Airline Pilot / Ops Analytics ManagerWhen sitting in your seat on the aircraft, the left side is called port and the right side is called starboard (another set of nautical terms).
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If you're travelling east, choose the right side of the plane.If you're travelling west, go for the left side of the plane. That rule should help you out if you're travelling in the Northern Hemisphere, especially during the winter months.
The captain or pilot in command sits in the left seat, so that they can operate the throttles and other pedestal instruments with their right hand. The tradition has been maintained to this day, with the co-pilot on the right hand side.
Formally, aircraft have specific frequencies for air-to-air communications. communications between private, fixed-wing aircraft, there is just one authorized frequency: 122.75 MHz. For general aviation helicopters: 123.025 MHz. Gliders and hot air balloons share 123.3 and 123.5 MHz.
The Pacific Ocean is a massive body of water that will require an extremely large amount of fuel to fly across. Rather than flying directly across the Pacific Ocean, most commercial flights take curved routes because they are actually shorter than shooting straight across a distance.
Planes do not fly in a straight line directly over the Atlantic Ocean because of the curvature of the Earth. The shortest distance between two points on Earth follows a curve called an ellipse. Planes can also encounter strong winds that would push them off course.
Sitting on the left side of the cockpit, the PIC has a better view of the runway during traffic patterns to the left. The left-turning tendencies caused by P-factor, a symmetrical thrust, spiraling slipstream, and torque make it easier for the airplane to turn to the left rather than the right.
Most people find that jet lag is worse when traveling east than it is when traveling west. View Source . Jet lag differs based on the direction of travel because it's generally easier to delay your internal clock than advance it. Jet lag does not occur on north-south flights that do not cross multiple time zones.
According to Smithsonian Magazine, sitting on the right-hand side is common (but not universal) practice as it allows the pilot in command to keep their right hand on the aircraft's sensitive cyclic control stick.
Jet streams are, at their most basic, high-altitude air currents caused by atmospheric heating and the inertia of the earth's rotation—and they're the reason why flights from west to east are faster than the same route traversed in the opposite direction.
The pre-flight walk-around is a key part of ensuring that the aircraft is safe for flight. Whilst engineers perform a certain number of checks before each flight, there are certain elements that the pilots must also check.