 289

Branson, Richard 309

Britannia Airways 240

British Aerospace One-Eleven 39, 68

British Airways 27, 36, 184, 190, 194, 282, 287, 289, 293, 300, 302, 310, 314

Brooks, James 77

Brussels, Belgium 160–161, 247–248

buddy pass 157

Building for Air Travel (Zukowsky) 71 bored 138, 173

cockpit

Audio 105, 189–190

anti-collision ground technology 254 side doors 257–258 windows 184, 202–205

156 jumpseat seats

Passenger visits 201

training simulator 123–125, 126, 144 legendary automation 142–145 undocumented 152–153 test before trip 65

overheard 105, 189–190

pilot's boredom 138

Pre-flight procedures 65, 83, 167–170 electronic devices 152–153, 185–187, 229 video reports directly 190 undocumented cockpits 152

Burke, David 223

Burns, Ken 24

C

Calatrava, Santiago 80

Calloway, Auburn 224 call-sign. See section summary contact transshipment port 101, 309, 314 wings

wing tips 7–8, 45, 55

aerodynamics 1–4, 5–9, 14, 44, 45, 46, 85 icebreaker. See ice breakers and defrost liquids

Personal, electronic equipment (PED) 152–153, 185–187, 230 tail wings 5, 6, 13, 149, 167, 229, 235, 251, 261 pitches 5–7, 46, 115, 149 , 229 horizontal stabilizer wings 5, 6, 53

flaps 3, 6, 96

wing 96

Rear flaps 3, 6, 8, 46, 57, 60, 62, 86 front flaps 3, 6, 60 altimeter 41–42, 58

Cape Town, South Africa 160

Caravelle 33, 183

Cargolux 35

Caribbean Airlines 240

Carl Sagan 262

Carter, Jimmy 290, 309

CASA 39

take off

Cancels operations 17, 62, 88, 246–247 at speed 89

decisive speed 87–88

weights 15–16, 33, 55, 181

bounce, bounce, and redirect 85–86

take off the air conditioner 181–182 speed cut to get altitude 88, 182

Cathay Pacific 221, 240, 274, 291, 293, 299, 300, 317

Six Continents Club 299

telescopic bridge 79

spiral stairs 31, 36, 271

Cayman Airways 240, 276

CDL (Configuration Deviation List) 64

CDTI (Cockpit Information Display) 254 Cessna 49, 68, 121, 234, 249, 252 CFI (Flight Training Certificate) 119

short-haul flights using long-range 7, 315 Changi, Singapore (SIN), airports 73, 78 Chapman, Graham 37

air quality 49–51, 176– 179, 184 cabin air quality 176–179 liquid explosives 209, 225 overdrive 91, 227, 244

Explosion 48, 125, 172, 229, 236, 247, 261, 269, 270 Fire battery 230

death machine. See the stall

die air compressor 47

submarining 174

birds, collision 49, 59, 148, 184, 229 China Airlines 190, 193

China Eastern 294, 300

China Southern 299, 300

ops-specs 122 legroom 194, 195

Long wait on taxiway 306

Extended wait on aprons 305, 305–307, footrest 291

sit by area 199

seats

195 layout

legroom 194, 196

Ergonomics 196

seat belts 42, 43–44, 174, 191 straighten the seat back to its original position and lock it back 174, 191, 326

waiting areas for boarding planes 78, 81, and 328

pitch (distance between 2 rows of seats) 194, 195, 196, 290, 291 the quantity 195

34, 35, 98, 298–299 capacity

card in the front seat pocket of 192 seats at terminals 78, 81, 328 Headrest 197

Preparation and inspection before trips 54, 65, 83–84, 166–168 cycle 66

ATP (Air Transport Pilot) certificate 120, 139, 140

X-ray 207, 209

flight

direct flight 304, 328

324. See

add cockpit

Document folders 152–153, 169

Training 119, 133

instructors 119, 121

cancel flight 295

Flight planning / planning 14, 53, 83, 103, 167, 324

313–314 connections

flight engineer 121

level of flight, definition 325

benefits for flight crew / staff 135, 156–160, numbers 313, 328

sequence. See airplane section: spacing buffer

non-stop flights 328 direct flights 304, 328. See more aircraft: 15, 253 specialized aircraft range

change position. See flyover section

4, 5, 6, 149 directional movements

redirects 5–6, 41, 58, 85–86, 92–93

Forwarding passengers 101, 314

Clark, Tim 301

Clash, The, band 26, 132

Clickair 284

Clinton, Bill 152

Clipper Maid of the Seas 321

Clipper Victor 30, 264–268

CNN Airport Network (CNN Airport Channel) 72

code-sharing 311

Colgan Air 136

Collier, Amanda 277

Comet 37

Compass Airlines 140

Concorde 6, 14, 23, 33, 247

USB port 197, 291

technology 94, 98, 100, 103, 105, 138, 247, 252–253, 259, 261, 317

Ergonomics 196

Constellation 39

Continental Airlines 112, 194, 278

Conti, Tom 289

Convair 37

Cooper, DB 221

cops 84, 116–118, 121, 123, 124, 126, 128, 129, 139, 324 second lieutenant (flight engineer) 117, Crossair 187

