GateHold

Now in Patrick Smith's ASK THE PILOT column...


"...People love embellishing the sensations of flight. They can’t help it perhaps — nervous fliers especially — but the altitudes, speeds and angles they perceive often aren’t close to the real thing.

During turbulence, for example, people believe that an airplane is dropping hundreds of feet at a time, when in reality the displacement is seldom more than 20 feet or so — barely a twitch on the altimeter.

It’s similar with angles of bank and climb. A typical turn is around 15 degrees, and a steep one might be 25. The sharpest climb is about 20 degrees nose-up, and even a rapid descent is no more severe than 10 degrees nose-down.

I can hear your letters already: You will tell me that I’m lying, and how your flight, was * definitely * climbing at 45 degrees and banking at 60.

And you’re definitely wrong.

Also routinely exaggerated are the flight times between cities. 'Oh my god, when I flew from New York to Sydney it took, like, 35 hours........."


The FULL article is here:

http://life.salon.com/2012/01/16/you...was/singleton/


Since 2002, ASK THE PILOT is the most trenchant and insightful look at all things air travel. Entry is always free.

www.askthepilot.com


(Okay, I'm ready. Let me hear about all those times you were absolutely positively climbing at 45 degrees.....)

Loren Pechtel

I don't think his beef about flight durations is on target--many people count the connection time. It could be argued either way so I don't see that he can assert that he's right.

florin

Yup, I concur on the flight time. Almost nobody I know will refer to the actual flight time for a trip.

1. First, you have the time you spend in a plane VS. actual flying time. For longhaul flights (big planes) I've often spent some 45 minutes before the gate was closed. Then there's the taxi time, which you know can be significant. Every time I fly in/out of CDG I feel that the runways are in Belgium. JFK is no picknick either. AMS has the Polderbaan but it's not that bad. I'm sure as a pilot you are familiar with this. If the flight is blocked for 8 hours (and that's how it shows on the ticket) then to common folk (not pilots, FAs, etc.) it's irrelevant that you only spend 6:45 in the air.
2. People do count connections. If you have a 2 hour layover, it counts as travel time. Nobody says "I traveled for 18 hours - spent 12 of those in the air".
3. A lot of people (including myself) count the additional time spent in the airport. That's time when you're actually traveling; you're just not in the air. As a pilot you walk through security, but as a pax you can spend significant time in security / check-in lines. To me if I'm in the airport, I'm traveling. (If it's for work it counts as travel time.)
4. As a mental shortcut, when I consider the travel time I actually mean the time spent between leaving my origin and arriving at my destination. That's the time spent from the moment I walk out the door at my house to the moment I walk into the hotel room (or viceversa). A trip I used to fly very often would take almost exactly 24 hours. Actual flying time was ~14 hours, but with layovers, transfers, cabs, shuttles, it got up to that.

So people are not necessarily exaggerating when they say that it took 35 hours form NY to Oz, it's just that they refer to the travel time rather than the actual flight time.

I agree with you on the turbulence and the angles though.

Loren Pechtel

Actually, I do tend to treat them separately. I'm in the minority in this regard, though.

NYC96

....actually, flight crews separate them as well. Flight time and BLOCK/BLOCK TIME not only have separate meanings, but, pay as well. Crews are paid: block to block.

LOL, here's another exaggeration: I fly more then you do. <G>