Posted on 09/26/2013 12:03:19 PM PDT by oxcart
Flying can be a mysterious experience: Planes are incredibly complicated, even scary machines, and pilots and flight attendants don't tell you too much about what's going on.
So it makes sense that people believe all sorts of interesting "facts" about air travel.
The problem is, a lot of them aren't true.
From "you get drunk faster in the air" to "the air in planes is riddled with germs," here are 10 airplane myths that needed to be debunked.
1. Opening a plane door while in flight is a real safety risk.
It isn't. When the plane is at cruising altitude, it's pressurized. That pressure means that getting a door open would require superhuman strength.
To quote Patrick Smith, an airline pilot, blogger, and author of Cockpit Confidential: "You cannot – repeat, cannot – open the doors or emergency hatches of an airplane in flight. You can’t open them for the simple reason that cabin pressure won’t allow it."
So don't worry about the occasional passenger going nuts and everyone flying out of the plane as the result of an opened door, it isn't going to happen. Which leads us to the next myth...
2. A small hole in a plane will lead to everyone being sucked right out.
Patrick Smith notes that while bombs and large-scale structural failures can cause disastrous, rapid decompression, a small hole in a plane's fuselage is a different matter.
After a foot-long breach in an Alaska Airlines MD-80 plane led to an emergency descent in 2006, Smith wrote in his Salon column: "The breach was a small one, and once the cabin pressure had escaped, it could be reasonably assumed that the plane was going to stay in one solid piece and fly just fine. Which it did."
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
“...it’s also fun to critique the cockpit...”Are ya gonna log that as 2 landings?”. Or tell ‘em they did a great job.”
Sometimes I congratulate them for letting the FO land the plane.
so it IS a “far stretch” for a person to assume pressure pushes things out? oooooooo-kay
Yes. For things that only, physically, can move in.
so it IS a “far stretch” for a person to assume pressure pushes things out? oooooooo-kay
Besides, your buddy didn't say it would move in. He said it would, "HELP you open the door". The door opens in.
lol
I guess your just an average Joe.
So you keep stressing that the door opens in - you write that over and over and over - yet you fail to understand why someone would complain that a writer on this subject wouldn’t drop that interesting little factoid in their article???????
So you keep stressing that the door opens in - you write that over and over and over - yet you fail to understand why someone would complain that a writer on this subject wouldn’t drop that interesting little factoid in their article???????
No. I fully understand stupidity. It appears to be contagious.
If that’s a myth, why do I almost always get a cold shortly after air travel? Also, why does the air coming out of the directional air vent sometimes smell like bad breath?
and of course, you were forced to ignore the question about assuming air pressure can push stuff out, because that you couldn’t be the Amusing Mr. Sanctimony Pants
Go back and read the thread. Take a class or two. Then, get back to me.
I’m sure there’s some validity in your theories.
Also the job itself is less well compensated and more difficult.
Supervising the human cattle car is much less enjoyable compared to 30 yrs ago.
The hot girls are finding other more desirable occupations.
This reminds me of a story either Engvall or Foxworthy told. He was on a small plane which hit a deer. He called his wife, told her and she replied, “were you in the air”?
“Supervising the human cattle car is much less enjoyable compared to 30 yrs ago.”
Of THAT there is no dispute. . .and at the TSA goons and flying is a horribly frustrating experience.
As long as your spewing orders, ya sure you don’t want your Rascal waxed too? (no, it’s not a euphemism)
Thanks for the info — shows what I know. I remember he bailed out at relatively low altitude. I love the term “Cooper vanes.”
12. Male flight attendants aren’t gay.
Doesn’t that sign say “MIDWAY” ? It looks like the plane that slide off the end of the runway and out onto the street where it hit a car and killed a person riding in it. That’s bad luck.
Yes, “goody” for me. Do you think that I opened and closed a few doors during my career? That is relevant, it is experience with doors and the pressurization of airplanes.
You seem to be less than an average Joe. Most people do not need to give the information you are requiring in order to DEBUNK something. Take care of yourself Izzy.
Seriously? And I suppose fire doesn’t melt steel either, Rosie?
A joke I once heard was that after a particularly rough landing a passenger exiting the plane asked the captain, "Let me guess - Navy?"
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