Tuesday Travel Trivia (Week 2)

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Welcome back to Tuesday Travel Trivia (aka Gadling T-party), and congratulations to Week 1 winners, Joe and Stolen, who were the only two to get all ten questions correct.

Here are this week’s questions, and remember, no using the internet (or anything else) to look up the answers. Good luck!

  1. What famous TV travel host is the editor of the 2008 edition of The Best American Travel Writing?
  2. Which African nation was forced to print a series of 10-million dollar bills earlier this year to combat rampant hyper-inflation?
  3. Name the famous American author who once wrote, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”
  4. Angel Falls is the world’s highest waterfall at over 3,200 feet. In which South American country is it located?
  5. Which of the first five US presidents does not have a capital city named for him?
  6. Who told Colbert Report host Stephen Colbert that he had named one of his aircrafts “Air Colbert”?
  7. What is the name of the type of projection used in the map above?
  8. What’s the name of the enclave-country that is located entirely within South Africa’s borders?
  9. In what states (or countries) were Barack Obama and John McCain born?
  10. Which of these countries is often not considered a part of Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, Finland, or Denmark?

Look below the fold for last week‘s answers:

  1. South America has only two countries that are completely landlocked. What are they? Paraguay, Bolivia
  2. What’s the three-letter New York Stock Exchange symbol for Southwest Airlines? LUV
  3. The Petronas Towers are the tallest twin towers and office buildings in the world. In what country are they located? Malaysia
  4. Whom do most experts agree is the most powerful man in Iran? Supreme Leader Ali Khameini
  5. In the movie Rain Man, Tom Cruise’s character Charlie tells Raymond, played by Dustin Hoffman, that every airline in the world has crashed at one time or another. But Raymond disagrees, citing the perfect safety record of which airline? Qantas
  6. Which country is more populous, Canada or Mexico? Mexico with about 100 million people (Canada has 33 million)
  7. In 1994, an American citizen named Michael Fay was arrested in Singapore for theft and vandalism, and he was given a somewhat unusual punishment. What was it? caning
  8. By area, which country is the largest ‘Stan? [e.g. Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, etc.] Kazakhstan
  9. True or false: More than 1,000 people live in Greenland. True (56,000)
  10. What is the name of Lonely Planet’s online travel forum? Thorntree

Southwest celebrates Halloween with a bang

by Grant Martin on

If you were following along the tweetfeed and some of the events late last week, you may have learned that I spent a little bit of time down at Southwest Airlines‘ HQ in Dallas for Halloween. Each year the airline has an internal competition among the departments to decorate their sections, arrange skits and try to outdo each other for the famed glory and bragging rights of the best performance.

This year, I came down with The Cranky Flier and EGW from Jaunted to help in judging the competition and to witness the madness first hand. And madness it was.

To begin with, Southwest’s CEO, Gary Kelly takes the holiday pretty seriously (he’s about the complete opposite from me.) A few years back he dressed up as Gene Simmons from Kiss. Last year he was a chick. And his enthusiasm trickles down into the soul of the entire company. EVERYONE gets fired up for this day.
When I showed up at HQ just after seven, I briefly had breakfast with my colleagues and was introduced to Gary, who this year was dressed up as Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top. Yes, that’s him pictured above; here’s a picture of him in real life. Two of his closest colleagues were dressed up as other band members. Here they are practicing their moves:

After introductions and pictures, we were quickly ushered outside to golf carts that took us over to the MX hangar where aircraft are refurbished and fixed. I could have spent all day here but instead we were led through to a surprisingly impressive haunted house, complete with goons jumping out at you and fake blood.

With everyone safe and sound, much of the rest of the day involved visiting different departments and participating in assorted skits and activities that they had prepared. Some, involving dozens of employees coordinated into singing and dancing productions MUST have been professionally choreographed, begging the question of how much time and cash went into the production (and how much these bragging rights are really worth.) Others, like the Indiana Jones reenactment looked like they took weeks of construction and planning.

