Ask the pilot

Do airplanes make you fart more? What happened to the dog hair on my suitcase? The pilot lets us in on readers' probing questions.

By Patrick Smith

Read more: Technology & Business, Flying, Airlines, Business, Airports, P. Smith, Ask the Pilot

Oct. 26, 2007 | Some serious aviation stories have been making the rounds this week. The controversy over NASA's pilot survey, for example. And how about the Department of Homeland Security's latest "Secure Flight" proposal, asking that foreign governments hand over a docket of personal data on all airline passengers bound for the United States. That data can include, among other things, a flier's reading preferences and -- I am not making this up -- sexual habits. We'll get to this stuff next week; that last one is so nutty that it will take a few days for my head to stop spinning. Until then, some refreshment.

The early days of this column -- it's now in its sixth year -- followed a pretty standard format. I'd begin with a brief intro, then segue into a series of questions and answers. Hence the title, "Ask the Pilot." The Q&A structure was eventually outgrown, but I still go back to it now and again -- most recently a week ago. I have always used actual, reader-submitted questions, edited for clarity as need be. The first-ever question, I remember, came from Carol Steinfeld, a woman in Boston who once wrote a guide to using human urine as fertilizer. "How the heck do planes fly in the first place?" she wanted to know. "How can something that big and heavy stay aloft?" It was at once a sophomoric and profoundly sensible question. It later became the opening question in my book as well.

As more and more letters came in, I began to get a sense of which things irked, frustrated and in some cases terrified the flying public. Certain subjects I expected to be popular -- questions about the use of cellphones during flight, for instance -- while others caught me by surprise. I continue to be amazed at the number of fliers petrified by turbulence. And I had no idea how many people scoff at the notion that onboard flotation devices are in fact useful and potentially lifesaving accouterments. Until finally I devoted a myth-busting column to the topic, snarky e-mails about "water landings" were rivaled in number only by those asking about the dangers of rough air. And last but not least, I've discovered that people's hatred for the airlines runs far, far deeper than I ever imagined. Heaven knows how many letters I've fielded in total, but the filing cabinet would go something like this.

1. Any and all gripes against airlines, from canceled flights to lost luggage to the poor quality of public address announcements.

2. Comments, complaints and diatribes about airports. This includes everything from critiques of in-terminal restaurants to rants about security.

3. Fear-of-flying concerns, a fair number of which are totally beyond reason and impossible to respond to.

4. Everything else.

Item 3 notwithstanding, I've been impressed with the quality and thoughtfulness of your letters. On the whole, readers have intelligent, provocative and often challenging questions. But as you might expect, I have also received my share of weird, ridiculous, rude and occasionally incomprehensible letters. Having dutifully saved most of these, allow me now to share some of my favorites. The selections below, honest and unretouched, are culled from five-plus years of reader correspondence. I was inspired to do this after recently rediscovering the old Spalding Gray monologue "Terrors of Pleasure" -- specifically, the segment in which Gray plays for his audience an answering machine cassette containing the long, unintentionally hilarious message left by the con man he's trying to buy a house from. My own archive might not be as funny, but I can't resist. Ideally each of these should be followed by a pithy retort from the author, but as you'll see, many are simply too strange, eliciting nothing more than a big, italicized WHAT? In no particular order ...

Q: Say a pilot lives in Detroit, but flies the route Houston to Mexico City. Would it be possible to also fly the route of Detroit to Houston, even though they have different flight numbers?

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Q: I know what you think but how many lasers did it taken in theory to project those planes onto the world trade center and not the real things? No bullshit.

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Q: I just got back from vacation, and I'm positive that airplanes make me fart more. I fly a lot, and I can definitely say there's a lot more flatulence going on when I'm airborne. Does this have anything to do with pressurization? I've also realized that with so much ambient noise, you can really rip 'em without being heard. Together, these two things lead me to believe that airplane seats are actually designed for farting. Can you confirm or deny this?

Author's note: There is an air pressure factor at play here. But the topic is gross and I really don't feel like explaining it.

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Q: I just want to say how much I appreciated the use of the word "bollocks" in your most recent column. It's a much underused word outside of Britain, and I wish that more American writers would employ it. When reading articles on the Internet, I can often see places in their writing where I would consider "bollocks" to be essential. Yet sadly it is missing.

Author's note: In addition to the instance cited above, an archives search reveals that I have used the term "bollocks" three other times since 2002.

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Q: I was visiting friends in Santa Fe last year, and by the time I left their house, my black canvas soft-side suitcase was covered in dog hair from their Labrador retriever. I tried brushing it off, but it clung tenaciously. It looked horrible, like I'd been staying in a doghouse. I thought for sure I'd need several sessions with a lint roller when I got home. But, when I picked up my luggage in Baton Rouge, I was astonished to see that not one dog hair remained on my suitcase, not even in the seams! Does passing through the X-ray machines somehow give the dog hair an opposite electric charge, so that it flies off? And if this does happen, where does the dog hair go?

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Next page: Is it true that pilots aren't allowed to ingest garlic prior to flying?