Airline Trivia
Today is the twentieth anniversary of the U.S government banning smoking on domestic flights of under two hours duration. They chose two hours because tests showed hard core smokers would probably spontaniously combust if denied a smoke for any longer than that. Flight attendants were given gum and candy to soothe, or, alternately, throw at angry passengers who couldnt cope. How many lives this ban saved in terms of health and aircraft safety is unknown. I wish theyd move on and ban alcohol on flghts. Im not against people lightening the mood on a long flight but alcohol is the wrong substance... it dehydrates in an already dry atmosphere and triggers mood changes. Its also flammable. Try hash cookies. If the drug sniffer dog detects them you can feed it one and give it a sick day back at the kennel.
Website for today is FAA.gov. Any questions you have about airline flying should be answered there, and if not dont blame me because its Washington, and what happens in Washington is no ones fault. The National Airspace System in the U.S is your aviation infrastructure, and before you complain about your next flight delay, consider the numbers. The U.S has 690 air traffic control facilities, 19,800 airports, 11,120 navigation facilities, 13,000 instrument flight procedures nationwide which allow planes to land in bad weather, and last year approximately 48,200,000 flights did exactly that. That number does not include all the light aircraft doing visual flights at lower altitudes or guys in deck chairs with military surplus helium balloons.
The FAA expects U.S airlines to carry 45% more passengers in 2015 than they do today, and the crunch is no one seems to be building more airports. In fact they are closing the smaller ones down purportedly because of noise concerns and environmental issues but mostly because the land is so damn valuable. I could rant on for pages about the wisdom of deleting transport infrastructure and thus forcing increased traffic on to the remaining facilities but the proof is delayed flights, and its going to get worse. Imagine what your commute would be like if your city started closing roads instead of building or upgrading them while traffic built by 45% over seven years. What Im saying here is start buying shares in Trailways and Greyhound.
Also see that LAX and New York have introduced the backscatter xray technology trialled in Colorado. One guy sits in a tiny room shut off from the world and watches distorted images of seemingly naked people for hours on end. Tell me that isnt a dream job for a select group of fifteen years olds with personal problems. The company that introduced this freakish xray machine will make a fortune out of it, but sooner or later theyll move to the next level, which is already being muttered about... remote electronic internal scanning ( think iRobot with a latex glove ), just in case youre smuggling duty free lawnmower engines or pineapples or something. Wonder if the next generation will be able to detect tumours?
