Fear of Flying

Fear of flying?

Completly unfounded. You've got a better chance of dying while driving your car than you do flying in an aeroplane... And I bet that's not going to change your position on driving.

Airplanes arn't flying deathtraps either - they're more-or-less powered gliders, and will glide for miles without engine power, just look at the affectionatly called "Gimli Glider" or the Air Transat A330 (I think it was a 330, but it may have been a 320) that landed in the Azores.

Hell, even in the case of terrorism, look at the DHL airbus that got hit with a fucking missle, and still managed to turn back and land at Baghdad.

Airliners are remarkable pieces of technology - and you couldn't be safer in your own home.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Quote:

What do you mean by 'explain'?

Take-off is pretty strait-forward. Full trust until the pilot has enough airspeed, and then he pulls back gently on the stick. After gaining a bit of altitude and speed, the gears come up. After that its just a matter of climbing to cruising altitude, setting the autopilot, and then sitting back making sure nothing out of the ordinary is happening.

Landing is more involved. I pilot needs to get an approach vector, get clearance to land, and then starts the descent. You'll feel the plane slowing down and descending. As the aircraft gets slower, the pilot gives 1/4 flaps (flaps increase the lift that the wings generate). Slower still, the landing gear come down and the pilot gives 1/2 flaps. Before landing, the pilot will give full flaps and bring the nose up so that the plane can touch down on the rear wheels first. This whole time the pilot will also be making minor course corrections to line up with the runway. I imagine that while it might seem spectacular to a passenger, its not that hard with modern ILS system. A laser beam is projected out of the runway along a vector representing the perfect approach. All a pilot has to do is line up a horizontal and vertical bar on his instrument panel, keep the correct speed, and touchdown should be perfect. This isn't always the case, since headwinds, tailwinds, and crosswinds can affect the plane's approach. Once down, airbrakes and reverse thrust are used to slown the craft down quickly.

The worst thing you are likely to experience on a flight is wind sheer on landing. Wind sheer is a sudden burst of crosswind that stall a plane (disrupition of lift generated by the wings). For the unwary pilot, this can be a shock and he might end up dropping the craft on the runway like a giant sack of bricks. Wind sheer like that is reported by the tower upon approach, so pilots know what they are flying into.

Close... but a few clarifications should be made in the name of accuracy:

In a commercial airliner you'll (most of the time) line up on the runway, and apply power against brakes to make sure the engines are spooling up right - after those quick (really quick) checks are done, the brakes get released and the throttles advance to Takeoff/Go-Aroud thrust (not full thrust as that will cause the engines to burn out and need replacing ($$$$$$$$$$$)). At speed called V1 the pilot will make the final go/nogo descision - as above this speed there is no guarantee that the plane will stop on the runway/be able to make it airborne in the case of a critical engine failure. At a slightly faster speed, known as V2 plane will 'rotate' and pitch up, transferring the weight of the aircraft from the wheels onto the wings. As soon as the aircraft lifts off the runway - and there is insufficiant runway available to land - the gear will come up (definatly not before, and most definatly not after this point), and the flap retraction wil occur as per the local noise abatement procedures - usually retracting flaps and setting climb power (again, not full thrust) through 2-3000' above ground.

The landing description above is pretty good - but there arn't just 1/4 or 1/2 flap settings on large aircraft - most airlines have 6-8 different settings for flaps (marked in degrees, not 1/2 or 1/4, the fractions are only really used in small, general aviation aircraft). The landing gear will come down when landing is assured (the gear is an important thing to note - if the gear is down on an airplane and it has an engine failure - it won't climb - it may not even be able to hold altitude. That's why it's selected up immediatly after insufficient runway is availbe to land on takeoff, and not selected down until a landing is assured - the same applies for full flaps).

And the ILS isn't quite laser beams :P It's actually an interference pattern created by two different radio signals. The instrument on board determines where you are in location to the 'centre' of the localizer and glideslope (horizonal and vertical position respectivly).



And you don't need your airbrake license to operate airliners - 99% of them are hydraulic :P The aircraft may also use other lift-destroying devices such as spoilers (Spoilers are the panels that lift up on the top of the wing after landing to 'spoil' the lift and transfer the weight of the aircraft onto the wheels). Thrust reverse is usually only used in the case of slippery runway conditions - and does not decrease landing distance on dry pavement.

And just to clarify - wind shear is when the wind is producing turbulence by two layers shearing (example: layer at 1000' above ground is blowing from the north at 30 knots, while layer at 500' is blowing south, there will be heavy turbulence due to windshear between those two layers). The most dangerous part of windshear isn't the crosswind - but rather the sudden changes in head and tailwinds.

Hope this helps, I'm going to bed. PM me if you have any other questions.

There's nowhere I can't reach.