Stick-in-the-mud that I am, I still look at the safety card (in the seat pocket in front of me) every time I fly. I heard somewhere that those are the people who survive crashes.
Oh I read them too, I do recommend that you read them! They are there for a reason! I nerd out on planes (and trains!) looking at all the different implementations of safety features.
The human factors side of aviation can be frustrating because people just …people. And people do weird and unexpected things no matter how carefully you worded the little or big sign that tells them precisely what to do or no matter how often they did the exact same thing correctly until they didn’t.
I often find myself trying to rationalize things and say things like “I’d do this …do people do this?”.
Speaking of Pan Am …
Here’s an article from Aviation Week that’s free to all for the next month or so about yet another attempt by some investors to revive the brand. It’s real early going, but they’re trying.
IMO it’s utterly pointless; the people the brand meant something to are almost all dead now. Their grandkids are the age to be buying tickets and they know “Pan Am” about as well as us Doper fogeys know the major passenger railroads of 1890.
I know Pan Am (as more than just a police constable, too); always sort of regretted that I never got to fly on that airline.
I flew them on two occasions.
Once around 1968-1970 when they were still in decent shape. There was exactly zero special about them compared to other major US airlines.
Once in 1989 when I was interviewing for a job with them. They were raggedy has-beens held together by habit by then. Thank goodness I wasn’t hired or my career would’ve probably been even worse than it turned out to be.
I know the glamor days were over by the time I would have been old enough to appreciate them, and “Clipper” was just a name they stuck on anything with wings, but I do love some history with my travels. I flew Delta to Laguardia once because they were using the old Marine Air Terminal at the time.
They were the ones with service to the Moon, right? But even that ended about 24 years ago.
/alttimeline
I totally get the romance of the golden age of aviation. And yes, visiting the MAT was cool. As were other iconic airport facilities around the country. I got to do a lot of that and savored the opportunities when they presented themselves. All that stuff makes great museum fodder.
But it doesn’t make a competitive airline product in 2025 or 2028 (at best) when they finally get going. The two earlier failed Pan Am reincarnations did nothing but tarnish what little brand value remains on their way to Chapter 7 bankruptcy. These new folks will almost certainly suffer the same fate.
Down here in Miami, Eastern Airlines was the hometown hero. And an objectively pretty great outfit until Frank Fucking Lorenzo was allowed to buy and loot it. There have since been one and a half reincarnations of that brand too. To no great results.
I remember an episode of Three’s Company that somehow involved Pam Ann, a small local airline operated by women named Pam and Ann.
After some scrubbed attempts, NASA’s X-59 QueSST flew for the first time from Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale on Oct. 28, 2025.
In a landmark milestone for aeronautical research, NASA’s experimental X-59 QueSST (Quiet SuperSonic Technology) conducted its maiden flight today. The aircraft, designed and built by Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works at the Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, will be used to pave the way for the return of supersonic airliners.
A long way to go yet but at least it exists.
The X‑59 is equipped with multiple systems designed specifically to protect the pilot. Its life support system delivers oxygen to compensate for low atmospheric pressure at altitudes around 55,000 ft, while also powering Larson’s g‑suit. As another safety layer, the aircraft features an ejection seat and canopy adapted from a U.S. Air Force T‑38 trainer, outfitted with essentials such as a first aid kit, radio, and water.
I can understand that the pilot might get a special flight suit, but a g-suit? Planning on some really serious airframe stressing?
And I love the shot of the cockpit with the synthetic vision wind screen.
Why wouldn’t the pilot wear speed jeans?
I don’t know anything about test flying. It just didn’t seem like a technology demonstrator for what would eventually be a transport aircraft would be doing a lot of prolonged high g maneuvering. But, again, what do I know? 
I’m always open to being educated. (It’s why I come to SDMB. Well, that and the entertainment factor, of course. 
)
Probably for the same reason we wear seat belts. It’s for when crap happens.
At those speeds, any maneuver could be relatively high-G.
A G-suit on that airplane seems a bit performative to me, but there may be more going on than we think.
I don’t know how much the demonstrator is cobbled together from other high performance jets. As mentioned in many articles, they borrowed the canopy structure from a T-38. How much else did they borrow? Perhaps the environmental & pressurization system as well which included the G-suit offtake & control mechanism?
Point being, that with an irreplaceable demonstrator, you’d prefer the pilot not be the weak link. They may be planning no more than 2.5G maneuvers, but if the aircraft, or most of it, can withstand 6Gs, be nice if the pilot would remain functional throughout that envelope.
As demonstrated by all the very high performance ICE airshow planes these days (Extra, etc.), pilots can pull a LOT of Gs without a G-suit. The suit sure helps with sustained Gs.
With the safety card open I always make eye contact with the FA during the safety talk so they know I’m one of the good ones. And I always look around me for the closest exit doors.
Makes sense. Thanks, LSLGuy.
I always count the rows to the nearest exit door. Mostly to alleviate a little boredom while sitting there waiting to leave the gate and partly because it is a small thing to do that just might be important.
Oooh look, theres this neat slot to hold my laptop
(powered on laptop slips down into cargo hold so Dulles to Rome flight turns around two hours in out of an abundance of caution)