Thanksgiving airplane question?

Question

I have a question about small commercial aircraft. While flying on Delta airlines hopper jet CRJ-700 they told me I had to open my window shade while taking off and landing, in fact after asking a couple of travelers they told me the same thing, on small jets they make you open the window shade. I was wondering if anyone knew the answer to why they do that?

Answer 1

Takeoff and landing is the most dangerous times for a flight; if you're going to crash, it's most likely to happen then instead of while you're cruising. Many airlines ask you to raise the window shades during takeoff and landing so that, in the event of a crash, passengers can see out the window and make sure the way they're planning on exiting is clear (no fire, wreckage, etc blocking the exit). Also your eyes will adjust to the lighting level outside which will help you evacuate quickly (imagine if it is pitch dark outside and bright inside the plane, then all of a sudden having to rush outside, your eyes need time to adjust and you might not have the time in an emergency). Plus you'll easily be able to tell which way is "up" if you can see out the window.

It's not a law that the shades have to be up. I've been on identical planes going to identical routes and sometimes the shades go up, sometimes they don't. It's at the discretion of the flight attendants. Usually they'll insist that the folks in the exit rows keep the shades up for every flight but not the rest of the cabin. But there's a lot of other factors involved. When you fly around dawn or dusk or in the dark, they are more aggressive about asking that the shades are up, because the interior light is very different than the exterior light. They do tend to ask you to put the shades up on small planes more often than large planes, possibly because smaller planes crash more often than bigger planes. If there's a lot of little kids on the plane, they seem to ask that the shades go up, too. If there's a lot of wind close to the ground, it's usually a more dangerous takeoff and the shades go up then, too.

So it's for your safety but there's no hard and fast rule about when the flight attendants insist on it. Personally I keep the shade up for takeoff and landing no matter what the FA's ask. Also, keep your shoes on during takeoff and landing, too, because if you do have to evacuate the plane, you really don't want to be slowed down by having to find your shoes and you really don't want to evacuate barefoot.

Answer 2

Fuel!!! During takeoff the small planes need to burn fuel so that the plane is not too heavy(the warmer the plane, the more fuel that is burned) during landing each plane has to have burned a certain amount of fuel by the time they land; in order for them to land, the plane needs to get warmer to burn more fuel so that the plane will be light enough for landing......it is the exact opposite for large planes, they sometimes ask you to close the shades so that they don't burn as much fuel(high oil costs). I hope this answers your question.

Answer 3

no longer a lot contained in the morning. later on contained in the evening flights each and every from time to time top off, yet no longer continually. in case you go away in morning like round 10 or 11 am, you ought to hear crickets contained in the airport...LOL. everyone's already the position they are going, getting waiting turkeys and gazing football (the first sport kicks off at 9:30 am Pacific).