And another thing while I'm waiting to see if Youtube is going to upload my slideshow or not - or possibly twice - I have a question that Dr Stu is probably best-placed to answer.
On the flight out to Fuerteventura there were about 40 of us on a plane made for 150. When we boarded, the stewardess said that our seat numbers had been changed for balance. Okay, that would have sounded sensible if we'd all been spread out through the plane but about 36 passengers were in the first 10 rows. There was another couple in row 18, and then us on our own in the back row.
Are they seriously trying to suggest that the combined weight of Husband and me would balance the back end of the plane? I know my diet wasn't awfully successful but that's just plain silly.
A great metal lump of an aeroplane needing two people to stop its back end sticking up? Purlease.
5 comments:
You know Liz I think most of the weight is at the back of the plane so they had to put the lightest pair at the back ;)
Your slide show is blooming lovely!
A plane needs lift to keep it up. But the tailplane provides a downforce to keep the plane in balance. It does so be having its own (negative) angle of attack, which thus causes inefficient drag.
If more people sit at the back of the plane, the tailplane needs to provide less downforce to keep balance and so makes for less drag, the plane flies faster.
That's the one point- The other is called weight and balance. The centre of lift depends on the angle of attack of the main wing and the centre of gravity depends on how you distribute the load inside the plane. For each type of plane there is a table with which the pilot has to comply to keep the CofG in a permissable range. Excessive loading at the front is generally not a good idea, as outlined above.
I once owned a 6 seater twin-engine plane, where, of there were only 2 of us on board, the second person was not allowed in the front row :-(
Stu (inter alia, a flying instructor).
I'm sure Stu is right, but I'm going with Shirley on this one!
Err - you don't think you're a little sensitive on this issue??
Actually it was wonderful having all that room on the plane! It was the same coming back. Brilliant not to be squashed in with others.
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