Fly Tips - San Fran
Out of context: Reply #14
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- mikotondria30
Tips for flying ? Wow, haven't heard that in years. Cool :)
Flying now is awkward and stupid. Wear shoes that slip off easily, be able to get everything out of your pockets off your feet and into a series of plastic boxes in about 15 seconds. Be able to grab it from those boxes in a scrimmage, re-shoe, and stack the boxes neatly while saying 'thank you' with a smile to some dangerous, uniformed people, in about 10 seconds.
Get to the airport early. Check in, find out if there are cool places to sit, eat, drink etc through security or if everything is 'this' side. If it's cool, get checked through security as soon as possible, assuming you don't smoke. If you do smoke, smoke loads outside, then go through.
Go straight to your departure gate, be familiar with where it is, if you've an hour or so, wander around the terminal, have a drink, eat too much, relax like you're on vacation already. Smile at people, chat to those people working that have time. Look like you do this all the time and you're just happy with life. An airport can be a dreadful place if things aren't going right, but if you're all set then an hour with just nothing to do and loads of bright, carpetted places to do it can be fine. Fine and dandy. At least half an hour before your departure time, be right at your gate. Board, get your headphones and devices to hand, greet the staff like they're old friends - they have a really hard job and to be able to do it well and make your time with them enjoyable and safe is a rare skill - they might have to save your life, treat them like angels.
If you're near the engines, then enjoy the excitingly rapid acceleration sound they make. Idling to 50trillion rpm in a couple of hundred feet, hurtling down the runway, 50, 100, 150 miles per hour !! Bumping, drama, more and more, everything tips backwards !! Ahh!! Engines whirring, whining, screaming, bonk !!! And you just step into the sky.
Watch the ground and the airport below you drop away alarmingly quickly, the plane might bank sharply and continue to hammer up into the sky, through the clouds, into the blue sky, and gently climb less steeply, level out. Engines will wind down a bit at this point - that's cool ! They don't need to work as hard up in the thin air..Bing ! You are now free to move about the cabin...
If you have a window seat use it - it's always beautiful up there. If it's an early or late flight people might want you to put the shade down so it's easier for them to sleep. You don't have to, but it's good manners. Be gracious, be the nicest guy on the plane. Chat with your seat-mate - not too much, but as much as they want. You're 5 miles up in the bright blue sky drinking booze and watching movies - it's cool. As a bonus, you might 'hit turbulence', when the plane gently wobbles or rocks or smoothly goes up dips and down bumps - it's cool. You won't die, enjoy the free excitement. Loosen your pants and shoes if you can; you'll swell up a little because of the reduced pressure in the cabin. Wear a few light layers - it can be decidedly chilly, but do wear sleeves and long pants. A portable neck pillow, either inflatable or cushioned can be fantastic value, as can an eye mask. The hours will zip by after a couple cocktails (no more), or an anti-histamine, dozing with eye mask on listening to an audiobook, or drifting in and out of an inflight movie.
Don't even think once about the plane crashing - it's so rare as to be unthinkable. You'd have to go on a flight every minute of your life for hundreds of thousands of years to even be in any sort of incident, and even then you'd have a 99% survival chance. The plane you'll be on was flying all day today, and yesterday, and all last year and the years before that; it was designed to be flying. When it's on the ground it's under great stress because of the load-bearing and the pressure - it wants to fly.
I love flying, me :) Hope you enjoy it.- ha! if only my brain was this positive. +1 to enjoying a drink or two and being early.inteliboy
- haha, yeh - You have to go all out to have a good time or air travel can be miserable. Make it easy on yourself :)mikotondria3
- Can we have this as some sort of reply of the year?
mtthwsms - haha. great post. i was right there man.sine
- abba ree i can fry!sine
- What a great post. Print this and hand it out at the airports.arthur