Ask the pilot

From giant pillows and computer-crushing seats to sudoku mania and quartz porcupines: Musings on the state of air travel.

By Patrick Smith

Read more: Technology & Business, Kurt Vonnegut, Airplanes, Business, Airports, P. Smith, Ask the Pilot

April 13, 2007 | One of the surprisingly pleasant things about the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, Calif., is that passengers board the aircraft the old-fashioned way, using a drive-up staircase. There's something dramatic about stepping onto a jet this way: the ground-level approach along the tarmac, followed by the slow ascent. The effect is similar to watching the opening credits of a film -- it's a sort of formal introduction to the journey. And to the aircraft itself. The standard boarding technique makes the plane itself feel almost irrelevant; you're merely passing from one annoying interior space (terminal) to another (cabin). This is much more impressive, and allows you to appreciate how physically imposing a jetliner really is.

I'm vexed by the widespread phenomenon of adolescent girls carrying gigantic fluffy pillows onto airplanes. Granted it's a helpful idea, now that many carriers no longer dispense even tiny, nonfluffy pillows. The trouble is, people like me are out of the club. Grown men can't walk through airports with gigantic fluffy pillows unless we're willing to get laughed at. We're stuck with those stupid inflatable neck brace things. (And I wonder, do the girls keep their pillows for an entire vacation, or are they discarded on arrival and replaced with new pillows for the trip home?)

I wonder if anybody is keeping track of how many laptop computers are destroyed each day by the viselike recline crush of economy-class seats. As the seat in front of you comes back, the tray table is geared to remain horizontal. This action jams your screen between the flat surface and the upper portion of the seat, into the rectangular recess vacated by the tray. If the obnoxious man or woman in front of you decides to recline quickly, there's almost no time to react, and the force can be violent. One solution is to angle the screen slightly forward -- making it more difficult to see. Better, try to get a seat in the emergency-exit row, where the tables are stowed in the armrests. Even without the recline hazard, working with a laptop in economy is arduous and highly uncomfortable. The positioning makes for carpal tunnel hell, and you're prone to elbowing your neighbor.

The second pleasant thing about Bob Hope Airport is the name: Bob Hope Airport. Not that I ever had much of an opinion about the famous noodle-nosed comedian, but if American airport names need anything, it's a bit of personality.

And by personality I do not mean the likes of "Tom Ridge Field" or "Houston George Bush Intercontinental." Similarly, I remain uncomfortable with the renaming of Washington National and Newark airports. Reagan National? Plain old "National" was the perfect moniker for the diminutive, domestic-only airport of Washington, D.C. (There should be a strict no-presidents rule, up to and including switching New York-JFK back to its original name, Idlewild.) And although I had no love -- who could? -- for the drabness of "Newark International," the pseudo-patriotic puffery of "Newark Liberty International" is almost unbearable. The change was made after the 2001 terrorist attacks just across the Hudson, and is yet more fulfillment of our nation's hunger for heartstring gibberish. I agree that Newark needed something different, if for no other reason than to stave off confusion, especially among travelers arriving from overseas. ("But I don't want to go to Newark, I want to go to New York!") Meanwhile, the Statue of Liberty, an icon of New York City, is barely a wingspan away. Still. "Hudson River International" would have served the same cause, and has a lot more character.

Last November, in a column about turbulence, I referred to having once seen a remarkable video of a Boeing 777 undergoing a turbulence stress test. To my surprise, YouTube has the video. Passengers frightened by rough air should find it reassuring. It gives you some idea of how much bending a wing can absorb before it structurally fails.

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