passenger compartment windows 183–184

aircraft windows 57–59, 61, 183–184, 201–202

windows, airports 79–80

Cubana 222, 294

D

Dakar, Senegal 163–164, 203

lead the way by point 105

navigation, ocean 105, 170

contact summary 189

checklist 60

Black list of airlines 242

Daniels, John T. 22

Paper knife 208

Dasburg, John 151

Dash-8 115

kerosene 9

'The Swoosh Chung' s Common Nonsense 277 Decalogue IV, The 25 De Havilland 115

Delibes, Leo 289

Delta 22, 48, 66, 76, 140, 152, 175, 189, 233, 239, 276, 278, 288, 294, 298, 299, 300, 301, 311, 312, 313, 317

Desjardins, Phil 271

DHL 252, 259

Room service 163

dihedral 4

Dixie Clipper XXI

revenue and profit

flight 311

largest airline 298–299, 314

after 9/11 227, 301

pre-aircraft 66

Southwest Airlines 301, 308–309 and service standard 290 ramps, elevation angles 86, 93. See

Add takeoff: cancel the operation

eddy air currents 44, 46, 55

Dornier 39

Douglas DC-7 167

Douglas DC-8 27, 68, 69, 96, 121, 166, 167, 169, 172, 183, 222, 229, 247

Douglas DC-9 38, 66, 68, 172, 221

Douglas DC-10 26, 38, 68, 69, 114, 190, 196, 224, 235, 236, 259 Dreamliner (Boeing 787) 8, 35, 37, 39, 142, 179, 230 parachute 251

Project Bojinka 209, 225

Dubai, United Arab Emirates 74, 229, 300, 315, 317 DVT (deep congestion) 198

D

control radio at the yard. See also checkout

air traffic control

observatory 79

bombing, terrorist 216, 217, 221, 222, 223, 225, 236, 238, 261

numbered, runway 89–90

Sable Island, Nova Scotia 204

Additional training 124–125

wing tip 7

curved blade tip 7

beveled wing head back 8, 35

lamps in compartment 174, 194

205 flying saucers

mountainous terrain 42, 51, 91, 125, 149, 203, 240, 249, 310

landmarks, navigation 105

Mobile phone 185–187

Pressurized

aircraft doors 182–183, 235

definition 49

lost 49–50, 125, 183, 235, 241, 251 pets under passenger compartment 185

Air conditioning 11, 60, 155–156, 176, 177, 180–181 remote control, military aircraft 145

recruitment conditions, pilots 52, 118–121, 138–140 dispatch / dispatch team 53, 84, 231 travel 135–136

pricing for peak period 102 navigation over ocean 104, 170. See also transoceanic,

flight

go around 65

go round. 167

flight altitude of 49–50, 96, 180

rapid decrease in altitude 51, 58, 93

wing mode 4

engine

Sudden reduction when the plane takes altitude 88 mechanism 9–12

failures 47–48, 59, 87–88, 125, 147–149, 251 start command 103 start 11, 109–111

10, 11, 48, 96, 109–111, 114, 182 propeller aircraft after landing 95–96 split 64

speed loss 2, 47, 61

the rumble at flying altitude is equal to the 96 noise of the Airbus 175–176 series

10, 11, 48, 59, 96, 109–111, 114,

182. See also jet watch area 152

uniforms 113, 117, and 155 runways

length 87, 90, 91, 95, 96 build cost 100 numbered / design 89–90

distance between planes 58, 92, 98, 296 from 190 camera angle

order to land 188

Sky-to-ground communications 103 dangerous airports 90–91

Vision 93, 94–95, 97, 149 approaching last 326

take off weights of 16 snow and ice 60, 62, 97

ground impact 92, 125, 235, 253–255 runway 89–90, 90–95

short runways of 88, 91, 95

flight guide line waiting for 53, 97, 104, 325 cheating lines 276

rolling and rolling tracks 48, 90, 100, 103, 175–176, 183, 330 high speed railways 73

• power plug 75, 197

• AC plug 75, 197 stable positive 41

E

Eastern Airlines 59, 68, 116, 136, 285

easyJet 301

EgyptAir 282, 290

El Al 221, 277

"El Avion" (Mendez) 26

Embraer 39, 149, 253

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University 119

Emirates 15, 74, 190, 194, 277, 291–293, 298, 299, 300, 315, 317

Empire 68

English Beat 27

English, Dave 178

Entebbe, Uganda 222

Ethiopian Airlines 165, 224, 238, 240, 294

Etihad Airways 300

ExpressJet 312

F

FAA (Joint Aviation Administration

US state) 44, 56, 66, 105, 115, 125, 133, 136, 137, 138, 169, 186, 191, 229, 239, 241, 245, 254, 261, 307

Fairchild Metroliner 114

fairing 8, 46, 57

FAR (Federal Aviation Regulations) 191, 192 Federal Express (FedEx) 131, 141, 224 FH-227 68