In the end, it was that sort of effort that ended up getting the judge’s vote for best performance. Both the Indiana Jones reenactment and a Southwest Spin on Mama Mia titled “SWAMama Mia” took home prizes for best performance.

As for the judges, we enjoyed ten seconds of fame at the end of the day when we were introduced to the employees up on stage. And I’m proud to say that I’m the only blogger that carried a beer up with him.

Until next year, friends at Southwest. I probably need that long to recover.

Big in Japan: Can’t get skinny? Eat a banana!

by Matthew Firestone on

You can never be too skinny or too rich, at least according to the old expression…

Of course, in a country where size S is the veritable norm, and hyper fashion demands perfection in every curve, the pressure to stay thin and beautiful can quickly consume every waking moment of your day-to-day life.

As you might imagine, Japan practically invented the fad diet, which means that every month or so, some new food item is reported by so-called experts to be the miracle cure for obesity.

While there really is no substitute for a healthy diet and exercise, Japanese women, and increasingly men, have chowed down on a pretty lengthy list of fad foods: boiled eggs, apples, chili peppers, soybeans, black tea fungus, cocoa, carrots, yam paste, beer yeast, and even baby formula!

So, what is the current fad food that has recently risen in price by 20% as a result of supply shortages? Bananas!

Yup, bananas, those elongated yellow pods that are high in fiber, packed with vitamins and minerals, and largely comprised of H2O.

So, how does the Morningu Banana Daietto (???????????????????????????????????????, Morning Banana Diet) work? Keep on reading to find out!

The Morning Banana Diet is attributed to a woman by the name of Sumiko Watanabe, a pharmacist in Osaka, who designed this diet specifically to help out her tubby hubby.

Here is how it works:

In the morning, you can eat as many bananas as you want, alongside room temperature water. This is the key as breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and a few bananas in the belly certainly helps in getting your digestion going.

For lunch and dinner, you can pretty much eat anything you want, along with a small afternoon snack, but you have to avoid desserts, stop eating by 8pm, and go to bed before midnight.

According to Mrs. Watanabe, her husband quickly lost 37 pounds, which prompted her to release the diet on mixi, the Japanese equivalent of Facebook or MySpace. The Osaka pharmacist has also published her Morning Banana Diet in Japanese, Korean and Chinese, and has thus far sold close to a million copies.

Of course, while Mrs. Watanabe is lugging her suitcases full of yen to the bank, food distributors are quickly realizing that their supply of bananas can’t meet demand, especially following a recent TV appearance by the Watanabes.

According to Takeshi Ozaki, a spokesperson of Life Corporation, which runs more than 200 supermarkets throughout Japan: “Bananas suddenly flew off the shelves, there was a 70%-80% increase in weekly sales compared to the same period last year.”

However, before you rush out and buy a few crates of Chiquita bananas, keep in mind that not everyone is convinced.

According to Professor Masahiko Okada of Niigata University School of Medicine: “The human body has three essential nutrients – carbohydrates, fat and protein. The golden rule is to balance these three nutrients and a daily calorie intake. Once you understand that, you don’t have to be swayed by the fad diet any more.”

Again, the secret to good health really is a balanced diet and regular exercise, though a few bananas in the morning might not be a bad idea!

** Front-page image taken by Eriko Sugita at Reuters. All other images courtesy of the WikiCommons Media Project **

Galley Gossip: Groped on the airplane, what to do?

by Heather Poole on

Groped on the airplane, it happens. A lot. Has it happened to you?

A few years ago I found myself standing in the business class galley with a few of my colleagues, when a very large man who worked for a very large company walked into the galley with an empty glass. Now this very large man, the one with the very large job title, had a seat in first class, which should have been my first warning sign. Passengers in first class do not wander back to business class. As I filled his glass with whiskey, I felt a little pinch on my you know what. I jumped, eyes wide, looked at him, looked at the crew, looked back at him, and did not say a word. No one said a word. And then he did it again.

