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 ...
You do not understand the operation of doors on airplanes. When you do learn how they work, you will stop accusing one of making a “sorry, sorry explanation”! Just ask yourself a simple question...would the manufacturer make a product/door that could be opened in flight? There is only answer.
When I was using my drink coupon at 9am, telling myself it was 5:30 somewhere, I refrained from asking the trolly dolly if pilots were the biggest consumers of alcohol as pax. I didn’t want to give myself away or scare my seatmates. Please don’t tell CPS I used to give my kids benadryl before flying...oh, nvm, they’re all adults now. I just always pray that people won’t stop believing, en masse, that metal tubes can fly. Always tests my faith as a Christian. I told my pilot husband, “I don’t fly well.” He said, “Really? (LOL)” Thank your captain. Just sayin’.
/johnny
It is safer than driving. You could be driving stone cold sober in good weather in the safest car with seat belts and air bags and still be struck and killed by a piece falling off an airplane.
Then why does D.B. Cooper's bail-out keep coming to mind?
13. the seats really are not smaller than they used to be...
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.”
uh...D.B. Cooper!?!?!?!
Stews bring you drinks faster? After a few, mine simply point me in the direction of the cart and tell me to help myself.
Please ping me to aviation and aerospace articles. Thank you.
If you want added to or removed from this ping list, please contact EveningStar or Paleo Conservative.
14. If an engine goes out, a witch on the wing of the plane caused it.
15. Action heroes can get into fist fights on the wing of the plane while it is flying.
There is an 8 pounds per square inch difference between the inside and outside of the cabin.
If the door is 3 feet by 6 feet, it has an area of 2592 square inches.
Thats a force of 20,736 pounds, or over 10 tons, on the door.
The door handle would break before you’d be able to open the door.
16) US Senators commonly travel coach.
More myths:
The person who sat in the seat before you wasn’t wearing depends.
A baby who sat in the seat before you didn’t crap in his diaper.
All the air inside the tube is germ free.
The pillows don’t smell like farts. (But Stewie Griffin said his did.)
I do know how they work, and I still say that it's a sorry explanation.
When one claims to "debunk" something, it's not enough to say "it's pressurized".
You probably caught the cold in the crowded airport and if the air is blowing into your face, you are smelling your own breath. :)
The doors open IN.
But, but . . . it was really, really, really hot that day.
From Wikipedia (yes, I know the warnings):
During refueling Cooper outlined his flight plan to the cockpit crew: a southeast course toward Mexico City at the minimum airspeed possible without stalling the aircraft (approximately 100 knots (190 km/h; 120 mph)) at a maximum 10,000 foot (3,000 m) altitude. He further specified that the landing gear remain deployed in the takeoff/landing position, the wing flaps be lowered 15 degrees, and the cabin remain unpressurized.
If the pressure is the same inside as outside it is easy to open the door.
They either open by pulling them inside first, and then out or they are mounted on tracks that pull the door in and then upward into the fuselage ceiling. The pressurized cabin always prevent the doors from opening when the aircraft is pressurized. There are other safety preventions on the doors which prevent opening, after the doors are closed, prior to take-off.
DB Cooper exitied a 727 that had rear stairs, which he exited from.
Not the same mechanism as a modern plane, as they dropped down, not in and then out.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.