10 things you potentially didn’t know about aviation

1. The pilot and co-pilot are served different meals on board to safeguard against simultaneous food poisoning.

2. Scotland holds the current record for the shortest commercial flight in the world! This essential air service is operated daily by Loganair between Westray and Papa Westray in the Orkney Islands. Flights are scheduled for one and a half minutes, but often fall closer to the minute mark.

3. At any one time, approximately 10,000 aircraft are flying!

4. Concorde’s fuselage used to stretch anywhere between six to ten inches whilst flying due to friction and air pressure – the high speeds it travelled at meant that everything was warm by the time the plane arrived – even the windows!

5. A ‘black box’, the name often given to the aircraft’s flight recorder is a misnomer – the box is actually required to be painted bright orange to make them easier to find in the case of an accident.

6. The average outside temperature at cruising altitude is approximately -55oC / -67oF.

7. The cabin’s lighting is deliberately dimmed during take-off and landing to accustom passengers’ eyes to the low light and speed up evacuation of the aircraft if necessary. 

8. Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) can reduce carbon emissions by up to 80% over conventional jet fuels.

9. The air in an aircraft is drier than a lot of deserts – on an average 10 hour flight, men can lose approximately two litres of water and women around 1.6 litres due to dehydration.

10. The Airbus A380 can seat up to 868 passengers in an all economy configuration – to carry the same amount of passengers on a narrowbody aircraft you would need five 737- 800s or 12 Bombardier Dash 8-Q400s.