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.
