Plane Answers: Route planning, shunning reverse-thrust and side-sticks
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!
Vivian asks:
Hi Kent,
I enjoy your column very much and I have a pretty basic question. How exactly is a route for a particular flight planned? I recently flew ORD-DEL and we went to the North Pole and then due south through Asia. Wouldn’t a route through the Atlantic and over the middle east be a more direct route?
Believe it or not, flying from Chicago to Delhi will normally take you very close to the North Pole. Imagine using a piece of yarn over a globe to trace the route.
But an easier method is to go to this site and put in the three-letter codes yourself to see the great circle route depicted. Here’s the ORD-DEL example:
These routes, which are often made up of waypoints every few hundred miles, change every day to take advantage of the winds. Our dispatchers look at the shortest “wind distance” which they will usually use, subject to ATC approval. To fly over the pole, crews have to have special training and the airline has to be approved for this kind of flying.
These flight plans are filed with the FAA a few hours before the departure, so it is possible for the winds or weather to change the eventual route of flight.
Alex asks:
Hi Kent,
I was on a 757 about a year ago and I noticed that when we landed at our destination the thrust reversers weren’t used. I asked for a seat close to an engine because I like to see the thrust reversers deploy but it didn’t happen that day.
I thought that maybe there was something wrong with an engine but the flight crew didn’t mention anything so I lingered around the gate to see if a maintenance truck would pull up to the plane but that didn’t happen either.
Someone told me that maybe it had something to do with noise abatement, but it was about 5 or 6pm.
Can you think of any other reason why the thrust reversers may not have been used?
Hi Alex,
Great question.
There are a few airports–Manchester, England comes to mind–that restrict the use of thrust reversers early in the morning or late at night.
But I suspect that wasn’t the case on your flight. I’ll let you in on a little secret.
Occasionally, if a pilot touches down early enough on the runway and the point at which we plan to exit is a ways down field, we’ll consider NOT using any reverse thrust. Usually, however, we’ll do this by opening the reverser blocker doors, but not adding thrust to stop the aircraft.
Why, you ask?
Because we’re vain. Passengers tend to think it was a smoother landing if we avoid following up a nice touchdown with the noise and shake associated with the reverse thrust.
So there you go. Vanity!
Marius asks:
Does it take a lot of force to advance the throttles and yoke or can you hardly feel them at all?
And would you prefer a sidestick to yoke?
The throttles on the 767 are rather stiff. Most of the other Boeing aircraft have throttles that move back and forth rather smoothly, with little or no resistance.
Each airplane has a different ‘feel’ on the yoke (control wheel). Some are rather heavy, like the 757, and some are light, such as the A300.
The A320 and later Airbuses have a side-mounted stick. I can’t tell you what it’s like to fly this type of stick, since I’ve only flown Boeings and the MD-80, but I really would like to give it a try.
One interesting thing about the Airbus side sticks; they aren’t interconnected between the captain and the co-pilot. So when you move one side stick, the other one doesn’t move.
If the captain pushes full down and the co-pilot pulls full back, the inputs cancel each other out.
The yokes on Boeing aircraft move together, so it does give you an idea what the other guy is doing when they’re flying.
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.
How does your presidential candidate get around?
With all of the cavorting around the country on the campaign trail, John McCain and Barack Obama need some pretty quick, reliable transportation — after all, you can’t get from Nevada to Ohio to Florida in two days on the bus version of the Straight Talk Express.
To that end, each candidate has chosen and retrofitted an aircraft of their own for campaign purposes, Obama with a larger, 757-28A and McCain with a smaller (though still large) 737-4B7. I suppose it would be unamerican to fly in an Airbus, wouldn’t it.
So how is riding around in one of these birds? Have they been retrofitted with hot tubs, massaging chairs and laser beams? Gadling went through and took a look at the aircraft to see just what it’s like in and around the Obama and McCain aircraft and compiled the gallery below.
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You can see that both aircraft are outfitted with standard coach seats in the back for the flock of media that follow the candidates around the globe. Both have 3 x 3 leather seats, although McCain’s seats all have TVs in the seatbacks. I wonder what they play?
Another neat thing is that Obama’s overhead bins and interior are plastered with photos — presumably from the campaign trail. It’s an interesting way to remember the voters that Obama met along the way.
Take a look at the rest of the photos and tell us what you think.
Galley Gossip: Middle Seat Etiquette
Flying back from Honolulu, I found myself crammed in a middle seat. Now I’m not a big person, just a normal sized person, and yet there I sat with my elbows held tight against my side, my hands resting in my lap, as the broken seat in front of me reclined much farther back than it should have. Oh yeah, I had a woman’s head an inch from my chest. Good thing I didn’t need anything out of my tote-bag, the one located under the seat in front of me, the one I could not reach if I so inclined. And then, if that wasn’t bad enough, things got worse, much worse.
The man sitting beside me, the one wearing the trendy dark blue designer jeans traveling with the family sitting across the aisle from him, claimed the armrest between us.
So what, you say? Wait…there’s more.