Fhimah, al-Amin Khalifa 223, 238

Finnair 240, 311

Flight (Brooks) 77

Flying Tigers 68

FMS (Flight Management System) 83, 93 Fokker 37, 39

Foxton, Bruce 132

Freedom Airlines 284

Frontier Airlines 286

G

Gaddafi, Muammar 224

Garuda 242, 285

Gawande, Atul 143

Gershwin, George 25

Ghana Airways 241

bed chair 193, 291

156 jumpseat seats

Ghent, Belgium 161

Seashell seats 195, 291

discount prices, airline 141, 196, 244, 285, 301, 308–310 simulators 123–125, 126, 144

Motion simulator 123–125, 126, 144 pressure reducer 49–50, 125, 183, 235, 241, 251

emergency 51

hypoxia 180

precipitation 20, 60, 88, 91, 184. See also freezing / freezing; See also winter; See more weather; See also snow and ice

public transport 73

gravitational acceleration 40

fares XXI, 309

crazy flying 21

pricing for the peak period 102

luxury compartment 194, 291

Flight addiction 19

Is XXI, 19, 195–196, 290, 302, 303

taxes and fees 303–304

charge separately 304–305

Fares ZED (Zonal Employee Discount) 156

papers 54, 126, 324

wind 12, 85–88, 95, 178. See also breaking wind; See also landing: crosswind; See also noise

wind off 47, 93, 125

now planned to leave new parking position 98

ETOPS limits (operational standards

dynamic range for these

twin-engine aircraft) 318

thunderstorms 42, 47, 56, 326

thundery. See the weather section

backwind 47, 85

forward wind 85

bunk beds resting 136, 164

glycol 60

Angle taken at high altitudes 86, 92–93

Wing angle 58, 86, 92–93

wing tilt angle, elevation angle, sensory distortion 41, 58 pillows 292, 304

Gol 302

Goldberger, Paul 29

GOM (General Operating Instructions) 152 Gottshall, Barry 149

GPS, navigation 94, 98, 105–106, 125

Greene, Wesley 149

Grubbs, Victor 267–268, 270, 271

Guyana 203

H

landing

Precaution 56

tranquil 95

Cross winds 85, 91, 93, 95, 97, 115 command 104, 188 cancel actions 92–93, 295

emergency 56, 59, 147–149, 187, 231–232, 236, 248–250, 297

distance 62, 91

59, 147 water surface

gently 146

fog 94–95

speed 89

large weight 55

automatic (autoland) 144

twist 95

Firm 95

51, 58, 93 slope landing

225 sea emergency landing

nautical miles 4, 316

Hainan Airlines 293

Customs 74, 200, 303

Halifax, Canada 204

Restricted liquid and gel 209

tourist class. See Economy Class Exit Seat Row 192 African Airlines 238, 241, 242

Airline carrier. See also Federal Express; See also UPS

Low cost airline 141, 196, 244, 285, 301, 308–310 oldest airline 310

The largest airlines at 297–300, 314 regional airlines 299.

See also regional aircraft; See also short-haul aircraft

pilot's vacation 137

author's experience 109–116, 120

pilot training / experience 52, 118–119, 138–139

consortium 52, 112, 114, 140, 239, 284, 311–312, 313

pilot salary 120, 126, 127, 128, 133, 135, 140

traffic delay 99

Training environment 124

Exhausted pilot 137

disasters / risks 63, 149

pilot replacement and consumption 121, 132 pilot shortage 132–133 time transition 161

first place 34, 153, 156, 157, 193, 291

economy class 193–196, 201, 290–293, 303, 308–310 business class 34, 153, 156, 157, 193–195, 291, 310, 316 airline carriers. See Federal Express; See

Air carrier section

row; See UPS (United

Parcel Service)

Africa 238, 242

pilots 53, 131, 141, 160, 166–173, 247 disasters / mishaps 224, 229, 235, 252 passengers

The Passenger Rights Bill 306 emergency landing 248–251

PEF (The Extraordinary Element of Onion

visitors) 57–58

classification 217–219

Voluntary evacuation 48, 307

movement corridor 78

checked baggage 16, 207, 210–214, 217, 230, 304

hand luggage 152–153, 198, 210–214, 217, 304

Hanjour, Hani 250

halo 184

Hart, Grant 26

Hawaiian Airlines 240, 281

Helios Airways 50

load factor 298

Heston, Charlton 249

heterodyne 267

ball system

brake / brake 62

gear system

Chamber 167, 247

anti-slip system 62, 65, 247 breakdown 231

accidents and risks, related 231,

246–247

brakes / brakes 65, 88, 246–248 anti-slip systems 62, 65, 247

15, 35, 37–39 aircraft numbering systems

Equipment landing systems (ILS) 94, 125 systems, aircraft and training 122–124

The system of seniority assignment is 122, 129, 130, 134, 135, 136, 163

aircraft transcription system Boeing 15, 35, 37 bookstore 77

Hilton, Belgium 160

HIMS (Human Intervention Motivation Study) 151

postpone flights 97–100, 109–111. See also landing: cancel a long wait on the apron 305–307 with ready gate to 199

