# The Great Ongoing Aviation Thread (general and other) (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 23, 2011, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499 "2011-10-23T02:17:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 473
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2026, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9443 "2026-03-17T20:54:06Z")
Gotcha šŸ˜‰ ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2026, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9444 "2026-03-20T02:50:54Z")
I went on a pleasure trip todayā€¦ I took _her_ to the airport! šŸ˜ Mid-afternoon, & a couple of TSA lines shut down but she was still thru in \<10 mins. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2026, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9445 "2026-03-21T00:49:00Z")
Only Chuck Norris could land on runway 37. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2026, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9446 "2026-03-21T03:14:59Z")
Airplanes competed for the chance to carry Chuck Norris. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2026, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9447 "2026-03-21T18:52:42Z")
[_NYT_: Seat 11A: The Windowless Inside Joke at 30,000 Feet](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/us/seat-11a-no-window-ryanair-airlines.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20260321&instance_id=172862&nl=from-the-times®i_id=22809112&segment_id=217018&user_id=a7f1a54ae999b5fbaa0da1be3ca6166a) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2026, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9448 "2026-03-21T18:53:56Z")
Paywalled. I gather that people are expecting a window seat? ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2026, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9449 "2026-03-21T19:25:36Z")
> **[Newly discovered photos show astronaut Neil Armstrong after the Gemini 8...](https://apnews.com/article/neil-armstrong-museum-gemini-8-4fb53a2c8b4735c6262313edd7a63348)** > > Previously unreleased photos show astronaut Neil Armstrong in the aftermath of a space mission that almost took his life. I find very few people, even those interested in aeronautics, know about Neil Armstrongā€™s other space flight, Gemini 8. Armstrong conducted the first human docking of two spacecraft and they later experienced an emergency due to a stuck thruster. Iā€™ve read Armstrongā€™s after-action report on that emergency. Itā€™s written in dense engineering and test pilot language and quite fascinating. Without going into hero worship and exaggeration, Iā€™d say it points to a tremendous amount of preparation and professionalism. I can only aspire to that level of airmanship. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2026, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9450 "2026-03-21T20:23:03Z")
That incident was covered in Tom Hanksā€™ _From the Earth to the Moon,_ and Iā€™ve seen a documentary or two about it, too. It was an amazing piece of piloting and calm under the most intense pressure. The consensus seems to be that Armstrong was one of the only astronauts who could have pulled it off. Failure would have meant certain death for the crew as they lost consciousness and the spacecraft spun out of control. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2026, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9451 "2026-03-21T22:18:02Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Paywalled. I gather that people are expecting a window seat? I was able to read it (Maybe it was one of my limited free NYT articles for the month). Basically, yes. On many narrowbody planes, 11A corresponds to the seat with just a blank wall and no window. Some people just find it amusing, but there is a class action lawsuit against United and Delta arguing that the airlines upsold people to a ā€œwindowā€ seat only for them to discover there isnā€™t actually a window. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2026, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9452 "2026-03-21T23:07:52Z")
I got one of those non-window seats once, but Iā€™m pretty sure it was farther aft than row 11. I think the map thatā€™s shown when booking a seat online has markings that indicate the windows, and I assumed I just hadnā€™t looked closely enough to notice that there wasnā€™t one in my row. Lesson learned. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2026, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9453 "2026-03-21T23:38:44Z")
I used to depend hugely on the old SeatGuru site to avoid such situations. But yeah, the airline automatically adding a preferred seat surcharge just because itā€™s the A or F even when there is no window is rightly annoying. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9454 "2026-03-22T13:11:59Z")
It was an important scene in the 2018 Armstrong film _First Man_, with Ryan Gosling. I first learned about it here on the Dope, about 15 years ago, in the same thread I first heard the expression ā€œbrass balls.ā€ A Doper said something like ā€œBased on what he did in Gemini 8, Armstrong must have had trouble walking, with such a big pair of brass ones.ā€ šŸ™‚ ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9455 "2026-03-22T14:22:40Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > It was an important scene in the 2018 Armstrong film _First Man_, with Ryan Gosling. I thought they did a better job with it in From the Earth to the Moon. Have to say, I thought First Man was terrible. Gosling played Armstrong robotically, which I think was off the mark. Armstrong certainly had an amazing ability to remain calm under pressure, didnā€™t generally draw attention to himself and was grievously wounded by the loss of a child. But he had a wry sense of humor, played the piano and was a pretty actualized person from all Iā€™ve read (including the book the film was based on). Similarly, I thought the depiction of Jack Swigert in Apollo 13 did the man a disservice. They made it seem like Swigert wasnā€™t quite up to the task, which could not have been further from the truth. The backups and prime crew were trained identically in case a switch was necessary. Plus, Swigert actually wrote some of the procedures on command module emergencies and was therefore just the person you wanted on that flight. And because he died in the 80s he wasnā€™t around to say anything about the film (which was mostly wonderful apart from that and a few other fictions). ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9456 "2026-03-22T14:24:26Z")