The elbow, the one attached to a very tan and muscular arm, crept over the armrest and kept on going until it found itself in my space – MY SPACE! Thank god my son, and not another adult, sat on the other side of me, so I could lean way over into the space my son did not yet prize. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and tried not to scream as I felt the faint tickle of manly arm hairs against my skin.
Middle seat etiquette, am I the only one who cares?
I’ll never forget when Cady, my best friend and old roommate, got called out to work a flight from New York to Los Angeles. This was thirteen years ago and we were on reserve and the thought of working a 767 transcon scared the heck out of us. We were new, brand spankin new, and that airplane was big, 160 passengers big! Keep in mind there were also nine flight attendants who knew exactly what they were doing, unlike the two of us, working on that gigantic bird! What made the trip even worse was that Cady had been called out to work the lead position on the 767. Cady, fresh from the charm farm, would be in charge for the next two days.
“How did it go?” I asked, practically leaping off the couch when she walked through the door after her trip the following evening.
Parking her black bag against the wall, she flopped down in front of the television on the lumpy sofa beside me. “I actually had to settle an argument between two grown men.”
I laughed. “Over what?”
“An armrest. And they actually asked to speak to the one in charge. Me!”
“What did you say?” I asked, and it was at this point I wondered if I should fetch a pen and paper to write down what she had said, just in case I found myself in the same predicament on a future flight. Hey, a flight attendant does not want to experience any unplanned emergencies.
“I just told them they had to share. One guy could use the armrest for the first half of flight and the other guy could use it the last half of the flight. What else could I say?”
Cady had a point. There was not much else to say. Share the armrest, I made a mental note.
While I have witnessed many ridiculous things aboard the airplane, I have not had the pleasure of seeing two grown men duke it out over an armrest. Fighting over a seat being reclined, yes. An overhead bin, every single flight. A first class seat upgrade, oh yeah. But an armrest, never. I’m so grateful for that.
Flash forward thirteen years and I would have loved for someone like Cady to have stomped down the aisle in a pair of black scuffed up Dansko clogs and ordered that beefy guy sitting beside me to share. Not that I would have even used the armrest if Fancy Pants had actually moved his elbow a good five inches to the left, but it would have been nice to have had at least a few arm hair free minutes flying from Honolulu to Los Angeles.
Middle seat etiquette, that’s what I spent the entire flight thinking about…
- Leave the armrest for the middle seat passenger. The window seat passenger has the window, while the aisle seat passenger has the aisle, but the middle seat passenger has nothing, nada, zilch, so please, for the love of god, give the person in the middle seat something, anything, an armrest, please!
- Do not hit the middle seat passenger in the head with your newspaper, even when the middle seat passenger is asleep and you are fairly sure they will not feel it.
- Do not use the middle seat passenger’s tray table. Even if the middle seat passenger is not using it.
- Do not put your feet under the seat in front of the middle seat passenger, no matter how long your legs are, even if the middle seat passenger is short.
- Do not place your luggage underneath the seat in front of the middle seat passenger. The middle seat passenger has luggage, too.
- Do not bring aboard a pet, choose an aisle or window seat, and then expect to put the pet under the middle seat because it does not fit under your seat.
- Do not raise the armrest between you and the middle seat passenger, no matter how well you are getting along.
- Keep your hair away from the middle seat passenger, no matter how pretty or how manly it may be.
- Remember, middle seat passengers are people too!
As I sat there, going over the middle seat rules, that hairy arm resting a little too comfortably against mine, I flashed back to another middle seat situation I’ve experienced often – the open middle seat.
WOOHOO! I always think, whenever I see that open middle seat. I can not believe my luck. Nor can the passenger sitting on the other side of that same middle seat. I try not to get too excited, because one of two things are about to happen, and it most likely won’t be the good thing.
THE GOOD THING: The seat remains open and I enjoy a relaxing flight home.
THE BAD THING: The passenger flings their jacket or purse or stack of magazines into the empty seat, claiming the space as their own.
If the good thing happens to you, and the seat actually remains open, fantastic. You’re on a roll. Now may be the time to fly to Vegas and continue this amazing streak of luck at a table of cards. And don’t forget to take me with you.
If the bad thing happens, now is the time to act, and fast! Hurry, throw something of your own into the seat. By doing this you are letting the passenger on the other side know that this is shared space. Not their space. Shared space. Trust me, this reminder is necessary if you want the flight to continue without further incident. When the passenger pulls down the tray table and places a drink or a book on top, immediately place something of your own next to it.
What are you waiting for? DO IT!
Juvenile, you say? Whatever. Do what you want. But you may soon find a pair of bare feet rubbing against your leg. Oh it happens. It’s happened to me. Don’t let it happen you.
Do you have a horrible middle seat story to share? I’d love to hear all about it.