flight guide line waiting 53, 97, 104, 325 regulatory 306–307 congestion 54, 97–102, 104

weather 104, 295, 297, 305–307, 325

airline communication problem

no 294

navigator 117

40, 326 gas cavities

economy class syndrome 198

International Airport Council 82 steam / mist strip 47, 55 Hooters Air 310

sleeping box 76, 118, 193

command, pushed back from the field 103

command, before setting out to 86 Hudson, Hugh 289 Hughes Airwest 286

Flight safety instructions 192

Hüsker Dü 26, 156

cancel flight 295

I

IASA (International Aviation Safety Assessment) 241

IATA (International Air Transport Association) 108, 217–218, 313 Iberia 285

ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) 108, 228, 239– 240

Icelandair 240

ICN (Incheon International Airport) 73 Idlewild, New York, Airport 37

ILS (Equipment Landing System) 94–95, 125

Ilyushin 37, 235

Imperial Airways 190

Incheon International Airport (ICN), Seoul, International Airport 73

Internet / Wi-Fi 73, 75, 81, 163, 195,

197, 260, 320

iPad 152, 186

IPTN 39

Iran Air 236

Istanbul, Turkey 202

J

JAL. See Japan Airlines section

Jam, the, band 132, 330

Japan Airlines (JAL) 235, 251, 274, 293, 300, 315 JAT (Yugoslav Airlines) 221 Jazz 284

Jet-A 10

jetBlue 80–81, 152, 175, 231–232, 244, 280, 287, 293, 297, 301, 305, 319

Jetway 79

John F. Kennedy International Airport

(JFK), International Airport 18, 26, 74, 81, 86, 90, 101, 226, 254, 264, 284, 318

John Testrake 216

K

KAL. See Korean Air Lines section; See Korean Air Lines (KAL) Kelleher, Herb 308

Guys recline chair raid 197

Channel 9 189–190

internal communication channel. See also general announcements

160–164 hotels

hotel and hotel rooms 73, 76, 138 urgent

emergency exit 182, 195

landing 56, 59, 147–149, 187, 230–232, 236, 248–250, 296 rows of exit row seats 192

evacuate 48, 175, 183, 185–188, 191, 230, 324–325 hot towels 291

trade slogan. See the slogan section

aerodynamics 1–3, 5–10, 13, 17, 29–31, 36, 45–46, 71–73, 85, 109–111, 165–167, 183, 207–209

greenhouse gases 19–21

passenger compartment. See Economy Class section

Premium passenger compartment 34, 153, 156, 157, 193–194, 291 passenger compartments, temperatures 155–156, 176, 177, 181, 181–182 elbow space 195 charges 302–303

smoke 178

start. See the items in

part take off

hijack 216, 220–222, 240, 257–259. See also Event September 11, 2001

terrorist 220–225, 237, 238, 241, 258–259, 261. See also airport: security; See also Event 9/11/2001; See

more bombing, terrorism

departure control 104

air traffic control

transoceanic flight 104, 170–172

technology 98, 100, 102

observatory 79

take-off route 86

overheard 189–190

disasters / risks 56, 252, 253–255, 265, 267 approaching in bad weather 94–95 aircraft speed 14

communicating during flight 103–105

external inspection 65, 167

Test for addictive substances 150

323–324 cross-check

professional examination 125

check baggage 16, 207, 210–213, 217, 304 alcohol check 149–152 Kieslowski, Krzysztof 25 exhausted, pilot 136–138

Kindle 185

initial operating experience (IOE) 124

Economic downturn 227, 301, 303

Kiwi International / Kiwi Air 285

KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) 157, 235, 263–272, 287, 299, 310, 319

Knot 4, 59, 89. See also speed

Korean Air Lines (KAL) 157, 223, 237, 239, 260, 287, 291, 292, 293, 300, 302

Koru 274

Kras Air 285

Check in baggage 16, 207, 210–214, 217, 230, 304 symbols / signs 189, 318

Age of Jet 30, 32 flight engineer 117, 167–174

L

L-1011 39, 68, 69, 98, 236

LAB (Lloyd Aereo Boliviano) 239

LaGuardia Airport (LGA), 63, 76, 89, 99, 101, 202, 312 manual drivers 144

Laker Airways 195, 309

Laker, Freddie 196, 309

"Lakme" (Delibes) 289

rolling back 265

Landor Associates 275

Land Speed ​​Record (Hüsker Dü) 27

LanPeru 291

Lauda Air 319

The Pentagon is attacked 250,262 LAX. See section International Airport

Los Angeles; See section Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), International Airport

get the height at the angle of slope 86, 93

on deck

telescopic bridge 199

call 199, 329

waiting room 78, 328

procedure 198–200

328 front deck

climb 18 steps

LET 39

consortia 52, 112, 114, 140, 239, 284, 311–312, 313 federation 151, 244

European Union, blacklist 242 Lloyd Aereo Boliviano (LAB) 239 Lockerbie, disaster 171, 223, 237, 320 Lockheed 37, 39

