Tag: Flight

Bad Seat

There’re bus trips, I can recount where people were packed in like sardines in hot sweaty environments. Never a pleasant situation but, in such circumstances, a way of getting from A to B. Maybe the only way of taking an essential journey. Life’s necessities.

I could rattle off the mantra “any safe flight is a good flight” and that remains true. It’s top of our normal priorities. Getting from A to B in one piece. No harm done. It’s the homing pigeon in all of us. I’ll put up with this unpleasantness because it gets me home.

Last night, I had that experience. It was my first flight on a Boeing 737 MAX. I’m not going to recount the saga of that aircraft type over the last couple of years. Much as to say, I reassured a nervous flyer with me that she was quite safe and nothing bad would happen. That is bar a small amount of turbulence in our three and a half hours in-flight.

I was returning from Preveza-Lefkas [PVK] to London Gatwick [LGW] on a TUi package flight. We got into Gatwick at about 9:30 pm with a full aircraft. The temperature change of having gone from a day of sunshine and about 28 degrees C in Greece to 6 degrees C and darkness on the ground at Gatwick was quite a shock. I must admit I was prepared with three layers to keep me warm.

What I want to recount is the gross unpleasantness of seat 32D. Row 32 is the last row of passenger seats in the aircraft cabin, with two toilets behind. By the way seat 32E is just as bad.

The aircraft was chock full of holiday makers returning home. Bags full and overhead bins stuffed. This shiny new Boeing 737 was fuller than anticipated. Left on the tarmac was an EasyJet aircraft that had been expected to depart earlier in the day. It had “gone technical” – as they say. So, to get home, many passengers had transferred to the later TUi flight ensuing that every aircraft seat was full.

Now, given that I’d checked-in for my return home flight in good time and I have no idea why TUi decided to punish me. I should have spotted that 32D meant the last row of seats. But you know how it is, it was enough to get that bit of administration behind me and carry on enjoying the day.

My intention was to do what I do well, at least in the past and that’s to get some sleep on an uneventful evening flight. I was ready to sit back and wander off to dreamland hoping to wake as the aircraft wheels hit the ground back at Gatwick airport. Unfortunately, I wasn’t to be given that opportunity last night.

Toilet flush motors are not silent. With a full aircraft, and three and a half hours the toilet traffic was almost continuous. The sequence of noises had a horrible rhythm. Door open. Clack of the door latch or fumbling around as a passenger worked out how to close the toilet door. Maybe even a few words with another passenger who block the aisle. Then the clank of the toilet seat. Maybe the walls get bumped as awkward manoeuvrings took place. There was no stop to this soundscape of lavatorial processes, ablutions, and choreographies.

It’s so British to que. When the trollies were not being pushed up and down the aisle, the aisle filled up with passengers waiting for the loos. Then those returning to their seats had to squeeze past the assembled que. Naturally, the 32nd row aisle seats got to see every kind of human shape and form. Trying to ignore a rear end sliding past your face gets tedious when it happens a lot.

That’s not all. When the toilet doors swing wide open, they bump against the back of seats 32D or 32E. What a mad design or stupid afterthought.

Then there’s the issue of well used aircraft toilet facilities, even on a new aircraft. They may start off as sweat smelling as the air freshener applied. After a few hours of constant use, they are nothing like sweat smelling.

My overall message is – when flying on a Boeing 737 MAX, do not accept passenger seats 32D or 32E unless you have been a very bad person and deserve punishment. Ideally, a good airline would remove these two seats altogether but to make such a suggestion is to p*** in the wind.

Mars flight

The first time the immense challenges of controlled flight on another planet are overcome we are in a new era of aviation.

I was wondering – is there air on planet Mars? It’s one thing to say is there life on Mars? We’ve been asking that big question of generations. But can we use the word “air”? There’s a thin atmosphere on Mars but can you call it air? The rover that’s there will be listening for sounds in what is 95% carbon dioxide. That kind of atmosphere on Earth would be our worst nightmare.

Let’s look at the definition of that everyday word – air.  Air is the mixture of gases which forms the Earth’s atmosphere and which we breathe.  No way could we breath on Mars.  That gas we depend on, oxygen is down to about 0.1%. Taking that basic definition then Mars does not have “air” in the common sense.

I’m going down this rabbit hole because of the references to Ingenuity, the Mars Helicopter that is being prepared for flight. This innovative flying machine has been landed on Mars and is being referred to as a helicopter.  Now, a Helicopter is a heavier-than-air aircraft supported in flight chiefly by the reactions of the air on one or more power-driven rotors on substantially vertical axes[1].

Oh dear, there’s that reference to the air as per planet Earth.  I may be being an aviation pendant, but this could be the time to revisit the definition of helicopter and change the word “air” to “atmosphere”. Afterall, if there’s a gas of sufficent density then flight is possible with the right equipment.

Ingenuity could also be known as a Rotorcraft.  It undeniably has two rotors, so it must be a craft supported in flight chiefly by the reactions of an atmosphere. Since we are entering a new era of aviation as a human built extra-terrestrial vehicle makes a controlled flight for the first time, revisiting definition could be appropriate. 

Then Airworthiness is then better expressed as Flightworthiness. Maybe, Aircraft ought to be Flightcraft. There’s a history here given that a craft that hovers is called a Hovercraft. Which is more important? What it does or what it does it in?

Whatever the nuisances of these internationally used definitions in English, the wonder of this fantastic achievement is not lost on me.  This moment only happens once. The first time the immense challenges of controlled flight on another planet are overcome we are in a new era of aviation. 

Flying in a hostile cold, thin atmosphere will be amazing. Take-off and landing several times will be astonishing.  What magnificent engineering design. Rotors spining at 2400 rpm. This robotic rotorcraft will test the feasility of flying on another world. Imagine what that will open up. From me, all the best good fortune to the team who made this possible. Lift-off and come down in one piece. Looking foward to seeing the pictures.

[1] Annex 8 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation