Tuesday, September 25, 2012

I suppose it's possible

Governor Romney must just love the taste of Italian leather. He's stuck his foot in his mouth so many times it's almost like he's doing it on purpose. Just can't get enough of that tasty stuff. Nom, nom. 

He has both an MBA and a law degree from Harvard. He's a world-traveler. He was governor of Massachusetts, director of the Olympics and is running for President of the United States.

And he thinks you should be able to open a window in a jet. While it's flying. 

It's possible that some folks, maybe even most folks, wouldn't know the science behind the closed-windows-on-jet-aircraft policy. Governor Romney clearly didn't know. Otherwise why, when his campaign is imploding on so many fronts, would he pose the question?
Romney's wife Ann's plane had to make an emergency landing Friday (Sept. 21) because of an electrical malfunction. Discussing the incident at a fundraiser the next day, he said: "When you have a fire in an aircraft, there's no place to go, exactly, there's no — and you can't find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don't open. I don't know why they don't do that. It's a real problem. So it's very dangerous."
As some of you know, I have a private pilot's license. I've flown little puddle-jumpers with the windows open. The plane I learned to fly topped out at about 100 mph (it's very, um, windy at that speed) and I'm sure I never flew it any higher than five or six thousand feet (also very cold). Slow and low, that was my policy and preference.

The reason we never hit 10,000 feet in the Citabria is precisely why you shouldn't open jetliner windows: We couldn't pressurize the cabin. Lack of oxygen is not a good thing when you need your wits about you to, oh, I don't know, fly a plane. Also, what little oxygen is present would obviously feed a fire, should one be present in the cabin of the aircraft.

But I guess they don't teach that at Harvard.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I guess telling you he was joking would not sway you. It sort of reminds me of the time Obama said he had visited 54 or 57 states and all the people on the right would not let it go. Did he know we had 50 states? Probably.

People need to stop the hyperventilating on both sides.

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