I probably made someone’s white knuckle flight — just a little bit worse. For business, I flew from Phoenix to Denver, then hopped on an 18-seater propeller airplane to get from Denver to Dodge City, KS. If you’ve never flown on a propeller airplane, there’s something you have to realize. “Air Turbulence” is caused by different densities of air — as the plane flies through the sky. Now one of those propeller airplanes, as it hits turbulence, the engine goes “bzzz-bzzz-bzzz” as the speed of the engine changes due to the different mix of air. You also feel a huge change in altitude and air speed as you hit the turbulence.
So, here’s my story. First time on one of those planes, I took my seat and half of the people there were OK with it, and the other half had white-knuckles. Each time we hit the turbulence and we dropped in the sky (felt like a roller-coaster), this old woman would scream out in utter terror. I had a few drinks in me, and I would blurt out laughing at the sensation of the altitude change. A few people were gripping their chairs for dear life during the flight, and a few were fast asleep. Then there’s me, some 35 year old guy, laughing away.
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I'm sure I would also get plastered in a situation as yours. Not only that, I would tell this histerical woman to shot her hole.
OMG! That woman has a gun. She just shot her hole! 😀
Claire, you got me. I was getting sleepy at 1 am and of course I should have typed SHUT (your hole) and not shot. Anyway, someone screaming like that and scaring people should SHOOT themself to SHUT up.
Dodge City has an airport? I flew the prop jobs in and off the island in Washington more than once. Thankfully they were short flights.
I did something very similar when I was about 8. My mother nad I were flying to Texas from Florida to go see Grandma. Somewhere over The Gulf we encountered turbulance, and every time the plane dropped, I let out a "WHEEEEEE". Mom wasn't going to do anything; while a little disturbing she wasn't going to tell me to stop enjoying the flight. Unfortunately the lady across the aisle from us was white knuckling the arm rest and every exclamation from me just made her grip that poor arm rest a litle harder and try and kill me with a look.
That is the way to do it!
Thats very funny. I feel the same way about air turbulence. Recently whilst I was flying from Melbourne to Sydney the turbulence got so bad that they had to suspend the beverage/snack service. I was at the back of the plane feeling the very worst of it without a flinch.
Yeah, Denver is always good for a fun flight. 🙂
I actually love turbulence. Sometimes it makes me sleepy, but usually I giggle.
You probably made a lot of scared people feel less scared. I know I couldn't take my fear of dying seriously if some dude were giggling. I'd probably get wasted and giggle along. 😉