Lod, Israel, Airport 221

Logan, International Airport. See

parts Boston-Logan (BOS), Africa

international School

329 final and immediate call to deck

aircraft tires and tire blast 246–247 Lopez, Barry 32

Los Angeles International Airport

(LAX), 223, 231, 298, 313, 316 International Airport

large arc roadmap 104, 106–107, 203, 316

Lowe, Nick 26

drag 1, 3, 7, 96

reverse thrust 95, 229

lift 1, 3, 9, 17, 44, 45, 60, 61, 88 Lufthansa 35, 243, 274, 293, 299, 313 thrust roller 48–49

M

airline designation code 313 Malaysia Airlines 222, 274, 293 Mali XIX, 80, 203

window screens 174, 181

Manniello, Rocco 76

MANPADS (Man-Portable AirDefense Systems) 258–259 mist / vapor trail 46, 55

marketing. See advertisement section; See branding and ground recognition, retain 97

ground, collision 92, 235, 255

clouds 42–43, 184, 203. See also streaks; See more weather; See also a slight blur on the top of the wing

planes

weighing 15–17

dimensions and safety 51–52 runway sizes and lengths 88

Size and flight range 15

stop mining 20, 66

fastest 13–14

manufacturer 37

longest flight range 14, 316–318

proper name 318–320

values ​​12, 52, 116

short-haul aircraft 68, 112, 225, 249, 294, 302. See also regional aircraft

pilotless aircraft 142–145 aircraft in the safe zone 51–52, 138–139

costs 12, 52, 116

manufacturer 39

takeoff / landing speed 89

weight take off 16

Discharge of fuel 55

Body scanner 215

div scanner 207, 215

tablets 152, 185

laptops 185, 197, 229 McDonnell Douglas (company) 37, 38, 237 McDonnell Douglas DC-7 167

McDonnell Douglas DC-8 27, 68, 69, 96, 121, 166–172, 183, 222, 229, 247

McDonnell Douglas DC-9 38, 66, 172, 221, 252

McDonnell Douglas DC-10 26, 38, 68, 69, 114, 190, 196, 224, 235, 236, 259

McDonnell Douglas MD-11 66, 319

McDonnell Douglas MD-80 38, 66

McDonnell Douglas MD-83 38

McDonnell Douglas MD-88 38

McDonnell Douglas MD-90 38

McDonnell Douglas MD-95 38

McLaren, Malcolm 289

MEA 274

Mecca 107

MEL (Configuration Deviation List) 64 Mendes, Kinito 26

Mesa Air Group 284–285

Metal Circus (Hüsker Dü) 156

Metroliner (the Metro) 114

Meurs, Klaas 266

Mexicana 247, 311

Miami International Airport (MIA), International Airport 98, 149, 313

154 instant noodles

unlatch 183, 323–324

Venezuelan oil field 203

Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh 225

environment and aviation 19–21, 61, 100 Monarch Airlines (UK) 240 Mold, Bob 26

icy rain 62

oxygen levels 49–51, 180, 184

pungent odor 178

aesthetics 22–26. See more poetry; See more brands and identities; See more music

Airbus A380 33, 34, 36

Boeing 747 23, 26, 29–32, 33, 34, 35, 36 airports 72, 78, 80–82

US vs. foreign, aviation 66, 193–194, 290–292, 300–301 Mythbusters 248

N

Nalanji Dreaming 283

National Airlines 82

Newell and Sorell 283

New York Air 190

NextGen 105

luggage compartment 198, 305

aviation

competition 99, 101, 301

long-haul flights 30, 35, 316–317 forwarding passengers 101, 314 flight schedules 99, 102, 313–314 pre-existing aircraft 65

aircraft of 52, 98, 101, 302 range of geographic expansion 228

Financial calamity after 9/11 227, 301 rating for quality of service 293 tilted after 3 leave of 131

Bernoulli Principle 1, 9

house waiting 328

Marine Air station 76–77

Terminal 5 (“T5”) 81–82

power plant 10

staff at terminal 84, 292

toilet 305

fuel

plan 53–56

Reserves / savings 7, 14, 20, 35, 99, 175, 177, 181 price skyrocketing 227, 301, 303 tank explosion 260

load and temperature / altitude 17–18

replacement 21

throw away 55–56

biofuel 21

chamber temperature 155–156, 176, 177, 181–182 maximum operating temperature 17 disturbances 40–44, 58, 326

tail disturbances 44–45

Nicholson, Jack 25

Nielsen, Leslie 24

Noguchi, Soichi 154

connecting flights, passengers 101, 313 nonrev / nonrevving 157 North Central Airlines 68, 286

