11 interesting facts about airplanes
- The first United States coast to coast airplane flight occurred in 1911 and took 49 days.
- A modern Boeing airplane with 70 percent of the seats occupied is more fuel efficient than a new automobile carrying two people.
- When airplanes were still a novel invention, seat belts for pilots were installed only after the consequence of their absence was observed to be fatal - several pilots fell to their deaths while flying upside down.
- The air flowing through a 767-400ER engine at takeoff power could inflate the Goodyear Blimp in seven seconds.
- An airplane’s “blackbox”‘ is a device which records conditions and events on an air vessel. A “blackbox” is actually orange in color to make it more visible in the wreckage. The term black box might come from its charred appearance after an air crash.
- A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight (120ft).
- A 747-400 has six million parts (half of which are fasteners) made in 33 different countries.
- Commercial airlines prohibit the carry-on of mercury thermometers because of the way mercury reacts with aluminum. If such an thermometer were to break and spill on a plane, even a tiny amount of mercury could badly damage the plane's aluminum frame.
- Seventy-five thousand engineering drawings were used to produce the first 747.
- The outer skin of an aeroplane is only 5 mm thick. Only 7.5 in (19 cm) separate the passengers from the outside.
- During takeoff, when full of high pressure air, the takeoff weight is increased by about a ton.
