This probably sounds stupid, but why is it easy to get up in a plane, and walk around as if you were on the ground. Then on a bus it’s harder even though the speed of the vehicle, is slower?
In: Physics
The speed is irrelevant because both you and the plane/bus are moving at the same speed, so the speed relative to you is effectively 0. What’s more important about balance is the change in speed/direction during travel.
On a bus, the roads are bumpy, the suspension is soft to allow for said bumps, and there are regular starts, stops, and turns. This makes for a lot of change in speed/direction as a person tries to walk down the aisle. It’s hard to maintain balance when the environment around you is constantly changing.
On a plane for the majority of your travel the ride is very consistent. Your cruising speed and altitude don’t vary much from moment to moment (barring turbulence), so relative to yourself the plane acts as a pretty solid steady floor on which to walk around.
The primary difference is the *potential* extreme. While a bus COULD in theory get into a big time accident and flip over or suddenly decelerate from 55mph to 0 mph, a plane’s potential for change is way worse, with the option of barrel rolling multiple times in the case of catastrophic engine failure or mid-air collision, dropping hundreds of feet in a few short seconds due to radical turbulence, and in the event of a crash landing decelerating hundreds of miles per hour to 0 in an instant. It’ll be a lot harder to maintain balance during a mid-air aeronautical catastrophe than it would in a bus crash.
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