There are a lot of things the pilot of a flight know that people never know, It is either consider unecessary or they believed people don't need to know. Why some are scary, some might change the way you do things from your next flight.
The below is what an airline pilots won't tell the passengers as answered by different pilots of different airline.
Captain of a major airline
The truth is, we're exhausted. Our work rules allow us to be on duty 16 hours without a break. That's many more hours than a truck driver. And unlike a truck driver, who can pull over at the next rest stop, we can't pull over at the next cloud.
Jack Stephan, Captain, US Airways
Some FAA rules dont make sense to us either. Like the fact that when we’re at 39,000 feet going 400 miles an hour, in a plane that could hit turbulence at any minute, (flight attendants) can walk around and serve hot coffee and Chateaubriand. But when we’re on the ground on a flat piece of asphalt going five to ten miles an hour, they’ve got to be buckled in like they’re at NASCAR.
John Greaves, former airline Captain
It’s one thing if the pilot puts the seat belt sign on for the passengers. But if he tells the flight attendants to sit down, you’d better listen. That means there’s some serious turbulence ahead
Pilot, South Carolina
There’s no such thing as a water landing. It’s called crashing into the ocean.
Jack Stephan, Pilot
What’s the scariest thing that’s ever happened to you?’ I tell them it was a van ride from the Los Angeles airport to the hotel, and I’m not kidding
Regional Carrier Pilot, Charlotte NC
I’ve been struck by lightning twice. Most pilots have. Airplanes are built to take it. You hear a big boom and see a big flash and that’s it. You’re not going to fall out of the sky.
Patrick Smith
The smoothest place to sit is often over or near the wing. The bumpiest place to sit is in the back. A plane is like a seesaw. If you’re in the middle, you don’t move as much.
Jerry Johnson, Pilot, Los Angeles
If you’re a nervous flier, book a morning flight. The heating of the ground later causes bumpier air, and it’s much more likely to thunderstorm in the afternoon.
Jim Tilmon, Pilot
People don’t understand why they can’t use their cell phones. Well, what can happen is 12 people will decide to call someone just before landing, and I can get a false reading on my instruments saying that we are higher than we really are.
Patrick Smith
Most people get sick after traveling not because of what they breathe but because of what they touch. Always assume that the tray table and the button to push the seat back have not been wiped down, though we do wipe down the lavatory.
Pilot
One of our engines just failed.” What they’ll say instead: “One of our engines is indicating improperly.” (Or more likely, they’ll say nothing, and you’ll never know the difference. Most planes fly fine with one engine down.
Pilot
"Well, folks, the visibility out there is zero.” What they’ll say instead: “There’s some fog in the Washington area.”
Anonymous
Many regional airline first officers make the same as your friendly pizza delivery driver. (It is typical for most of them to make no more than 16K/year the first year.
Anonymous
Dont drink the coffee. The potable water the aircraft is serviced with is absolutely disgusting. Chemicals are inserted into the water tanks to prevent bad things from growing, but the bad taste of the coffee isn't the coffee--its the chemicals...
Anonymous
We don't know where we are most of the time... (kidding for the most part) In all actuality there are much more sophisticated avionics units on most small general aviation aircraft. Those units display many aspects of geographic awareness where most of ours simply display the route that we programmed in the flight management computer before departure. We can tell you how far away we are from the next navigation facility and where we are in general terms, but aside from that and what we can see out the window, we typically only have a general idea of where we are when at cruise altitude. Of course we all carry maps, but not too many of us will open the map and follow our progress on a 3 hour flight. (That all changes as we begin descending toward the airport. Situational Awareness is extremely important then.)
Anonymous
We forget about the fasten seatbelt sign all the time. When you look up at the sign (and disregard it typically) and it has been illuminated for the last 45 minutes in smooth air, we simply forgot. Lots of guys will leave it on all the time. However, sometimes we do have reports of choppy air ahead and will leave it on until we either experience it or take a wild guess that the air ahead will be smooth.
Anonymous
Some of us carry guns. This is certainly public knowledge, but Federal Flight Deck Officers can carry a firearm in the cockpit. Lots of protocol exists to ensure that the training, concealment, and utilization is standardized
Dan Birchall
Pilots won't tell you how old the plane you're on is, in general. I did have one wag on Air France CityJet joke, as we approached the English Channel, that we should review the safety card, since the Avro RJ85 we were in was an old aircraft.