And look what they did to Gus Grissom in _The Right Stuff_. ā˜¹ ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9457 "2026-03-22T14:39:37Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > Gosling played Armstrong robotically, which I think was off the mark. Armstrong certainly had an amazing ability to remain calm under pressure, didnā€™t generally draw attention to himself and was grievously wounded by the loss of a child. But he had a wry sense of humor, played the piano and was a pretty actualized person from all Iā€™ve read (including the book the film was based on). I totally thought the same thing. Brief as their parts were, in that film the casting and acting was more on-target for Buzz Aldrin (Corey Stall) and Michael Collins (the Amish kid from _Witness_!?!). ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9458 "2026-03-22T16:20:36Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I got one of those non-window seats once, but Iā€™m pretty sure it was farther aft than row 11. I think the map thatā€™s shown when booking a seat online has markings that indicate the windows, and I assumed I just hadnā€™t looked closely enough to notice that there wasnā€™t one in my row. Lesson learned. > [@JRDelirious](#): > > I used to depend hugely on the old SeatGuru site to avoid such situations. > > But yeah, the airline automatically adding a preferred seat surcharge just because itā€™s the A or F even when there is no window is rightly annoying. Talking just about narrowbodies here ā€¦ Thereā€™s two unrelated issues. The first issue is the pitch of the seats and the pitch of the windows are different and unrelated. So thereā€™s not a window conveniently located adjacent to each seat. And along all 30-ish rows, thereā€™s bound to be a seat with a sliver of window adjacent to your seat back, and another sliver of window adjacent to the seat back in front of you. The window spacing on Airbus is different from Boeing. That, plus depending on which carrier, seat model & pitch, size of galleys, size of first class, etc., the seat rows(s) that align most badly with the windows could be anywhere from front to back. If the airplane was long enough with no mid-cabin obstructions like doors, emergency exits, or lavs, the pattern of where seat rows & windows align worst would repeat every _X_ rows. The other issue is that on Boeing narrowbodies (so nowadays 737 & legacy 757), thereā€™s two windows thatā€™re simply absent on the left side near the leading edge of the wing. And one window on the right. The sidewall interior there is just flat where the next window frame in the cadence ought to be. This pic shows the left side of the various 737 models real well. Look just above the front of the engine: **[737 fan page - Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/DB8ntFIJ9aU/)**. Hereā€™s an example showing the one missing window on the right side in the same general area; near the leading edge wing root: [![](https://www.boeing.com/content/theboeingcompany/us/en/commercial/737max/_jcr_content/root/container_2091943792/hero_teaser.coreimg.jpeg/1766087276773/737max-hero-desktop.jpeg) ](https://www.boeing.com/content/theboeingcompany/us/en/commercial/737max/_jcr_content/root/container_2091943792/hero_teaser.coreimg.jpeg/1766087276773/737max-hero-desktop.jpeg) Thereā€™s no windows there because there are air ducts there instead. The HVAC systems are in the belly abeam / a bit forward of the wings. The main ducting to distribute air all around the cockpit and cabin is in the overhead area above the window line, outboard & above the overhead bins. That air supply has to get from below the floor to above the ceiling someplace somehow. Which row number(s) are affected by the ducting non-windows varies based on cabin configuration. But for the US usual two-class breakdown, itā€™s not far from rows 11 and 13. The details differ on Airbuses, but the basic outline is the same. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9459 "2026-03-22T17:17:56Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > [_NYT_: Seat 11A: The Windowless Inside Joke at 30,000 Feet](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/us/seat-11a-no-window-ryanair-airlines.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20260321&instance_id=172862&nl=from-the-times®i_id=22809112&segment_id=217018&user_id=a7f1a54ae999b5fbaa0da1be3ca6166a) For some people, it can be a lot more than an annoyance. Being wedged up against a blank wall with your egress blocked on the other side by fat passengers can be very uncomfortable for those who might have a touch of claustrophobia, or worse, more than a touch. Of course youā€™re not going to jump out through the window even if you have one, but the psychology of openness is powerful, plus the view can be an interesting distraction in a way that a blank wall cannot. > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Paywalled. NYT is frequently paywalled, but this one is open for me. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9460 "2026-03-22T19:45:58Z")
BTW it _has_ been my experience in late years that a LOT of people in window seats are just choosing to keep the shade pulled down anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2026, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9461 "2026-03-23T00:58:19Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Being wedged up against a blank wall with your egress blocked on the other side by fat passengers can be very uncomfortable for those who might have a touch of claustrophobia, or worse, more than a touch. This. They could put a TV monitor on the wall with an image of what should be at that position. And I donā€™t accept any argument that this is too expensive. Theyā€™re charging extra for it that would easily cover the cost many many times over in the life of the plane. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2026, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/9462 "2026-03-23T01:12:59Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Theyā€™re charging extra for it that would easily cover the cost many many times over in the life of the plane. Or, they can _not_ pay for such a system and pocket the extra profit. The only thing better than ā€œmore moneyā€ is ā€œ_even_ more moneyā€. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499.md?page=472) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499.md?page=474)