Was on a flight the other day and remembered as a kid being worried the window would break and everyone would get thrown out of the plane, but went sky diving and half the plane was open with no issue. What’s the difference?
In: Physics
What you see in movies as the “disaster”, that explosion is because in commercial flight, the airplane is pressurized, like a balloon, so if you puncture it, all the air wants to come out, creating all that chaos. The airplane is pressurized because it’s flying very very fast and at very high altitude, so that helps maintaining oxigen levels and temperature inside. In smaller aircraft, which flies slower and lower, that’s not such a problem so it’s possible to have an “open” environment inside the airplane, much like a car.
Btw, it’s not an actual disaster if a plane loses pressure, they just have to go to a lower altitude and as long as the pilots have oxigen masks while at dangerous levels, it should be fine.
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