Airplane

From Encyclopedia Dramatica

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A typical airplane.

An airplane, commonly and incorrectly referred to as a jet or plane, is a large device used to carry fat Americans distant places, like Frog Balls, Arkansas. Airplanes can also be used as weapons, or have weapons attached to them for military applications. Airplanes come in all shapes and sizes, going from one-seaters to being able to hold 700 people.

A Typical Airplane

Average airplanes mating

What most people call a "plane" is a medium-to-high density passenger airliner, with most varieties being built by Airbus, Boeing, Embraer, Ilushin or Canadair. They seat between 130-450 people on average, depending on the size. Major airports see more medium and large-sized jets, while smaller towns see small, "puddle hopper" jets/turboprops, that seat between 5-25.

Brief History

In the early-mid 1900s, the Wright Brothers proved flight was possible in Kitty Hawk with their paper-mache aircraft. Over the next 60 years, things were pretty bad. Flights fell out of the sky, disappeared or disintegrated. Reliability and safety became a priority, and things calmed until the 1970s when Pilot error became the crash favorite. In 1977, the worst aviation disaster occurred in Tenerife, causing some 700 deaths. It was later discovered to be pilot error, thanks to the Dutch. After pilot training and rigorous rules were set in place, attention focused to terrorism, with hijackings becoming common in Nigeria and other shitty places. Terrorists, after being foiled, moved to planting bombs in aircraft. The worst bomb disaster was witnessed in 1988, over Lockerbie, Scotland. When bombs couldn't get through, "terrorists" started pretending they had bombs to seize aircraft, and did WTC.

Choosing the Best Aircraft for the Job

A Boeing 767 doing WTC

Depending on your situation, you can expect to ride on at least one of these fabulous airplanes!

Going a few states over? Expect an Airbus A320/Boeing 737. Comfortable, but cramped.
Heading around the world? Hope for an Airbus A340/Boeing 777-200LR. Huge, with plenty of plush 1st class seats that you can't afford to sit in.
Want the biggest? Try an Airbus A380/Boeing 747! You'll feel like you've come out of a sardine can when you arrive.
Short distance? You're getting something smaller than your dick.
Faking a terrorist attack? Try a Boeing 767, they give the most bang for your buck.
Want to Crash and die in the middle of the Ocean during the night? An Airbus A330-200 is the way to go!

Parts of an Airplane

A cockpit.

Wings - The big flappy things that jut off the sides, normally with engines hanging underneath. If you plan on flying US Airways, these are great for standing on when your plane sinks into a body of water.
Engines - Huge ass turbofans that suck air in and blow it out the back, spinning at 6-10k RPM. Turns frozen chicken into mince meat.
Cockpit - Where your captain will almost certainly be drunk and asleep. Fear not, the ~~co-pilot~~ First Officer will be flying today. Mind the bumps. Great place for sex, it has to be said.
Lavatory - The place where you take that really cute blond from seat 19E to fuck her brains out. Please, don't smoke or spend 4 hours in here.
Galley - The tiny kitchen where flight attendants hang around in-flight. Full of delicious cake, alcohol and fresh blankets, as well as headsets and heavy drink carts. Feel free to accost any flight attendants you see in the galley.
Cargo Hold - Hiding place for luggage, cars, pets and sleeping ground handlers, the cargo hold is mainly inaccessible from inside the plane.
Landing Gears - The wheels on sticks used to keep a plane in motion when landing. JetBlue ordered most of their A320s with sideways front landing gears.

Things You May Hear While Aboard an Airplane

This CAN happen..

This is your Captain. A black woman.

