February 22, 2011
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Negative, Ghost Rider. The pattern is full…
Posted by Sammy
Feb 22 8pm
From Home
I made it! Even with kids on the plane! Though I have to say the kids didn’t make a peep. Guy in the row behind me, however is another story. With all the narrative inflection of Rain Man, he was giving his (i assume) wife the play by play of taxi, takeoff and landing down to the gallons of jet fuel being pumped into the plane and what could go wrong. Great. Please shut up, sir. We’re on a plane. If the engine stalls, you can’t exactly pull over, put the hood up and call AAA. The plane is a toothpick with wings. We all have windows and can see what is happening. Shut up.
So on the subject of the flight, it was smooth but lets tackle one subject. See for those of you who do not fly much or not at all, pilots of different airlines have different styles of descending into the airport to land. For example:
Delta: The slow and steady approach. They just take their time and level off altitude so slowly you hardly notice except that the flight attendants go back to the galley.
Pros: Very smooth. Plenty of time to adjust your ears and finish your e-book.
Cons: You start your “initial descent” about an hour before you get there so by the time you put your headphones away you still have to sit there for 25 minutes staring out the window at a cloud.
Air Tran: The B52. These guys circle forever scrubbing off about 1000 feet per turn. Its like a big carousel in the sky.
Pros: Efficient, doesn’t make ears go pop too bad and you know for sure when you need to put your stuff away.
Cons: Looking out your window and realizing you are at 30,000 ft and banking harder than Dale Earnhardt Jr. in turn 4 at Talladega can be a little disconcerting.
Southwest: Ok, lets face it. No one knows what happens on those planes since your are sitting next to total strangers and the goofy polo-shirt wearing “flight attendants” are trying so hard to make everyone laugh and be sky buddies youre just hoping that maybe the pressure change will blow out your eardrums and you wont have to listen to them anymore.
And then there is Continental. Now the nice part about this airline is if you play your cards right you can get a pretty awesome deal that avoids a layover and gets you professional flight attendants and the option to purchase what is, in all honesty a pretty tasty snack pack. The downside? The method of approach here is pretty much “Hey! There’s the airport. Time to point the plane down!” I had my stomach shoved up into my nostrils like it was the last drop on Millennium Force. After my brain stopped floating about 3000 feet above me and returned to my skull, i took that as my signal to discontinue my use of electronic devices.
On behalf of Continental Airlines and your Houston based flight crew, we’d like th thank you for flying with us today.
As I said it was a great trip down for me and im looking forward to getting back over spring break. Like we both have posted on Facebook, we did get the chance to see a FANTASTIC concert on thursday by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. If you havent heard of them, look them up…it was one of the best concerts I have ever seen of any music genre. Really it was just a treat to get to see them perform and I NEVER say that….ask my students
If you get the chance to see them live, GO. Super talented and clearly love what they are doing. It was a really genuine performance…zero irony or pretentiousness. Here are a couple of Youtube links. One is a high quality video of them on the ellen show, the other is a pretty good fan-shot video of a performance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk2E22uHAp8 Ellen link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDKYWQOyH_g Fan-shot
Sammy
