Tag: flight

Posted in Science & Nature

Brace Position

Posted on by Jinavie

A word you never want to hear during a flight is “brace, brace”. It is used as an instruction from the flight crew to the passengers that there is an impending crash landing and everyone should assume the brace position. It is covered in the safety instructions at the start of every flight.

The brace position varies for each country and airline, but the general principle is to bend forward, putting your head either on your lap or against the headrest of the seat in front of you, having your feet flat on the ground and covering your head with both of your hands.

The purpose of the brace position is to maximise your chance of survival in the event of a crash landing. A typical passenger jet travels at around 900km/h. When a plane crashes, extreme amounts of force are exerted on the plane chassis and its contents. The following is a non-exhaustive list of potential sources of injury for a passenger:

  • Inertia and two-point seat belt (only across the waist) results in “jack-knifing”, where the body folds over at high speeds. This can cause catastrophic injury to abdominal organs and the spine.
  • Head and neck injury against the seat in front, resulting in anywhere between a concussion to bleeding in or around the brain. Even if the head injury is survivable, being knocked out or confused after a concussion reduces your chances of escaping the crashed plane before collapse, fires or explosions.
  • Whiplash injury of the neck.
  • Limb injury from flailing.
  • Injury from falling debris.

The brace position has been optimised over the last 20-30 years to reduce the risk of all of the above types of injuries, with multiple studies confirming that it is effective in reducing crash mortality.

Another positive news is that the risk of dying from a plane crash is extremely low. Your risk of dying on a flight is 1 in 60 million – far, far lower than the risk of dying from a car accident, being hit by a bus, a brain aneurysm or even being hit by lightning. Thanks to rigorous research, improved design and numerous safety features such as brace position, you have a 95% survival chance in an airplane crash, and even in serious crashes, the survival chance is 76%. 

Of course, the minute percentage of plane crashes that result in fatalities tend to be non-survivable in the first place, but we cannot postpone death forever.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Dream

Posted on by Jinavie

Deep within the rainforests of Malaysia, there lived a tribe called the Senoi. Because they centred their lives on dreams, they were also called the Tribe of Dreams.
Every morning as they ate breakfast around a fire, they discussed their own dreams from the previous night. All social activities within the tribe had a close connection with those dreams. If one dreamed of harming someone, they had to give the harmed person a present straight away. If one hit someone in a dream they had to ask for forgiveness from that person along with another present.

The Senoi tribe placed more importance in education regarding dreams over that of how to live in the real world. If a child dreamed of running away from a tiger, the tribe would tell the child to dream of the tiger again and then fight it until it was killed. The elders taught the children how to achieve this. If the child could not defeat the tiger, the tribe would scold him.
Placing such importance on dreams, the Senoi tribe thought reaching an orgasm in a dream involving sex was a must, followed by thanking the other person with a gift in reality. If they faced an enemy in a nightmare, they had to defeat him and later befriend him by exchanging gifts. The dream they wished for most was a dream about flying. If someone dreamed of flying, the tribe would congratulate him, and a child’s first dream about flying was almost like baptism in the Catholic church. People would bring many gifts to the child and then teach him how to fly to distant lands to bring back wonderful objects.

Western anthropologists were fascinated by the Senoi tribe. There was no violence, mental disease, stress or greed. Only enough work to survive was required.
The Senoi tribe disappeared in the 1970s when the forest they lived in was cleared. However, we can still utilise their knowledge.

In a dream, we can test our infinite potential. In a dream, everyone is omnipotent. The first hurdle in dream aviation is flight. Spread your arms, glide around, dive, turn again then rise. Anything is possible. You can do anything you want. As a dream is your own world, no one can bother you. If a monster appears, shoot it with a bazooka. If you face an opportunity to date, do not let it go and make full use of it. Since there are no sexually transmitted diseases or indecency in a dream, there is nothing stopping you.
Dream aviation requires an increasing degree of training. As your “flight” time lengthens, your confidence will grow and you will get the hang of it. Normally, children can control their dreams in any way they wish within 5 months of training, but adults can take much longer than this.

(from The Encyclopaedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge by Bernard Werber)