Northeast Express Regional Airlines 112

Northwest Airlines 66, 112, 113, 114, 116, 150–151, 215, 275, 278, 286, 301, 306

Northwest Orient 221, 286

paints 114, 165, 276–281

toilet water 64

O

OBAP (Black Space and Aviation Industry) 142

O&D (from start to finish) 101, 314

Ogonowski, John 256

Oman Air 241, 293

OneWorld 312

pollution 19–21, 61, 72, 81, 100

P

Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) 223, 282, 286

pack 11, 60, 176, 178, 181 Pakistan International 277

Pan American World Airways (Pan

Am) 82

Boeing 707 30, 37

Boeing 747 29–31, 317, 320

Clipper XXI, 30, 77, 189, 264–267, 320 bankrupt 130

disaster / risk 56, 216, 220, 221, 222, 223, 235, 237, 263–272, 320

brand name 273, 274, 286, 287, 320

Passenger, The 25

PBA 68

Pei, IM 82

PeoplExpress 195, 244, 309

PFLP (Palestine Liberation Front) 221

ice breakers and defrost liquids 60–63, 91, 97, 305–307, classify 217–218

bankruptcy 116, 121, 130, 227, 301

accumulated heat generation 229

Phatswe, Chris 225

emissions 19–22, 100. See also carbon emissions 21

Miracles on the Hudson River 59, 147–149, 227 pilots

pairs for flights 152–153, 169

payroll reductions 130, 130–132, 227, 301 cargo 141, 160, 166–172 summarys 116–118

certificates and licenses 119, 121, 126, 139, 140, 245 training 52, 122–126, 133, 139–140, 228, 245 civil penalties 245

exhausted 136–138

skills, ratings 95, 146

Schedule 133–136, 137

salary 52, 120, 126–128, 129, 133, 134, 135, 139, 142, 307

fear 46, 172–174, 228–229

female 110, 141–142

getting drunk 149–151

post-accident careers 151, 244–246

promotion 126, 129–131, 142

132–133 shortages

flight route 134

transport 53, 131, 247

Unskilled 118–121, 133, 139–140

reserve pilot 134

female pilot 110, 141–142

co-pilot 116–117, 128, 130, 134, 324. See also co-pilot naked 155–156

Autonomous pilots (autopilot systems) 13, 42, 51, 83, 93, 125, 138, 144, 169, 187

military pilots 119, 132, 142 military aircraft 38

checked baggage fee 304

Philippine Airlines 209, 225

feature film / screen 24–25, 190, 193, 195, 197, 243, 291

114, 165, 276–281 color schemes

magnification 40, 57–58

bathroom / toilet 64

media

myth 54, 142, 144, 177

disaster / risk 48, 56, 117, 147, 148, 182, 216, 228, 231, 249, 256, 258, 320

Piedmont Airlines 68, 286

lithium battery 229–230

Piper 49, 121, 252

Porter Airlines 293

Pratt & Whitney 9

predeparture clearance 86

Principato, Greg 82

Prouse, Lyle 151

PTU (power conveyor) 175 pushback clearance 103

Q

Qantas 21, 240, 242–244, 274, 276, 283, 285, 293, 299, 311, 316, 317

Qatar Airways 194, 293, 300

qibla 107

Transit without entry and exit 74

advertisements 25, 31, 34, 264, 283, 289, 305, 317. See Trademarks and Identities

TV advertisement 25, 289

Observed from planes 57–59, 183–184, 190, 201–205 information counter 77

rules for using the escalator 78

R

waste 21–22

radar 103, 104, 115, 170

raked wing. See the beveled front end Rand, Paul 275

sound barriers 2, 14

Republic Airlines / Airways 286

Rhine (KLM 747) 265–268

Rivera, Diego 77

plane crash. See also disaster / accident; See also disaster / risk

leaving aircraft 98, 305, 306, 327

Rolls-Royce 9

Rosay, Jacques 34

Royal Air Maroc 241, 285, 290

Royal Brunei Airways 241

Royal Dutch Airlines. See section KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) Royal Jordanian 240, 285

RPK (kilometers paid by passengers) 298–299 RVR (Runway Vision) 95 Ryanair 141, 283, 294, 298, 300, 301, 305

S

Saab 39

Saarinen, Eero 81

Saatchi & Saatchi 289

instruction manual 64, 152, 192

airport

Infrastructure 82, 99, 100–102

Danger 90–91

architecture 79–83

symbol 108

Restaurant 76

Comfort and design 73–82

satellite 101

highland 17–18

satellite airport 101

apron 330

Meteors 202

Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) 235, 236, 237 SCADTA 311

Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) 288–289

Schiphol, Amsterdam, Airport 73, 76, 199

Seaboard World 68

lightning 56

Sex Pistols 289

Shuttle America 312

SID (standard method of departure using equipment) 86 Simpsons, The 283

Singapore Airlines 15, 74, 194, 246, 292, 293, 299, 300, 302, 313,

315, 316

Singapore International Airport (SIN), International Airport (Changi) Skiles, Jeffrey 148