I had forgotten all about that incident until I read a hilarious article (or maybe a not so hilarious article, depending on who you are and how you feel about these kinds of things) about a writer named Jeremy Langmead and his recent experience on a Virgin redeye flight to New York. The story, Get a Grip of Yourself, Madam, Not me, was posted on the Guardian.co.uk website. As the title suggests, Jeremy got manhandled on the airplane by his seatmate, Louise. We’ll get to that later, because what happened next is just as interesting.

Now I had just about finished writing this post (or was it that post?) when comments from another post I had recently written, Middle Seat Etiquette, came pouring in. And wouldn’t you know it, a Gadling reader named Ben had a very similar experience with his seatmate. Only this wasn’t just a young drunk woman named Louise, this was a middle-aged woman with a son the same age as Ben!

Here’s Ben’s horrible (double whammy) experience of being groped in a middle seat…

This could have happened in any seat, but it so happened to occur one of the few times I found myself in a middle seat. I usually have enough notice before a flight date that I can scrounge up a window or aisle, but this time I just found out a few hours before, so I had to take a middle seat. I was between a middle-aged gentleman at the window, and a similarly aged woman in the aisle. The man stayed quiet for most of the flight, but the woman and I got to chatting. She had a son about my age who had recently dropped out of college and was moving back home. She was concerned about is future, and was asking me about my plans and interests. It turned out we shared many similar tastes and hobbies. All seemed like a normal congenial talk until about 90 min. into the IAD-SFO flight. Her right hand had found its way onto my left thigh. We had never bothered to put down the arm rest between us.

I twitched my leg and her hand quickly moved back to her lap. I chose to ignore her action, hoping it was a simple slip, and wanting to continue the nice company. We continued to talk, but about 15 minutes later her hand had now found its way higher up on my thigh, and she was gently rubbing up and down. At this point I had to put a end to it. I very firmly told her to stop, and I took her hand and removed it from my leg. The armrest went down, and I quickly retreated to my iPod and book. We departed the plane four+ hours later without another word being spoken. I still wonder what she was thinking (perhaps I know too well), but of all things that has crossed the line in passenger etiquette, this one has remained one of the most memorable. I suppose such an event could have taken place in any seat, but something about the confining nature of the middle seat made it all the more acute.

And so I added Ben’s story into this post, and just when I thought I was done, another passenger with a similar story shared her experience about being groped on the airplane, only this time it was a woman being groped by a man. Here’s what happened to Brenda…

It happened to me on a flight from Auckland, New Zealand to LAX! I was in the upper cabin of the 747, and sitting next to me was a man involved in the New Zealand government. The cabin had been darkened and almost everyone was sleeping. I was asleep and suddenly found his hand on my thigh, slowly moving – I was shocked! I looked over my seat towards the galley and the flight attendant saw me looking towards her and silently mouthing the words “Help me” She came right over and cleared her throat very loudly ( the dude was pretending to be asleep, but he really wasn’t) He didn’t even look embarrassed at being busted. Don’t get me wrong, I love kiwis, but not that much!

Obviously, with all this groping going on, I had to scrap the original groped post and completely start over. I mean who cares if Louise does not know how to behave on an airplane when there are several passengers behaving badly, very very badly, onboard the airplanes. Originally I had accused Jeremy of not reading the warning signs when Louise, his seatmate, proclaimed they’d be spending the night together, as she sat down beside him, and then proceeded to down not one, but two glasses of champagne. But then look what happened Ben and Brenda. There were no warning signs.

Sorry, Jeremy.

In the first post I had written something about Louise probably being, deep down inside, a really nice girl. That is when she’s not getting drunk on the airplane and throwing herself at strange men. And then I went on to question why the alarm in Jeremy’s head did not go off. I followed that question by posing another question, do men even have the internal alarm signal? That perv alert that so many of my women friends and I have, the one that tells you to move seats NOW? As in GO GO GO! But then I read what happened to Ben and Brenda. There were no perv alerts! Just pervs.

Again, sorry, Jeremy.

