Airplanes - Page 18

We don’t tend to think much about airplane windows, and when we do, it’s often for the wrong reason. If you aren’t a pilot or airline industry insider, you can hear all sorts of horror stories about windows cracking, but surely they’re stronger than that, right? Well, thankfully, yes – airplane windows aren’t made from

Retard means reduce engine thrust to idle. Here is why Airbus jets call RETARD at 20 feet on landing, and what Boeing shows on screen instead.

It has been a little over 130 years since the Wright Brothers first flew, and a little over 50 years since Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. Both the Wild Blue Yonder and the Final Frontier have long excited the imagination, but why aren’t they one and the same? Why can’t planes fly into

It’s all too easy to take the pace of air travel today for granted. Trips that took days or weeks to complete in the era of steamships and steam engines can be completed in mere hours in the age of commercial jetliners. Yet planes aren’t seem to be getting any faster. Why don’t planes fly

We think of airplanes today as being able to take us anywhere. We expect planes to be able to take everywhere from Boston to Berlin to Baghdad to Beijing and beyond, but there are limits to this. Extremely hot weather can leave flights grounded. So why can’t planes fly in extreme heat? Reduced air density,

Flying in icy conditions can be dangerous under the best circumstances. If possible, storms and cold conditions are best avoided. However, that simply isn’t realistic for pilots in cold weather climates. As such, pilots need to make sure that their planes are as ice-free as possible, which means de-icing them. Why Are Planes Deiced? For

Believe it or not, but planes get hit by lightning at a rate that is more frequent than you might expect. With between 8,000 and 20,000 planes in the air at any given moment, what are the odds of your plane being hit by lightning? More importantly, does it pose a threat to the safety

Have you ever wondered what helps an airplane stay together while traveling at high speeds? There is a world of technology that goes into making today’s fastest jets, and it just keeps getting better. Let’s take a closer look at some factors of why airplanes are riveted instead of welded. Why are airplanes riveted instead

Most people are aware that airplanes dump fuel before they land, but many people are unaware of why they do this. Airplane fuel can cost $5 to $6 per gallon, and when you consider that many large planes carry up to 5,000 gallons of fuel, it may sound wasteful to dump it, but that isn’t

There has been a terrible accident, the pilot and copilot are dead, and the call goes out to the passenger cabin – “Can anyone land this plane?” Wouldn’t it be nice to be the action movie-esque figure who is able to stand up, save the day, and land the plane with the utmost cool? Can