SkyTeam 312

SkyTrain 195, 309

SkyTrax is ranked 293

slogan 287–288

afraid to fly. See more safety; See also wing noise lost shell 8

take-off versus landing 85

Dead engine 47

visit cockpit 201

Reduce altitude too quickly 50, 58, 93 landing in fog 94–95 cancel landing 92–94 overheard cockpit 189

augmentation factor 57–59

aircraft numbers 15, 35, 37

Explosive Illumination 219

Route books 83, 119, 139, 167

Mach 13–14

Hudson River, landing 59, 147–149, 227 high-frequency radio (HF) 105, 170 shock wave 3, 8

evacuation 307

malaria 179

South African Airways 18, 190, 238, 293, 300, 317, 318 Southern Airways 286

Southwest Airlines 101, 152, 155, 227, 244, 279, 283, 286, 289, 294, 299, 301, 308–310

Special Beat Service (English Beat) 27 speed tape 57

Spirit Airlines 141, 301, 304

Star Alliance 312

Strummer, Joe 26

thrust 1, 8, 9, 88

Sudan Airways 294

Sudoku 71

Event 9/11/2001 131, 207–210, 215, 220, 225, 226, 250–251, 255–257, 258, 261, 301, 313

Sullenberger, Chesley “Sully” 147–149 Sundrome (National Airlines) 82 fog 94–95, 263, 265 frost 61

Suvarnabhumi, Bangkok, Airport 80 Syrianair 240, 319

T

TAAG Angola 294

TACA 241, 277

effect on the 245 flight certificate

congestion 54, 97–102, 104

recycling 21–22

navigation documents 152–153

tailwind 85

payload, takeoff 17–18, 181, 295 payload and balance 17, 53, 168, 324

pause on the 97, 325 field

vision 63, 92, 94–95, 97, 149, 265–267 runway visibility (RVR) 95 visibility, airports 78–79 increase salary 130

Noise

Airbus 175–176 engines

Dead engine 47

minimization 85

take flight altitude of 96

pollution 72, 81

Power up after landing at 95–96 airports 72, 81

bells 188, 289

Wired magazine 142

All reports 324

West Africa XIX TCAS (Aircraft Collision Warning System) 252– 253

names of Russian airlines

283, 285

Tenerife, disaster 171, 235, 263–270 Name

aircraft life 38

airline 283–287

proper name of aircraft 318–320

shoulder-mounted rockets 258–259

Thai Airways 157, 260, 274, 291, 293, 302, 313

disasters / risks 14, 26. See also safety; See also Events

September 11, 2001; See more weather; See also conspiracy theories and anecdotes

pressure loss 50, 125, 235, 251

Passenger performs a 248–250 landing as a result of pilot 245

Terrorist 220–225, 237, 238, 241, 258–259, 261 Lockerbie, 171, 223, 237, 320 cargo planes crashed 224, 229, 235, 252 zone aircraft 63, 149

the ten worst cases 222, 223, 251, 263–272

tire explosion 246–247

Pan Am 56, 216, 220, 221, 222, 223, 235, 237, 263–272, 320

media 48, 56, 117, 147, 148, 182, 216, 228, 231, 249, 256, 258, 320

collision 92, 235, 251–253

popular culture 25

bumping into birds 49, 59, 148, 184, 229

the Sully case on the Hudson River 59, 147–149, 227

seniority 112, 117, 122, 126, 129–132, 133–135, 135, 142 September Dark 221

outdoor boarding ladder 79

promotion 126, 129–132, 142

div width 7, 38, 299, 315

legend. See conspiracy theories section

and anecdote

speed loss 2, 47, 61

replacement and consumption, pilot 121, 131 thermal runaway. See the section on accumulated heat

Poetry 27, 288

military remote control flight 145 electronic devices 152–153, 185–187, 229 shock absorbers 5

narrow escape 57–59, 92, 94, 254, 296 EFC time (expected time to receive new order) 325

transit times 135, 137, 154, 158, 160 scheduled times to the air 326 working times 128, 137

retention time 60

turnaround time 309, 314

Golden Age of Aviation Crime 216, 220–225

weather. See more wind; See

add noise

thunderstorms 42, 47, 56, 326

halo 184

landing systems by equipment 94, 125

delay 97–100, 104, 295, 297, 305–307, 325 cumulative clouds 42, 144

heat 17, 155, 184, 261, 295

dangerous airport 91

lightning 56

vision 63, 92, 94–95, 97, 149, 265–267 missed approach 92

snow and ice 60–63, 91, 97, 305–307

streak 18, 20

Thomsonfly 240

general announcements 255–256

Glossary of 323–331

188 landings allowed

Call to deck 199, 329

flight safety instructions 186, 190–192, 233, 327 airports 72

Airline failure 176, 230–232, 294 emergencies 230–232, 297 professional slang words 93, 193, 297

communications. See also general announcements

in the air 14, 84, 86, 103–105, 170, 189–190

food

airport 76, 81

on aircraft XXI, 21, 153–155, 167, 195, 197, 290, 291, 304 tax 303

Columbia Granger Poetry Directory 27 pets 184–185

national and cultural brands 184, 273–274, 285–286 brands and identities. See more advertisement