This is Your Captain Speaking, though heard on almost every flight, is not always true. Often times, the "Captain speaking" is indeed, just the co-pilot, the un-important waste of life in the right-hand seat that should be condescended to on a constant basis.
In the unlikely event of ______ - Yes, crashes do happen, and it's normally pilot error. These procedures are designed to save your life, so please, pay attention to them and the safety card in your seatpocket, you stupid fuck.
.. Making our final descent - At the final ding of this announcement, make your way for the lavatory for one last shit. You will more than likely be going around in a circle above your destination for several hours.
Delay at gate - The airport has become too busy to handle your scheduled flight and you will take off when the situation is fixed. This MAY take several hours, in heavily congested/weather-delayed areas. Please don't attempt to jump off the plane, you will be arrested.
Change of equipment - Fear not passengers, something has gone haywire on our brand new $100m airplane. This is commonplace, as the people who build them are inconsistent, ruthless savages who can't read Ikea directions.
Emergency Landing - Look, this term is used on the aire of caution. If we say this, DO NOT FUCKING PANIC. It's probably minor. If there's something serious going on, you'd know. People and bits of airplane would be missing.
Easy Victor or Evacuate - If you hear this, the disaster of the crash is over and you're alive. Be thankful, gain your balance, and head for the nearest exit you can use. If it is blocked, move to another quickly. Do not crawl unless there is smoke, you will be trampled. If you cannot move, scream for help until someone finds you.

Air Travel Etiquette

Yes, you will be here all day.

The best you can expect is to stare at clouds for hours.

When traveling on an airplane, there are things one must remember. A typical scenario follows (adjust the severity of bullshit proportionally to the duration of your flight):

Mary-Sue arrives at the Philadelphia International Airport 3 hours early, so she can pass through the TSA checkpoints, security clearances, baggage checks, oath swearing and other nonsense designed to keep the riff-raff out of air travel, and steal people's belongings. She then makes her 2 mile journey to the check-in desk, making sure her flight has not yet been canceled, and as luck would have it, it hasn't been. She finds a seat in the airline lounge area, playing with her crackberry and listening to the too-quiet public address system to hear her flight number for half an hour. The call is heard, and she moves towards the gate, filing in a mile-long single file line. After her ticket has been scanned and she has been spat on by a customer service agent, Mary walks down the jetwalk into the small, cramped jet. The airline Mary has chosen does not believe in assigned seating, so she attempts to find a window seat, but is stuck with a middle seat between two fat gentlemen in dirty clothing. After boarding, she pays careful attention to the emergency briefing, reclines her seat and turns on her laptop to watch the newest Animu DVD she bought in the airport Borders.

The plane taxis to the runway, and after sitting in rush-hour traffic, idling away, takes off 2 hours late. During the flight our hero chugs down her weight in Coke, attacks several bags of peanuts, and watches the in-flight entertainment, which today is a stewardess telling jokes. As the flight nears it's conclusion somewhere near Pittsburgh, Mary attempts to use the lavatory, only to find it has been occupied. On the way back to her seat, it becomes vacant but a faster passenger gets to it first. Mary grunts, but returns to her seat defeated, and after squeezing back in between the hambeasts reclines back, only to hear those dreadful words "And please put your seatback in it's full upright position". Angry, uncomfortable, annoyed Mary snarls at a flight attendant for more alcohol, only to be told drink service has concluded. She lashes out, calling the flight attendant a whore, and is then subdued by a flight marshall as a suspected terrorist. The plane lands in it's intended destination of Cleveland, Ohio and Mary is disembarked and questioned for hours in a secret holding area within the airport. She is finally released weeks later, mentally and physically battered. She can no longer speak, other than to say: "I'm never flying again!"

So remember kids, always be courteous on an airplane! If you're not, you could be called a terrorist by Uncle Sam!

Common Ways to Troll Planetards

Yes, there are old people that haven't quite figured out torrenting yet.

Pilots, armchair airline aficionados and such are quite easily trollable. Here are some common ways you can make them ragequit:

Ask them the tail numbers of the 9/11 hijackings, and then say they're wrong
If they are virtual pilots, mock them for playing pretend, like some sort of furry.
- If they bought (and didn't pirate) any of their softwarez, laugh at them as hard as you can for buying useless crap.
Use improper terminology - You don't even have to try very hard, just mix a word or two up. Rage ensues.
Pretend to be an armchair CEO for an airline and complain about something irrelevant.
Ask when the Boeing 787 is going into service.
Call an Airbus a "computer with wings".
Quote Airplane! (the movie) over and over.
Ask if the jet in Soul Plane was real.
Wear aviators and claim to own a Learjet.
Ask them to do a barrel roll, or ask if they ever have.
Tell them you are cabin crew, then ask what PAX are.
Get a job in airline Catering and break the service trolley latches in long aircraft.
Declare loudly that there are MOTHERFUCKING SNAKES ON THIS MOTHERFUCKING PLANE.
Hijack their jet

