If you haven't yet, please read my story published in this week's The Daily Drunk. Thanks!
Yep, this week the ol’ newsletter is coming to you from the sunny state of Florida. As much as I love dispatching from Vermont, I’m now dispatching from Florida.
A lot is made of Florida. And by “a lot,” I mean that a lot of jokes are made. Be it by the media or my friends (for the best Florida joke, please look at this video that my friend Ryan made), I have a natural inclination to make fun of Florida, though less so than I do New Hampshire. In fact, I’ve written a novella that one might say unfairly pokes fun at New Hampshire, even though, at its heart, it is mostly poking fun at, and in a mostly fair way, libertarians. Are there libertarians in Florida? I’m sure of it. There are plenty of republicans down here. Everyone knows that most republicans are one internet meme away from libertarianism. But, my time here has been full sunshine and liberalism. I liberally go in the pool. I liberally go in the ocean. I liberally drink my beer and I’ll liberally BRING IT INTO THE GOD DAMNED POOL IF I WANT TO, BOB.
Considering my day down here consists of going from my room to the fridge to the pool to the ocean, there isn’t much to dispatch. The birds are cute. The turtles are cute. I haven’t been stung by a jellyfish — the first time a woman offered to pee on me was when I was fourteen and stung by a jellyfish — yet. There are a lot of seashells.
However, on the flight here, there were some things that dawned on me. First, I should tell you that I am rather dichotomous when it comes to rules. Some I rage against with fervor, some I adhere to like the most fearful of little school boys.
Any of the rules that pertain to flying, I follow like that scared little school boy. In flight, my phone is always on airplane mode, I’m always buckled if seated, the flap is where the flap is supposed to be, and my seat and tray are in whichever position they need to be in at the moment.
Which got me thinking: how bad would it be if I didn’t put my phone in airplane mode? What if I didn’t put the flap up? And, thanks to my ADHD, it led me to wonder how much pilots actually pilot.
Well, good news. I did the research for you, er, me.
Airplane Mode:
Why do we put our phone in airplane mode? Because the airplane could fucking crash if you don’t put your phone on airplane mode.
The signals in our phone could interfere with tower communications, causing a big whoopsie on the runway. It could also mess with the airplane's navigational systems. So, put your phone in airplane mode or else you might end up dead or, more optimistically, somewhere you didn’t expect to be.
Also, not having your phone in airplane mode will cause the battery to run dry because your phone will be attempting to ping all these towers and whatnot. If we’re being honest–I am being honest–this is the worst thing that will happen if you don’t put your phone into airplane mode. As of this writing, there is no record of an airplane crashing or going somewhere wrong because some dickhead in first class was too good to put his phone into airplane mode.
The Flaps:
You know what I’m talking about with the flaps, right? The window flaps! If you haven’t noticed–most people tune out the crew during announcements on flights–every time you takeoff and land, you are asked to put the window flaps up. Is this as perilous as not putting your phone into airplane mode? Well, no. But, it is a bit darker (pun intended).
The reason you are asked to put the flaps up during takeoff and landing is so that you can see if anything is going wrong so you can prepare yourself for emergency procedures. Yeah. Just gonna go out on a limb here and say that I would probably be less prepared for emergency procedures and more prepared for emergency evacuation of my bladder into my pants.
It’s also so that rescue crews can see all the dead people who were able to see everything going on while they were in the process of dying.
Holy shit that got so dark, soooo quick.
The Pilots:
So, how much do the pilots actually fly the plane? Depends on the size of the plane. For commercial flights, the answer is… more complicated than I expected.
When you are in the air, the airplane is most likely on autopilot. However, the autopilot is dependent on the information that the pilot is feeding it.
For a 737, the autopilot is able to be engaged at 1,000 feet. In fact, two different autopilots run concurrently. My guess is that this is to make sure that any error is corrected.
These autopilots are also able to land the plane. They control the speed and direction of the plane. However, they can’t see the centerline of the runway when an airplane lands, so once all three wheels hit the ground, the pilot turns off the autopilot and takes back control of the aircraft.
I’ll link the articles I used for the info at the bottom here.
So, yeah. If you ever wondered any of those things, wonder no longer! As for me? I’m off to the pool with my girlfriend and my beer. And yes Bob, I am bringing it into the pool again.
Also of note, this past Friday I was published in The Daily Drunk. You can read that story here. It’s about beer and gout and big pharma.
Until next time! And thanks for reading!
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