boy do I agree.

I fly a lot, and I think about this a lot. it's absolutely nuts.

I saw a diagram once explaining how planes fly, this is a good explanation of that:

"Airplane wings are shaped to make air move faster over the top of the wing. When air moves faster, the pressure of the air decreases. So the pressure on the top of the wing is less than the pressure on the bottom of the wing. The difference in pressure creates a force on the wing that lifts the wing up into the air."

so that's floating around the back of my mind while I sit in my air chair and think:

"and there we are.

We are climbing into the air again in the big flexible metal tube.

The wings have flex and they almost look like they are flapping in the wind right there.

well, this is crazy again"

approximates my thought process each time I fly.

More cool detail about a modern jet airliner than you thought imaginable all delivered in a cool 3D animation.

https://youtu.be/NZLbTuBDhJg?si=mdgytNATo5Tz9ltx

The wings are crazy ! They look way too flimsy for what they do.

Next time you see an airplane, imagine a crane picking it up by the wings, around the middle of the wing length, and then start shaking it up.

It does not look like the wing will be able to hold that much weight.

My first experience in an airplane was quite different actually. In my mind as a child an airplane was this amazing thing that just flew, I had seen pictures of how it looked and thought it was a static thing that people sat in as it flew around.

The reality was quite different, the thing was a bit scoffed up and looked used. I kept thinking how the seats look like the seats on a bus. Not dirty exactly, but used looking and the kind of material you don't see stains too well and cleans easily. The noise was a lot to handle, not just the roar of the engines and the sound of the air going past, but all of the groins and creaks. And it wasn't static at all, everything was shaking and moving around, panel gaps showing. I saw the wings go from hanging down to pointing up as the weight of the aircraft hung from the wings. In my mind metal was hard and shouldn't move as much as it did. Getting on and off was just a ramp that was shoved near the plane from the gate, with a gap in between a flap was laid over. It looked nothing like the high-tech environment I imagined. And flying through the air wasn't as I imagined, at those speeds it's more like being under water than going through nothing as I imagined. The plane reacts to currents in the air, getting pushed to the sides and up and down, not the perfectly straight and stable ride I imagined.

So in the end I decided a plane is very much like a bus and that makes sense as it does pretty much the same thing, carry a bunch people from a to b all of the time.

The only thing that surprised me was at take off how much power the thing has. In a bus the engine is usually very underpowered, just enough to get up to speed in the most efficient way. With an airplane the power to weight ratio is crazy, it's more like driving a really fast car than a bus. But other than at take off, it's pretty much a bus.

that and about 223,378 pounds of jet fuel then it flies

https://www.globalair.com/aircraft-for-sale/specifications?specid=1699

Wait till you discover about the concorde!

I am a avgeek (aviation) and I love all things planes. Got my PPL and made it halfway through instrument before bailing but damn it, flying is the best thing in the world and aviation itself is absolutely fucking beautiful.

Due to the nature of my work I've flown hundreds of passenger flights of all sizes and I still find myself in awe.

What a privilege to be able to actually see down from such a range of heights too. Where there is still lots of detail to be found, but you can also get an appreciation of scale. It's honestly really amazing.

Wait until you find out how far off you are at 60 ton....