Flight Attendants

Virgin Airlines

The best thing about flying is that there are beautiful women paid to make you comfortable. These paid professionals will be more than happy to serve you coffee, a pillow or an emergency slide if you so desire. The buffer between the captain and the angry passengers will always be those underpaid, dim-witted folk that tell you the local time when you land. If there's a problem, you'll always see a smiling flight attendant seconds later.

But as with all things, there are different versions and some are better than others. So below is a comprehensive guide to which airlines boast the more attractive Flight Attendants, and which to avoid when you book your next ticket to Sukura-Con.

Virgin Blue Australia, Pacific Blue, V-Australia and other Virgin Airlines

The Virgin girls are some of the best in the business, for looks and service. Virgin has a great policy for their Cabin Crew which states that if you don't smile and hit on your passengers, you can GTFO. The uniforms are all fitted well and the colors complement beautifully. The girls are extremely friendly on the short haul flights, owing to the fact that they are all fresh out of Aviation Australia and are just happy to be fagging around on a ZOMG REAL LYF PLANE!!!1.

Virgin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars, because to be honest they're quite okay.

Jetstar and Qantas, Qantaslink

No one wants to fly Jetstar

Jetstar, Qantas and Qantaslink Cabin Crew are one of the most variable. One flight you could have the nicest and hottest babes in the world on your flight. Then the next, you're stuck in an airborne tin can being served dry beef by 50 year old Dragon-Ladies and AIDS infected homosexuals.

Jetstar, the cheapest of the three, tend to be the best bet, being a fairly new airline they have the freshest blood. Qantas International is a major no go, as they haven't hired a new Flight Attendant in 14 years. These flights are all full of women older than your mother, but you might like that, you sick fuck.

Qantaslink is the rural service, so unless you plan on a nice trip to Wolf Creek, you will never board one of these tiny Dash 8 planes.

Jetstar Rating: 3 out of 5 stars, you could do better but hey, you tried. Qantas Rating: 2 out of 5 stars, why even bother mate

Emirates / Eithad

Emirates wins

Emirates is the cream of the fucking crop. Their Flight Attendants go through a more rigorous and thorough selection process than any other airline. Their fingernail are even inspected, and must conform to a set regulation. The charm and service of Emirates girls cannot be denied, they are the most pleasant people to be on a flight with.

Unfortunately, Emirates is owned by Arabs and therefore have a healthy amount of their flights to current war zones. But not to worry, Emirates do also fly to other places where you are less likely to cop a cap in the ass.

Emirates is an international airline, and therefore have classes within their aircraft. And also being the awesome people they are, the better class you fly in, the hotter your Cabin Crew. But you'll pay for it; it costs $14000 to fly from Sydney to London, first class on Emirates. So if you have the trust fund, get your ass on one of these flights, you won't regret it.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars, if you can afford it.

Cathay Pacific / Air China / Singapore / Korean Air / Japan Air

If you plan on traveling across Asia, you'll probably be flying one of these. Short, azn females with great assets, these airlines commonly feature rotten fish, Starcraft and crashes. Luxurious in some cases, most flights are at the very least clean and comfortable, even if you do go crashing into Haneda, or get shot down by Russians. Rating: 4 out of 5, even though your pilot took off on a runway full of cranes.

Southwest Airlines

Yeah, this is what your daddy was fapping to in the day.

