From giant pillows and computer-crushing seats...

[question everything]

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
Salon.com

Apr. 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.

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What's to hate most about the newest security procedures? The X-raying of footwear is now mandatory. You probably thought it was mandatory all along, but that's not the case. TSA wasn't prone to admitting it, but prior to the liquid bomb ruse of 2006, "Can you take your shoes off, sir?" was technically a request and not an order. I'd gotten into the habit of answering with, "That's all right, I'd rather keep them on." Part of the fun was watching the expressions on the screeners' faces. Usually, they'd swab my sneakers, they'd run the swab through an explosives sniffer, and off I'd go. It was actually less of a hassle, and sometimes quicker, than sending them down the belt. And it was making a statement. But all that changed last summer, for the extremely valid reason that a dimwitted group of wannabe saboteurs fantasized about blowing up planes using impossible-to-concoct liquid bombs. The ensuing carry-on restrictions were farcical enough, but will somebody please explain what shoes have to do with the alleged plot?

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You've seen the movie "Borat" and obviously you're wondering about the airlines of Kazakhstan. Last year, when comedian Sacha Baron Cohen hosted an MTV awards show in Europe, his Borat character arrived in a rickety "Air Kazakh" plane, accompanied by a one-eyed pilot swilling the requisite bottle of vodka. (All satire involving airlines of the former Soviet Union features vodka.) Up to that point, Kazakh officials had been mostly tolerant of Cohen's mockery, but they didn't take kindly to an insult against the country's national airline. After the broadcast, Yerzhan Ashykbayev, a spokesman of the Kazakh Foreign Ministry, threatened legal action. But for the record, there is no such thing as "Air Kazakh." The airline of Kazakhstan is called Air Astana, based in the capital city of the same name. Established in 2001, it flies a dozen or so 737s, 757s and Fokker turboprops. In Soviet days, the capital of Kazakhstan was Alma-Ata, which later became known as Almaty, located about 800 miles south of Astana. Little-known fact: The world's first supersonic jetliner, the Tupolev Tu-144, made its debut with Aeroflot on the glamorous Moscow to Alma-Ata route in 1975.

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http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2007/04/13/askthepilot228/