Category: Video answers

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Video answers: ‘Why wings don’t fall off airplanes’

Here are the answers to last Friday’s video, enjoy!

Suggested ICAO level for video: 5+

  1. It takes Boeing 12 hours to attach the wings to the fuselage.
  2. If they aren’t correctly attached the plane doesn’t move to the next phase of assembly.
  3. These ‘dihedral’ wings make the plane more stable.
  4. High wings allow trucks to drive underneath and allow the fuselage to be close to the ground for loading.
  5. The ’swept’ wing design is used in modern jets because is creates less drag and works better at high altitudes.

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Video answers: ‘How airplanes are designed to feel bigger on the inside’

Here are the answers to last Friday’s video, enjoy!

Suggested ICAO level for video: 5+

  1. It gives the customers something they need; connection to the sky as it makes them feel more comfortable.
  2. They place the seats at such a height, that when passengers are sitting, their heads are at the widest part of the cabin.
  3. Lighting is used to draw attention to specific parts of the cabin, and coloured lighting is used to indicate different phases of the flight for passengers.
  4. They want to draw you eye upward, where there’s more space.
  5. They can create rainbows, crazy light shows or even an aurora borealis.

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Video answers: ‘Smokejumpers of California’

Here are the answers to last Friday’s video, enjoy!

Suggested ICAO level for video: 5+

  1. The best part is jumping out of the plane.
  2. There’s between one minute and thirty seconds and two minutes from when the parachute opens to touching down.
  3. They have a kind of family relationship where they help each other prepare for their flights and be successful.
  4. It’s thrown to them from the plane once a drop zone is set up.
  5. They have two sleeping bags, two tools and food for three days in the fire boxes.
  6. They also get another saw box with two chainsaws and a fuel cell in it.
  7. To stop a fire spreading they cut away all of the material in an area that could burn, creating a gap that the fire cannot pass.

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Video answers: ‘Why aren’t the windows aligned with the seats on planes?’

Here are the answers to last Friday’s video, enjoy!

Suggested ICAO level for video: 5+

  1. Manufacturers design their planes with the general idea of matching the rows of seats with the location of windows.
  2. The problem is that the final position of the seats is left to each individual airline.
  3. Tracks on the floor allow for maximum flexibility in the positioning of seats.
  4. It’s the distance between a point on a seat and the same point on the seat in front of or behind it.
  5. It has decreased significantly from 34-inches a few decades ago to 31-inches today.
  6. The width of the seat is also changing, decreasing from around 18-inches in the past to as low as 16.7-inches on some flights.
  7. There is no specific limit, but an airline has to be able to evacuate its planes in less than 90 seconds, with only half of the exits available for the evacuation.

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Video answers: ‘Why people say “mayday” in an emergency’

Here are the answers to last Friday’s video, enjoy!

Suggested ICAO level for video: 5+

  1. It had to be easily understood by all pilots and ground staff.
  2. It wasn’t chosen because it was used in normal conversations which weren’t emergencies.
  3. When selecting the word to use, the English and French languages were thought about.
  4. It should be repeated three times to avoid confusion with somebody relaying a mayday call (but not in an emergency themselves) and confusion with other similar sounding words.
  5. In that case, pilots should use the expression ‘pan-pan’, again repeated three times to avoid confusion.
  6. It doesn’t mean anything, it was chosen due to its unmistakable character.

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Video answers: ‘Runway markings explained’

Here are the answers to last Friday’s video, enjoy!

Suggested ICAO level for video: 4+

  1. You use the heading and drop the final number of the three digits.
  2. In this situation the number is rounded up or down to the nearest 10. So 164 becomes 160.
  3. In the US, it would be runway ‘6’.
  4. The letters ‘l’ for left, ‘r’ for right and ‘c’ for centre are used to distinguish parallel runways.
  5. They indicate how wide the runway is.
  6. Aiming point markers give pilots an idea of where they should be touching down on the runway.
  7. Planes are allowed to use the displaced threshold for a takeoff run or to taxi, while they aren’t allowed to use a blast pad / overrun area unless it’s an emergency.

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