Sure they're cheaper than air and they have no luxuries like little TVs, golden iPods and the like, Southwest has always made up for it's lacking services with overly joyful and sometimes quite hot flight attendants. In the past, female flight attendants wore hot pants, go-go boots and tight, revealing tops. Such is not the case today, as Southwest has become a semi-lulz killer, making it's staff cover up while hiring more old women and gay males. At the very least, the crew aboard a Southwest jet tries perilously to entertain you, with it's jokes, sing-alongs, contests, games, trivia and anything else we can throw at you. Shit, we've got a nigger rapping the safety briefing. What more do you want?

Just be sure to pack a lunch, a novel and (Yay, free wifi!) your laptop; and you should be set. As much Coke as you can drink, available at no cost.

Southwest Rating: 3 out of 5 stars, but they try to troll so we give them credit. Better than other Domestic US Airlines.

Air France

Air France = babes

Sure they're French. Sure they have had thousands of accidents. Sure they destroyed the future of supersonic travel. Yes they're French which means the plane will be filthy and the captain will reek of wine, but fuck, just look at the babes they put on these flying time bombs! Air France has possibly the most attractive Flight Attendants of all European airlines. The uniforms are slimming, short and spunky. The girls are French, with the sexiest accents around. And what's more, their service isn't bad either.

The airline itself has been though some tough times, which one can perhaps blame on Airbus and their shit planes, or Mercedes and their explosive Concorde engines, but recently they have become a decent carrier. They are middle ranged with pricing, and service most countries.

An excellent choice for your next 20hr perve, though it has been noted to avoid flying Air France to Canada during a rain storm, or anywhere from Brazil.

Air France Rating: 4 out of 5 stars, the airline isn't great, but the girls really make up for it.

Delta Air Lines

So fucking true it hurts.

If it's plastic that you seek, Delta is the airline you deserve. Flight attendants on Delta are more often than not bored, lonely housewives with more silicone and botox than a Los Angeles doctor's office. With a comforting southern drawl and an odd charm, Delta for some reason decided to rebrand itself a couple of times in the past decade, but they've ended up with old women from Northwest and fags from Southwest, making a fail crew.

Protip: Don't drink the sweet tea. JUST DON'T.

Delta Rating: 3 out of 5 stars, you could do worse, and everyone knows sysops love Delta.

British Airways

Queen Elizabeth II will be your trainee today.

Yes, every stodgy memory from the UKistan can be summed up in British Airways. Flight attendants have awfully crooked teeth and are mostly far above the age of retirement. Those who aren’t antique are either so fat they struggle to drag their disgusting fat bodies down the aisles or are ridiculously gay men with bright orange skin. The service is past dated and the accommodations are less than luxurious for people who are too poor to travel in first or business class. Unless you're looking for a gilf, or you happen not to be a bitter lower class prole you're wasting your time. Avoid like the bubonic plague.

Extra note: If you are traveling through Heathrow's Terminal 5, pack no more than a carry-on bag, or your luggage will be killed with fire after being lost.

British Airways rating: 2 out of 5 stars. For the money you're paying, you'd be wiser giving it all to ED.

Lufthansa

Guten tag, ich heisse Helga. Du has.

With a time table stricter and more efficient than Auschwitz, Lufthansa is the cool, modern, fresh airline. The babes of Lufthansa, like any German girl, are blond, blue-eyed, round-tittied Nazis, and will crack a whip at you if you fuck up. If you're a trendsetter, you fly Lufthansa to Hamburg. Lufthansa was the base airline of the movie "Flightplan", in which the batshit insane flight attendant kidnaps an engineer's daughter, in order to get money. If you plan on traveling with children, remember to not fall asleep, and no matter what those people tell you, you're not crazy.

Lufthansa rating: 4 out of 5 stars, the closest thing you can get to what air travel should be.

Ryanair

Yeah, you'd enjoy landing 200km from your destination if she were your in-flight entertainment.

Dubbed "THE low-fare airline", Ryanair prides itself on being cheap, lulzy and in business. They pay their flight attendants in IOUs and their pilots in dirt. As you'd expect, Ryanair is an entry-level airline meaning most of the crew are right out of high school, and looking to get their foot in the door. What you get: Busty, 19 year old girls with too much whiskey and not enough brain cells. If you're in to fake tans from ~~Ibiza~~Ibitha, Ryanair is who you fly to the next party hot spot come summer holiday.

