Interesting Information About Airplanes

Millions of people travel in the airplanes daily. We always curious to know about secrets of the airplanes. Here, we see some of the interesting information about airplanes. The information given here are collected from a famous and brilliant YouTube channel called Captain Joe. That channel is run by an airplane pilot, Captain Joe. 

(Airbus A380)

1.   You might have seen windsock, a tubular balloon like thing, near runaways in the airports. It indicates direction and speed of the wind. It has five rings (3 red and 2 white). Each ring represents 5 knots of wind speed. It helps pilots to evaluate wind direction and speed during takeoff. Pilots adjust rudders according to the windsock indication.

2.   As like in cars, airplanes also have wipers to clean the windshields during raining. 

3.   All airplane passengers are curious about a tiny hole in the cabin windows. It is called bleed hole. The cabin windows have 3 window panes. The bleed hole is in the middle pane. It balances the air pressure between the cabin and outer pane. It also prevents fogging up of the windows. 

4.   Another thing we notice on the flying airplanes is blinking lights. Airplanes have 8 sets of lights for different purposes. The blinking strobe lights are on each wing tips and at end of the fuselage. They flash every second to indicate the plane is on air or on the runway line up. 

5.   Fuel tanks of the airplanes are in their wings and the central area between the wings. 

6.   Airplanes have static dischargers (static wicks) on the edges of wings, rudders and other edges of the planes. When airplanes fly through the clouds, the electrons accumulate on the sharp edges and create static electricity. The static wicks help to discharge the accumulated electrons. Otherwise, the static electricity disrupts radio communication of the airplanes. It creates static noise in the headphones of the pilots. It also affects the navigation antennas by creating magnetic field. 

7.   Different parts of Airbus planes are manufactured separately in Germany, UK, Spain and France. All the parts are brought and assembled in Toulouse, France and Hamburg, Germany. Airbus have new assembly plants in China and USA. 

8.   The newly manufactured parts like fuselage and wings are transported using Airbus Beluga. Airbus Beluga is a whale shaped cargo plane. 

(Airbus Beluga - Wikipedia)

9.   Cockpit has six windows. Each window is made up of three layers of glasses. They are electrically heated to avoid fogging and forming ice.

10.During emergency landing, if the pilots could not able to get out through cockpit door, there is an escape rope attached above the cockpit sliding window; they can use it to climb down through the window. 

11.There is an antenna like probe called External Visual Ice Indicator fitted between the windshields. It monitors the ice formation and rain drops during the flight and warn pilots about ice formation on the wings and engine inlets.

12.If ice formed on the wings and the front portion of the engines, hot air from the engine is directed to those places to melt the ice. 

13.Some turboprob planes have brilliant de-icing system. Their wing’s edges are coated with rubber. When ice formed on the wings, the engine’s hot air will be directed to the rubber coating. The air expands the rubber coating like a balloon and breaks the ice. 

14.Some other planes use glycol-based fluids to melt the ice on the edge of the wings. 

15.According to Captain Joe, every pilot experience two to three lightning strikes every year. 

16.Pilots are not recommended to wear polarized sunglasses. Cockpits have lot of LCD monitors, which have partially polarized filters. They emit polarized light horizontally. If the polarized sunglasses have horizontally aligned filter, pilots can see the LCD monitor straight. But, when they tilt their head, the horizontally aligned filter become vertical and blocks the light from the LCD monitors. So, whenever pilots tilt their head, they cannot see the readings on the LCD monitors. 

17.The cockpit windows are also partially polarized. When the pilots wear polarized sunglasses, they see oil like patches on the windows and get poor visibility.

18.During takeoff and landing, the flight attendants ask passengers to keep the trays up and keep the seats in upright position. During emergency, it helps all the passengers to leave the seats easier without stuck by open trays or reclined seats. 

19.During takeoff and landing at night, the flight attendants dim the cabin lights to keep the passenger’s visibility equivalent to outside darker lighting. If the cabin lights are bright and if the passengers need to leave the plane in the emergency, the eyes of the passengers take time to adjust to the darker place. So that only, they dim the cabin lights. 

20.Pilot and co-pilot eat different meals to avoid both getting food poisoning at the same time. 

If you want to know more interesting information about airplanes, watch Captain Joe’s YouTube videos. His videos are interesting for both pilots and passengers.