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Authors: Patrick Smith
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unsafe or anything remotely close to it. The long answer is more nuanced. Whether regional aircraft are, on some level, less safe than mainline jets is open to debate. There is no practical reason why anybody should outright avoid smaller planes, but itâs still a debate worth having:
Size, strictly speaking, isnât the issue. I canât speak to claustrophobia or absence of legroom, but there is almost nothing about an airplaneâs size that correlates one way or the other to the likelihood of it crashing. A modern turboprop or regional jet can cost tens of millions of dollars, and if you havenât noticed, that money isnât going into catering and sleeper seats; itâs going toward the same high-tech avionics and cockpit advancements youâll find in a Boeing or Airbus. These planes might be small, but quaint they are not. And, so you know, pilots bristle at the term âpuddle jumperâ the same way an environmental scientist bristles at âtree hugger.â
Of course, a plane is only as safe as the crew flying it, and there has been controversy over the training and experience levels of regional pilots. With wages and working conditions at regional carriers notoriously substandard, it has become increasingly difficult for these companies to recruit and retain experienced pilots. New hires have been brought aboard with surprisingly low flight time totals. More about this in chapter four ( see regional pilots ).
Love them or hate them, RJs are here to say. In the United States, RJs now account for more than 50 percent of all flights. There are literally dozens of different âExpressâ and âConnectionâ affiliates hitched up with the majors. Unbeknownst to most travelers, these carriers operate independently from the majors, sharing little more than a flight number and paint job. They are subcontractors, with entirely separate management structures, employees, and training departments.
Iâve been on flights where we circled for an hour before landing. How much fuel is on board for these situations? Do airlines cheat to save money?
If youâre impressed by big numbers, youâll be grabbing for the high-lighter when you find out a 747 tops off its tanks at just over 45,000 total gallons. It takes around 11,000 to fill a 737 or A320. A fifty-seater with propellers might hold less than a thousand gallons. Paltry in comparison, but still enough to drive your car from Washington to California six times. Fuel is stored in the wings, in the center fuselage, and even in the tail or horizontal stabilizers. The cargo jet I used to fly had eight separate tanks, and much of my job was moving their contents around to keep them balanced.
Flights rarely depart with full tanks, however, as lugging around excess tonnage is expensive, impractical, and limits cargo or passenger payload. The amount to be carried is a somewhat scientific undertaking, with some hard-and-fast rules. Crews do not ballpark the load with a cursory glance at a gauge, as you might do in a car before a road trip. Itâs the dispatchers and flight-planning staff who do the calculating, in strict accordance to a long list of regulations. They are intricate, especially when flying internationally, and can vary from country to country (a plane is beholden to its nation of registry, plus any local requirements if theyâre more stringent), but the U.S. domestic rule is a good indicator of how conservatively things work: There must always be enough to carry a plane to its intended destination, then to its designated alternate airport(s), and then for at least another 45 minutes. The resulting minimum is nonnegotiable. Sometimes, if weather criteria so dictate (the particulars are very specific), two or more alternates need to be filed in a flight plan, upping the total accordingly. If traffic delays are expected, even more will be added. And although dispatchers and planners devise the figures, the captain
Size, strictly speaking, isnât the issue. I canât speak to claustrophobia or absence of legroom, but there is almost nothing about an airplaneâs size that correlates one way or the other to the likelihood of it crashing. A modern turboprop or regional jet can cost tens of millions of dollars, and if you havenât noticed, that money isnât going into catering and sleeper seats; itâs going toward the same high-tech avionics and cockpit advancements youâll find in a Boeing or Airbus. These planes might be small, but quaint they are not. And, so you know, pilots bristle at the term âpuddle jumperâ the same way an environmental scientist bristles at âtree hugger.â
Of course, a plane is only as safe as the crew flying it, and there has been controversy over the training and experience levels of regional pilots. With wages and working conditions at regional carriers notoriously substandard, it has become increasingly difficult for these companies to recruit and retain experienced pilots. New hires have been brought aboard with surprisingly low flight time totals. More about this in chapter four ( see regional pilots ).
Love them or hate them, RJs are here to say. In the United States, RJs now account for more than 50 percent of all flights. There are literally dozens of different âExpressâ and âConnectionâ affiliates hitched up with the majors. Unbeknownst to most travelers, these carriers operate independently from the majors, sharing little more than a flight number and paint job. They are subcontractors, with entirely separate management structures, employees, and training departments.
Iâve been on flights where we circled for an hour before landing. How much fuel is on board for these situations? Do airlines cheat to save money?
If youâre impressed by big numbers, youâll be grabbing for the high-lighter when you find out a 747 tops off its tanks at just over 45,000 total gallons. It takes around 11,000 to fill a 737 or A320. A fifty-seater with propellers might hold less than a thousand gallons. Paltry in comparison, but still enough to drive your car from Washington to California six times. Fuel is stored in the wings, in the center fuselage, and even in the tail or horizontal stabilizers. The cargo jet I used to fly had eight separate tanks, and much of my job was moving their contents around to keep them balanced.
Flights rarely depart with full tanks, however, as lugging around excess tonnage is expensive, impractical, and limits cargo or passenger payload. The amount to be carried is a somewhat scientific undertaking, with some hard-and-fast rules. Crews do not ballpark the load with a cursory glance at a gauge, as you might do in a car before a road trip. Itâs the dispatchers and flight-planning staff who do the calculating, in strict accordance to a long list of regulations. They are intricate, especially when flying internationally, and can vary from country to country (a plane is beholden to its nation of registry, plus any local requirements if theyâre more stringent), but the U.S. domestic rule is a good indicator of how conservatively things work: There must always be enough to carry a plane to its intended destination, then to its designated alternate airport(s), and then for at least another 45 minutes. The resulting minimum is nonnegotiable. Sometimes, if weather criteria so dictate (the particulars are very specific), two or more alternates need to be filed in a flight plan, upping the total accordingly. If traffic delays are expected, even more will be added. And although dispatchers and planners devise the figures, the captain
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