Three ways to capture sense of place in a travel story
In my last post I mentioned how I spoke with Thomas Fox Averill‘s writing students at Washburn University — and specifically about how you can use travel experiences to improve your “sense of place” descriptions, in fiction as well as nonfiction. Of course, mere travel isn’t the only way to improve your sense-of-place writing chops — it’s also useful to use research information and creative juxtaposition to enliven your descriptions of place. From the pages of Marco Polo Didn’t Go There, here are three strategies and examples for creating a stronger feeling of place in a story:
From Chapter 9: Evoking sense of place using direct description and contrasts
“Driving along the desolate and gorgeous Sandover Highway northeast of Alice Springs, there are only two sure indicators that life exists in this parched red-orange landscape. One is the curious ubiquity of pink cockatoos, which dart out of the bush and swoop over the Land Cruiser, occasionally exploding into the grill in a suicidal puff of pastel feathers. The other is an abundance of junked cars — sun-bleached Ford Falcons and rusty station wagons that have been abandoned at the side of the road by Aborigines going to or coming from their isolated homes in the outback. In the heat of the afternoon, when the horizon shudders like a mirage and towering dust devils swirl across the highway, this place can feel like the end of the world. Perhaps seized by irony or optimism, the German immigrants who tried to settle this area in the 1920s named it Utopia.”
From Chapter 12: Evoking sense of place using historical context, description, and sense of time
“Compared to the marquee islands of the Cyclades — Santorini, Ios, Mykonos — Sifnos doesn’t have much of a reputation. According to Herodotus, the Classical Era gold and silver mines on this 30 square-mile island made it the richest in the Aegean; a century later, Sifnos won notoriety as the site where the Spartans met with the Persians to plot against Alexander the Great. For the most, part, however, Sifnos has existed as a nondescript suburb of an island, with 2000 or so inhabitants, known more for its poets and pottery than political or geographical distinction. During Ottoman rule, the Turks never bothered sending a garrison to the island, and though pirates periodically haunted the Cyclades, the patron saint of Sifnos, Panaghia Chryssopighi, is best known for protecting the island against grasshoppers. “Despite such lack of distinction, however, my boat-mates and I immediately fall in love with Sifnos. The tourist crowds have left with high season, and we have the island mostly to ourselves. Renting motorcycles, we cruise up intricately terraced valleys to the central plateau, where the houses of Apollonia town lay scattered like big white dice among blue-domed churches and olive groves. We wander out to the far coast and swim on empty beaches under ridges dotted with almond trees and clumps of wild juniper. We explore the mazelike alleyways in the hilltop fortress of Kastro, where bright pink bougainvillea creeps over shuttered windows, and stray cats blink in the sunlight. In the evening, we sit outdoors at wooden restaurant tables and dine on tzatziki, olives, stuffed peppers, lamb, and local white wine. After dark, we hike up to the empty monasteries overlooking the harbor, where we listen to the sound of the wind and the tinkling of goat bells. One day on Sifnos stretches into two in this manner, and two days stretch into three.”
From Chapter 10: Evoking sense of place using the people who populate that place
“The best belly dancing in Egypt, it is said, costs $50 a show and can be found at five-star hotels like the Meridien Le Caire or the Parisienne. At the Palmyra club, which is within walking distance of the Sultan Hotel, admission is about $1.50. The performance value (I suspect) is calibrated accordingly. “When our disheveled traveler posse arrives from the Sultan to take a table in the back of the Palmyra, a man in a djellaba and two women in chadors are happily shaking their moneymakers on the dance floor. At first I think this is a prelude to some kind of Islamic-themed striptease, until I realize that these people are just overzealous customers. The real dancer — a big-haired, large-breasted girl in a faux snakeskin jumpsuit — is at the back of the stage, idly joking with the accordion player. As my eyes get used to the darkness, I take in the surroundings. The club features tall ceilings and textured rock walls, accessorized with red curtains. If the lighting were improved and the velvety curtains replaced with, say, country knickknacks, this place could easily pass for a family restaurant in Minnetonka, Minnesota. “The crowd, however, is decidedly non-Middle America: Bedouins in red-checkered kaffiyehs and long gowns wave 5-pound notes (each about $1.45) at the edge of the dance floor; Egyptian office stiffs with wrinkled neckties leap up from their tables to clap along with the music; fat men with thin mustaches sit alone in corners, sweat stains growing out from their armpits. The band looks straight out of a David Lynch movie: the melancholy lute player who blinks and stares at the floor as he strums; the grinning, leather-faced bongo drummer who wears brown pants over white, patent-leather shoes; the keyboardist who stops playing in the middle of the song to light a cigarette. The music is rhythmic, dissonant, deafening. “Eventually, the girl in the snakeskin jumpsuit starts to dance again, humming to the music into a cordless mike. After 30 minutes of this, she yields the stage to a dull-eyed blond with feathered hair and a sequined evening gown. This new dancer is so amorphously plump that her rear end seems to start just below her neck. As she dances, the slightest wiggle sends her sequined extremities into a gelatinous fury of motion. For those of us at the Sultan table, the effect is mesmerizing and somewhat disturbing. The Egyptian men, however, go nuts, shouting along to the music and periodically jumping onto the stage to bust a few dance moves and shower the blond with 1-pound (30-cent) notes.”