747 Problems
Another air travel/crash/anxiety dreamm. I have them all the time:
The flight should be fine, and it's some kind of 747, or a model much like it. Lots of brigh orange and Cherokee red trim and plastic and dense carpeting. Quiet inside, despite the bustle of the hundreds cramming into the flying aluminum tube. It's an overseas flight, so we'll be full.
We taxi, and I'm looking out a massive window that's more like the observation gallery in the scenic car of a train than something on a plane. It's neat, sure, but is it strong enough for pressurization? Can it take the speeds and stresses of the plane?
We taxi, and it looks like we're actually taxiing right through another plane. I see the rows of seats outside my window, elements of fuselage, like our plane is moving up and through another, just like it. Strangely fascinating, but also discomforting.
We hit the runway, lots of green outside. We come up to speed, and I note that I'm right behind and below the flight deck, the backs of the crew's seats just in front of me. I'm listening to their conversation, and can hear the different radio feeds and what they're saying. I've flown enough, and I know that we've got to get to V1 speed, which is take-off speed, and then the pilot eases the stick back to lift the aircraft up and off. It's all about achieving and holding the speed to create the lift that will get us off the ground.
So we get up to speed, at least it seems that way to me. But I don't hear a "V1" call from the cockpit. And we're really moving down the runway, easily 150mph. Sure, it's a big plane, and I know we're at a big airport, but there's only so much runway, at the absolute most maybe about 15,000 feet. Who knows how much we've already used, but some quick calculations tell me that every second we're losing another 200 feet (not bad for a dream, as the real figure is 220 feet per second at 150 mph). That's a run of about a minute, tops, before there's no more runway, and the fences, walls, grass, trees, and other non-jumbo-jet-compatible items begin to crop up.
There's some insistent chatter on the radio, and the crew is talking fast, voices rushed. Yup, something isn't right, as I could tell. They confer, we're still hurtling down the tarmac, engines at full power. And then immediately they cut back, full thrust reversers on with the brakes down hard. We're really slowing, and I wonder when I'll feel the landing gear come off the runway and start to plow through the dirt and sand at the end. Will the fence cut the plane open, or will we just slice on through it?
And quickly, very quickly, we stop. Everyone behind me is freaking out. The crew is calm and ultimately professional, quietly telling each other how great they did to get us to stop.
They come on the intercom to tell us that we're headed back to the terminal to have an engine looked at. A male voice a few rows back says clearly, "No shit."
The flight should be fine, and it's some kind of 747, or a model much like it. Lots of brigh orange and Cherokee red trim and plastic and dense carpeting. Quiet inside, despite the bustle of the hundreds cramming into the flying aluminum tube. It's an overseas flight, so we'll be full.
We taxi, and I'm looking out a massive window that's more like the observation gallery in the scenic car of a train than something on a plane. It's neat, sure, but is it strong enough for pressurization? Can it take the speeds and stresses of the plane?
We taxi, and it looks like we're actually taxiing right through another plane. I see the rows of seats outside my window, elements of fuselage, like our plane is moving up and through another, just like it. Strangely fascinating, but also discomforting.
We hit the runway, lots of green outside. We come up to speed, and I note that I'm right behind and below the flight deck, the backs of the crew's seats just in front of me. I'm listening to their conversation, and can hear the different radio feeds and what they're saying. I've flown enough, and I know that we've got to get to V1 speed, which is take-off speed, and then the pilot eases the stick back to lift the aircraft up and off. It's all about achieving and holding the speed to create the lift that will get us off the ground.
So we get up to speed, at least it seems that way to me. But I don't hear a "V1" call from the cockpit. And we're really moving down the runway, easily 150mph. Sure, it's a big plane, and I know we're at a big airport, but there's only so much runway, at the absolute most maybe about 15,000 feet. Who knows how much we've already used, but some quick calculations tell me that every second we're losing another 200 feet (not bad for a dream, as the real figure is 220 feet per second at 150 mph). That's a run of about a minute, tops, before there's no more runway, and the fences, walls, grass, trees, and other non-jumbo-jet-compatible items begin to crop up.
There's some insistent chatter on the radio, and the crew is talking fast, voices rushed. Yup, something isn't right, as I could tell. They confer, we're still hurtling down the tarmac, engines at full power. And then immediately they cut back, full thrust reversers on with the brakes down hard. We're really slowing, and I wonder when I'll feel the landing gear come off the runway and start to plow through the dirt and sand at the end. Will the fence cut the plane open, or will we just slice on through it?
And quickly, very quickly, we stop. Everyone behind me is freaking out. The crew is calm and ultimately professional, quietly telling each other how great they did to get us to stop.
They come on the intercom to tell us that we're headed back to the terminal to have an engine looked at. A male voice a few rows back says clearly, "No shit."
posted by Scrumpox at 8:45 AM
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