Ryanair rating: 5 out of 5 stars, for Michael O'Leary's trolling and the calendars. Look, be the lulzy airline, not the broke one. You have an audience open to you. Don't pass it up.

Air New Zealand

Little known fact that New Zealand is an Asian country

Another Southern owned and operated airline, catering to middle management types and other kinds of people. Air New Zealand is based in Auckland, New Zealand and mostly flys internationally, owing to the fact that one can walk from one side of New Zealand to the other in a day, and still have time to fuck some sheep.

Just don't take an Air New Zealand scenic flight over Antarctica! Or you may end up dead, like 257 other people did when their pilot crashed into a mountain.

Air New Zealand rating: 3 out of 5 stars, purely for the fact that the flight attendants wear "Fuck Me" boots.

Virtual Airplanes and You

Perhaps the most common on the internet, the armchair pilot believes he knows everything because he torrented the PMDG MD-11. Everyone knows the boredom that is Microsoft Flight Simulator, yet it has developed a cult following since it's inception in 1987. People pay upwards of $500 for additional software, and have gone as far as to build homebrew cockpits, costing more than the average car. While this enhances the level of realism, a large group take this far too seriously and fail to remember that the Internet is not serious business, and should not be conducted like such.

By far though, the virtual "airline" managers seem to have the largest egos seen this side of dA. They are much like sysops or moderators, with a fake fancy title of "Hub Manager" and "Virtual CEO". The most famous, Nick Bartolotta - Chairman, ATA Virtual, learned that the internet should never be used as serious business, no matter how much you cry "It's only pretend!", and in 2007 was sued by the former owners of ATA Airlines for trademark infringement, thus being forced to close his virtual airline, and lay-off 2,400 pilots.

The most interesting case of virtual jethead butthurt came this Thursday, May 14th, 2009, when a group of internet hackers on steroids broke into the most prevalent freeware host, destroying everything, including backups. LOL!

YouTube is home to much virtual airline and pilot drama, due to it's easy access by 13 year old know-nothings who think they could land a loaded airliner in devastating conditions. Entering the search terms "Virtual (Airline name here) landing" and making a troll comment is sure to spark a flamewar the size of Cambodia.

PROTIP: There is no feeling like flying a real airplane. Go take a discovery flight if you're really interested in learning. If you're looking to play a video game, play a video game. If you want a subculture, try something else.

Aviation Safety Network

The Aviation Safety Network is a site launched by bitter, retired pilots in an attempt to take all airlines out of business. It is only visited by nervous flyers who seek an excuse for their laughable phobia. It features a database of all aviation safety occurences (read: plane crashes) since the stone age.

Content

an extensive database with detailed info on plane accidents
crash porn
cockpit recording transcripts

A cockpit recording transcript is a chatlog containing the last comments exchanged between the reckless pilots of a plane going to hell.

Typical example:

02:07:45  	CAP:  	850 meters
02:07:45 	--: 	(Audio tone of AOA (angle of attack) alert and maximum acceleration reached)
02:07:47  	--:  	(Audio tone of autopilot disconnection warning)
02:07:49 	CAP: 	Fuck! What are you doing!
02:07:51 	CAP: 	Speed!
02:07:52 	??: 	…
02:07:53 	CAP: 	… Fuck, push it up! (throttles)
02:07:53 	F/O: 	Stop! Stop! Where! Where!
02:07:55 	CAP: 	Stop! Stop! Stop! (said in patter)
02:07:55 	NAV: 	This way, this way, this way.
02:07:57 	CAP: 	We’re recovering!
02:07:58 	NAV: 	Easy, make it easy, easy!
02:07:59 	F/O: 	Lets to the right!
02:08:02 	??: 	Power! Add thrust!
02:08:05 	??: 	Power!
02:08:06 	F/E: 	… got it!
02:08:08 	??: 	Add thrust!
02:08:09 	F/O: 	Take off power! Oh my God!
02:08:10 	F/E: 	Take off power set
02:08:11 	??: 	That’s all guys! Fuck!