Poor Jeremy got poked, and prodded, and had a thigh squeezed, as well as a rib knocked, and eventually began to wonder if he should switch seats. (Gee I wonder?) This was the point in the story where I began to laugh out loud. Again, I’m sorry Jeremy, but I had to laugh! Not because of all that occurred, because it shouldn’t have occurred in the first place, but because it occurred before the plane even took off! Unfortunately Jeremy felt a little odd complaining about Louise to the flight attendants. I’ll let Jeremy explain…

Despite it being 2008, and the genders edging towards equality, it still somehow feels wrong if a man can’t put up with a bit of uninvited, sexually predacious behaviour without seeking help from a not overly butch flight attendant. Fortunately, after one more thwarted attempt to arouse my interest, Louise fell asleep.

Okay, Jeremy, let me give you, and others, a word of advice. It doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman, no one should ever have to go through what you went through with Louise on that flight to New York. I know some of you will find this hard to believe, but the flight attendants are there for you. They are there to help you. Not judge you. And they want to help you, particularly when there’s a groper onboard. Trust me, we live for this kind of thing. No one, not a passenger, nor a flight attendant, should put up with being manhandled on a flight. Unless, of course, you like that kind of thing. Hey, you never know! I’ve seen some crazy things on the airplane.

If you find yourself on the airplane with an unwanted hand on your thigh….

1. Immediately excuse yourself from the situation. Just get up and go. You don’t have to say a word to the groper, no matter how nice they were before they started groping. If you’re the kind of person who needs an excuse, just say you’re going to the lavatory, or that your headset doesn’t work, or that you’re thirsty and you need to get a drink, and then get up and start walking.

2. Look for an open seat. Did you find one? Take it! What are you waiting for? Who cares if it’s a middle seat. Unless, of course, getting groped is better than sitting in that middle seat. I know, it’s a close one.

3. Tell a flight attendant. Tell the flight attendant what exactly is going on. Do not be afraid. This is an airplane, not a bar or a hotel, but a place where people and children travel together in a safe and not so comfortable environment. The flight attendant will gladly help you handle the situation, and make sure this situation does not happen again on a future flight.

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Photos courtesy of: (passenger) Davitydave, (empty seat) Simonk

Plane Answers: Aircraft inspections, air filtration and stalls

by Kent Wien on

Welcome to Gadling’s feature, Plane Answers, where our resident airline pilot, Kent Wien, answers your questions about everything from takeoff to touchdown and beyond. Have a question of your own? Ask away!

John asks:

Hi Kent,

I’m a aviation nut and I’ve always been curious about this question: What is the difference between a C and a D check? I know they both involve overhauling the aircraft.

My friend Ed Straigis has become my ‘go to’ guy when it comes to maintenance questions that come up here. Fortunately, he just happens to perform these overhauls you’re asking about.

Here’s his explanation:

A “C” check is a complete, heavy overhaul; the aircraft is opened up, all inspection panels, seats, galleys, lavs, overhead bins, side-walls and insulation are removed and the aircraft is checked for cracks and out of limit equipment such as hydraulic actuators and bearings.

The brakes and tires are replaced and the aircraft gets washed and polished and comes out looking like new. This usually takes about 3-4 weeks.

We don’t do “D” checks, since we’re allowed by the FAA to do repetitive “C” checks, with each “C” check being more involved than the one before. Our C checks usually occur about every 18-24 months depending on the number of cycles (flights) on the aircraft.

Other carriers that do “D” checks usually do them every 4-5 years. They require the aircraft to be out of service for at least a month or more. It’s about the same a a C check but more involved.

Since we do our “C” checks more often that other airlines and cargo outfits, we’re able to find small problems and fix them before they become major problems instead of waiting to discover the issue during a “D” check.

Thanks Ed. I have always wondered about that myself.

Mark asks:

Kent, I continue to really enjoy your writing. You may not know this, but I often wonder how the hours I am putting on the King Airs I fly compare to those of the typical airliner. My operation has 6 King Airs and we are flying them about 1200 hours per plane per year. How does this stack up against what a typical airliner does?

