Pre-flight safety demonstrations are very important, so please give me your full attention for the next few minutes.
They've very important because the very day I resumed regular flying a year or so back, I was gazing outside the window trying to look travel weary and experienced during the pre-flight safety demonstration. Bad move. It meant I could see a sign on the wing which read: "Caution: panel is attached to wing with loose nuts".
I pay a lot more attention to pre-flight safety demonstrations now, and hope to hell that some maintenance person has had the good sense in the meantime to tighten those nuts. I'm rather partial to aircraft with its full component of wing parts.
The only trouble with paying full attention to pre-flight safety demonstrations, however, is that they can be very unnerving.
Like as in: "And you'll need to know how to use the life jackets. They are located under or between each seat".
What, they're not sure!
It's nice to know that as your aircraft is about to plummet into shark-infested waters at the height of the Great White mating season that you've got a choice in the matter.
Same with emergency lighting. It's located either in the ceiling or on the floor. Fine. Probably doesn't matter anyhow because the lights will be obscured in an emergency by heavy smoke or that tell-tale mist typical of exploding body parts.
Is that what happened to TWA Flight 800 in the United States 17 months ago? Forget a terrorist's rocket. Multiple choice was obviously to blame.
Co-pilot: Hey Burt, what the hell does this switch do?
Captain: Not ...exactly.... sure. It either dims the main passenger compartment lighting for takeoff and landing or blows up the central fuel tanks.
Co-pilot: Well let's just give this little baby a...... KAAAARBOOOM!
Back to pre-flight safety demonstrations.
Did you know that electronic equipment can interfer with aircraft systems? One of the airlines' demo tape used to say "navigation systems" but widened the call apparently after a loosely nutted wing panel fell off during takeoff when some snotty-nosed kid was only 12 points away from his highest GameBoy score ever.
Because electronic equipment can interfer with aircraft systems, you've got to "turn off your mobile phone now and for the duration of the flight". Have you ever spent a two-hour flight to Melbourne turning your mobile phone off? Haven't been overseas for yonks but no wonder jet lag's such a problem. My arm was aching to billy-o after just an hour.
Video cameras, laptops, electronic vibrators and other electronic equipment can be used once the aircraft has levelled out in flight.
It's an interesting concept, is it not, that you can't interfere with the aircraft's systems when the plane's on the runway and everyone knows exactly where it's pointed, but it's open slather when the plane's up in the air and sitting on a carpet of thick cloud and heading for only God knows where.
Take that Melbourne flight for example. It's often cloud all the way and especially in Victoria that dirty grey-brown smog/soup is often closer to the ground than Shane Dye's balls. It's comforting to know that as you videotape what is turning out to be your final flight that although you have inadvertently caused the aircraft to veer 90 degrees off course and it is now heading straight for Mount Aerobus, the plane will run out of fuel before it can plough into the Antarctian landmark. Feeling better already?
Then there's the video presentation of the plane's clearly marked exits and how to use the safety slides. "Step into the slide, and move away from the aircraft". Notice how none of the people sliding down the ramps is wearing a lifejacket. And that the plane is intact and on level ground. Crash statistics for modern air travel show that this somewhat comforting depiction represents some two percent of all aircraft crashes. And why do they say "move" away from the aircraft? One, presumably, needs legs to walk.
For the rest of us, we'll be slipping on the jacket we finally found in the overhead locker, pulling down the flaps at the back, tightening the straps and inflating the jacket by pulling the red toggles as we leave the aircraft. But more than anything else, we'll be frantically inflating the jacket manually by blowing into the mouthpieces, especially if the aircraft was still some thousands of metres in the air when we left it and a lifejacket's dual role as a parachute is an untried commodity.
If we're lucky enough to find ourselves immediately in deep water, we'll be blowing even more frantically on our whistle to attract attention. Don't be alarmed if your whistle doesn't make a noise. Shark's whistles are a lot like dog's whistles in that regard.
But probably the most alarming segment of the whole pre-flight safety demonstration is how to use the oxygen masks.
Notice how calm and collected the video's passengers are as disaster strikes. They take forever to "pull down firmly on the mask".
"Ooh, the oxygen masks have just fallen down. I'll just finish this chapter of Stephen King's book and then put one on."
And across the aisle. "And then the farmer says, "Okay you can stay the night, but I must warn you my daughter's a nymphomaniac". Laughter. "Hey, I wonder why the ozygen masks came down a few minutes back? Anyway, have I told you the one about... aw, I guess we'd better slip them on. I'll finish that one later."
Now I have no idea what causes ozygen masks to be a required life-support item on a modern airliner, but I'll hazard a guess and say that the main cabin is lacking in oxygen.
Causes? Too many to name, probably, but I imagine a cabin fire could eat up the 0 component in the good ol' H20 that we've all grown to love and loved to grow. A really beligerant mountain steadily working its way through the fuselage would probably also account for a sudden drop in available oxygen levels.
No. Take it from me. The only thing I'll be reaching for the next time a row of oxygen masks explodes from the panel above me is the nearest flight attendant.
I am absolutely confident that sex will be no problem ... no problem at all.
Neither, for that matter, will the act itself.
- Don Gordon-Brown