But typically, airlines take delivery of a particular type of plane over a number of years, buying used ones if they want to save money, so no one from the airline would have told you if you were aboard a 31-year-old Northwest DC-10 at the end of 2006, or a 33-year-old Aloha 737-200 at the end of 2007.
Similarly no one from American Airlines will tell you that their MD-82 N403A is 28.3 years old while their MD-83 N9681B is only 14.4 years old. Nor is anyone from Southwest likely to tell you whether your flight is aboard a 737-800 less than a year old like N8620H, or a 29-year-old 737-300 like N694SW.
Paul Cox
Most pilots won't tell you that "air traffic control delays" aren't really ATC's "fault"; these delays would be better termed "overscheduling delays".
The vast majority of what the airlines and system term "ATC delays" are actually from a pretty simple supply-and-demand situation. There's too many airplanes (demand) trying to land in a limited number of arrival slots (supply) at a given airport over a given time period.
Airports have what are known as "arrival rates". A standard, one-runway airport with well-designed taxiways (including "high speed" taxiways) can safely handle, in good weather, around 60 operations an hour- one per minute.
This can be 60 landings in an hour, or 60 takeoffs in an hour, or 30 of each, or whatever combination you want to come up with, but that's about the limit.
(This is a bit of an oversimplification- with really good design, you can usually depart faster than arrive, but bear with me for now.)
So say you've got this airport, and say it's got more than enough gates for all the airlines and planes that want to use it. The only limiting factor is that 60/hour number, right?
Yeah- until crappy weather shows up. Now they can only land 30 planes per hour.
Unfortunately, the ATC system- run by the FAA- does not regulate how many flights can be scheduled into an airport. (That's what deregulation gave us.) So the airlines that operate in there all schedule as many as they think they can get passengers for.
So during this hour, the airlines have scheduled 60 arrivals, but only 30 planes can land because it's a cloudy, rainy day.
What happens to the other 30 flights? They get delayed.
And who delays them? ATC.
And what do the airlines call these delays? "Supply and demand delays"? "Weather delays?" Nope.
"ATC delays."
But the reality is that they're overscheduling delays. If the airlines and/or the airports would limit the number of flights to the BAD weather limits, the number of delays in the system would be massively shrunk.
Tom Byron
They never announce, "That was close !!" As in, a near mid-air encounter with other air traffic. Only from personal experience and asking the pilot as I disembarked from the aircraft, can I relate this story.
Landing at Newark airport in 1986, I was sitting in a window seat about mid section, left side of the plane. I was looking out of the window for a good view of NYC. After seeing that, I was watching the area around the airport as we came in to land. We were about 300' altitude, or less, and all of a sudden I was stunned to see another plane taking off. It was very close as it took off, nearly underneath our plane as it was climbing out. I don't know how close we were, just that I could see the passengers in the windows of the other plane close enough to see if they were male or female. My view only lasted about 5 seconds, but I thought they were my last! When I got to the front of the plane and the pilot was standing there I said, "That was close...?" He said, "No, not really." Very calmly.
I wonder how often that happens, and I bet they NEVER tell the passengers that piece of news!
Max Sobol
Cell phones can, in fact, be used during take-off/landing as well as in flight. Although they have some slight effects on instrumentation, it's not even a "blip on the radar" as they say. Further, some pilots actually use their cell phones when standard radio communication methods become too cumbersome for them to deal with their version of office politics. ~from an extremely reliable source.
Jae Starr
This is old, it (hopefully) never, ever happens again. My uncle was an American Airlines pilot, flew out of Chicago, and, in fact, set one of the flight records for LA to NY. However, like all of my father's siblings, he drank; he drank A LOT. Beer, of course, but his drink of choice was vodka. I remember once he and Auntie stayed the weekend with us and then he left to fly out of our airport and Auntie stayed another few days, but before he left, he downed a few shot glasses of vodka, grinned at my Dad and said, "You know the rule, Dick, never drink within 24 feet of the aircraft.