Excuse me if
I’ve already shared this story with you, but last week I experienced one of the most unnerving flights ever. Things
didn’t shake me up to the point where I’d never want to fly again, but I’d sure like to know a bit more about what’s
going on in the cockpit. And would my knowledge of stopping distances on runways help anything while sitting in seat
23A. Probably not, but if you’re anything like myself you welcome useless knowledge and save it for some challenging
moment where real men/women are both made from mice. But that’s really getting off topic.
CNN runs a story on new strategies being
considered in calculating stopping distances on slippery runways. After a messy situation at the Midway Airport when a
Southwest Airlines flight rolled off the runway in a snowstorm causing the death of a 6-year-old boy in a car last
month, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is strongly urging commercial pilots make a change in their
calculating techniques. Short and informative read if you’re wanting the blow by blow on the way these things operate.
Another cool little site to check out is this ‘How Stuff Works’
runway piece. It provides the very core, general info on everything you probably already know before getting into
the mechanics on things you don’t know in the CNN piece.