Thanks Mark,

I looked up the latest airplane I flew yesterday, a 767 that was built in June of 2003, to get a feel for the utilization of our airplanes. It has 22,500 hours right now and it has made 3555 flights so far. This represents an average of 4,219 hours a year or 11 1/2 hours per day.

It’s pretty easy to have efficient utilization when each flight averages over 6 hours.

Years ago, when I flew the 737, I watched the hours on those airplanes as they approached their first full year flying and found them to consistently be in the 3,500 hour range. That makes sense, because domestic aircraft are on the ground more often, loading and unloading passengers, which keeps the utilization down.

Hope that helps, Mark. I would have loved to have flown a King Air.

Joe asks:

Hello Kent,

I have a question about the air circulation systems. When I was younger and would fly pretty regularly across the states to see my grandparents, my parents always seemed overly cautious to see that my sister and I would get enough vitamin C and other remedies that day to keep us protected “from all the sick people on the plane.”

That mindset seems to have rubbed off on my older self. Whenever I fly, part of me is always scared that I’m going to catch the flu from that guy twenty rows up because the air on the plane is “recycled” and that his pathogens are going to inevitably make it through my nostrils–and worse, the crew’s.

Is this true? I know planes are pressurized, but how does the air filtering work? Are planes REALLY disease-spreading pastures of sorts, or is my being concerned unjustified?

Your parents were definitely on to something. My wife, a former flight attendant, would get sinus infections every few months when she was working. I haven’t had as much of a problem as a pilot, but our air is recirculated more often than it is in the cabin. This has less to do with keeping pilots healthy and more to do with keeping the avionics and instruments cool in the cockpit.

Boeing discusses these cabin air quality concerns, explaining that:

“Microorganisms do not pass through the filters of the highly efficient air recirculation systems on today’s jets. The system delivers a mix that is one-half outside air and one-half filtered recirculated air. It normally produces between 14 and 20 cubic feet of air per person each minute. As a result, the air supply in the cabin is essentially sterile and particle-free.”

Boeing does go on to admit that anytime you’re in close proximity to other people, there is always a risk of catching whatever your neighbor has.

In addition to the air filtration systems in all airliners, some even have “ozone scrubbers” that are necessary to fly across the Atlantic in the more northern latitudes. When our airline first started to fly to Manchester, England, from the east coast, some of the airplanes we flew didn’t have these ozone scrubbers, for the first few months, which meant we were restricted to altitudes of less than 35,000 feet until the entire fleet had been retrofitted.

Apparently Ozone (O3) builds up in aircraft cabins and can present a health problem–especially to crews who spend a great deal of their lives flying. According to this article, it’s the most significant issue affecting the air quality in airliners today.

Fortunately, passengers flying on the new 787 will enjoy a lower cabin altitude, more humidity and greater circulation of the passenger air, according to Boeing. I really hope I get the chance to fly it at some point.

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Finally, Michele writes:

Hi Kent!

Another question from me, this one came up after hanging out at San Francisco’s Fleet Week air show a few weeks ago. What is stall speed? I had always assumed it had something to do with the engine, but I’ve been told it actually is more about lift and air speed. Can you clear up the meaning?

Good question Michelle, and one that is often messed up by the media.

A wing can only produce enough lift if it is flying fast enough. This airspeed will vary depending on the wing’s shape, whether the flaps are up or down, and how heavy the airplane is.

So when you hear about an airplane that ‘stalls’, it’s always related to a lack of sufficient airspeed.

Some people probably confuse it with the term “the engine stalled”, meaning failed to work. But that isn’t a term used in aviation. To be more clear, the media needs to understand that airplane engines don’t ‘stall,’ they simply quit or fail.

787 interior image at top provided by Ruthann O’Connor.

Do you have a question about something related to the pointy end of an airplane? Ask Kent and maybe he’ll use it for next Friday’s Plane Answers feature.