232–234 safety

cabin class 193–194

advertising on television 25, 289 proper name specification 318 slogan 287–288

Southwest Airlines 279, 289, 299, 308–309 airline names 283–286

Aircraft name 38

lifeboats 183, 307, 323–324

Conspiracy theories and anecdotes 18, 54, 64, 142–145, 176–179, 260– 263, 294–295, 297

English 105

Noises like barking dogs 175–176 Noise in passenger cabins of Airbus 175–176

Facilities 303. See also economy class cabin 194, 195–197

USA and other countries 72–78, 193–194, 290–293

Last approached 326

Missed approach 92

unstable approach 91, 93

Supply 153–154

flight attendant. See more flight crews

Hooters Air 310

salary 307

disturbance 42

advertised for brand 289

seniority 130, 135

Service standards 193–197, 290–296, 302–303 customer service standards 196, 290–294, 303

Timbuktu, Mali 80

airline sex and brand name 289, 310, 319 emergency situations

training simulator 123–125

188 ringer signal

signals in compartments 188–189, 288 charge separately 304–305

the aesthetics of Airbus 33, 34, 36–37

usability 196

Titanic 173

math and science, pilot qualifications 168–169

flight crew. See the items in the chamber section

drive; See more flight attendants

are not

Training 228

Short meeting 83

convalescence and equipment 118, 137, 257 procedures before trip 83

Transitions 135, 137, 154, 158, 160–164 curious about the sound in the internal channel 188–189

speed 1–4, 13–14, 41, 45, 47, 59, 85, 89 sound speed 3, 13–14 cruising speed 15, 41

ground speed 85

aircraft speed 1–4, 13–14, 42, 45, 47, 59, 85 supersonic speed 14–15

turbulence penetration rate 41

maximum allowed speed 59

maneuverable air defense complex 258 booster crews 118, 137, 257

Tower Air 309

track 104, 170

equipped with rest 118, 137, 257

Trans International 68

Trident 39

trim tab 6

level 126 dual aircraft

Trippe, Juan 320

TriStar 39

adverse weight 17–18

rolling weight 16

Maximum allowed weights are 17, 33, 55 weights on 16 centroids 17

direct battle 136, 157

Disaster mechanical failure 229

malfunction, can delay 64

television at the airport 72

TV in passenger compartment 195, 232

broadcast. See the legendary communications section about automation 142–146

TSA (Transportation Security Administration) 74, 210–214, 217, 218

Tsurumaru 274

Tunisair 240

soft wall 259

Commemorative accident 271

Tupolev 25, 37, 252

Turkish Airlines 194, 235, 291, 300, 319 holy grail routes 317 TWA (Trans World Airline)

Flight Center 81

TWA (Trans World Airlines) 68, 82, 216, 221, 222, 260

Flight 800 260

Flight 847 216, 222

Twin Otter 68

Accident rate 227

Tyrolean Airways (Austria) 240

U

UAVs (unmanned aircraft) 145

UFO 205

U-Land Airlines 285

United 93 208

United Airlines 21, 25, 68, 149, 152, 189, 194, 233, 255, 256, 271, 278, 294, 298, 299, 300, 301, 312, 320

Updike, John 27

UPS (United Parcel Service) 131, 141, 229, 275 USAir 63, 286

US Airways 59, 147, 190, 279, 282, 286, 298, 299, 301, 305 US Airways, flight 1549 59, 147–149 UTA, flight 772 216, 224

V

V1 (speed decision to take off) 87–90 aerial crash 235, 251–253

ground collision 92, 235, 253–255 ValuJet 171, 190

animal transport 184–185

popular culture 24–26

Van Zanten, Jacob 264–265, 266–267, 271

around 329

flap "rotate" 6

close friend ticket 157

streak 18, 20

262 chemical vapor streak

Vickers VC-10 27

Vignelli, Massimo 274

Vincennes, disaster 236

Virgin Atlantic 22, 193, 194, 309, 319 positions off 327

Vonnegut, Kurt 171, 202

VOR (ultra-short wave omni-directional guide strip) 105 claps on landing 200–201 fuel disposal 55, 231

W

wake turbulence 44–45

Wallace, Foster 4

Warns, George 271

Weller, Paul 330

Western Pacific Airlines 283 widgets (Delta logo) 276, 278 Window Seat (Dicum) 184 Witcher, Brian 149 Wizz Air 284

Wright, 2 brothers 1, 22–23

X

Xiamen Airlines 224

entry and exit 73, 74

transoceanic, flight

the 311–313 numbering system

exhausted 136–138

Red-eye schedule 313–315

Great circular route 104, 106–107, 203, 316 separating aircraft 58, 104, 170

Procedures before flights 65, 83–84, 166–169 designated flight procedures / routes 104, 170

Y

Yankee Clipper, Restaurant 76–77

Yemenia 241

Yousef, Ramzi 209, 225

Yugoslav Airlines (JAT) 221

Z

Zantop 68

Zen Arcade (Hüsker Dü) 26

Zhezkazan Zhez Air 284

Zukowsky, John 71