Flying Lessons for Passengers

During a flight have you ever sat looking around the passenger cabin wondering what was happening? Like me, you will have felt the aircraft move, heard some loud bangs and grinding noises, and perhaps more worryingly, noticed frequent changes in engine noise. For me, ignorance is not bliss. In fact, it can quickly lead to anxiety if I consider the worst. So, for my peace of mind, I decided to find out what was going on while I sat quietly waiting to get to my destination.

The first thing I found out was that throughout the flight there is a lot happening, much of which we do not appreciate. The pilots are there for a good reason and not just to thank us for travelling with “Super Deluxe Airways” and “Hoping we will choose to fly with them again”. My second  surprise was that it seems that all flights, disregarding the length of the journey, the destinations and even the nationality of the airlines, follow roughly the same sequence of events and adopt similar procedures. Finally, and thankfully, I discovered that although aeronautics is a technically sophisticated subject, it is possible to explain the flight operations without getting too involved with scientific and mathematical mumbo-jumbo.