I Present An Internet Comment About Planes That’s So Good It Needs To Be Its Own Article: COTD

Something that I love about the Autopian readership is that everyone is an expert in at least one thing. Some of you know everything there needs to be known about Scion xBs or Pontiac Vibes, while some of you are talented engineers, lawyers, doctors, and other professionals. If you pay attention for long enough, you’ll witness greatness in our comment section.

I wrote about the people who somehow keep dropping their laptops into voids aboard United Airlines Boeing 767s. Wuffles Cookie offers incredible insight:

Dammit Mercedes, stop posting plane bait for me! So fun fact, I’ve personally had to re-engineer this exact stupid feature on multiple airplanes. A few points:

The void laptops keep falling into is not a cargo area, it’s just an inaccessible gap between the outer shell of the seat pod and the sidewall of the aircraft. The cargo area on the plane is sealed to ensure smoke can’t get out to the cabin in the event of a fire, and to let the halon fire suppression system work properly.

If a laptop did fall into the void and catch fire, it would be unpleasant to the passengers and maybe cause some issues with those with respiratory issues, but wouldn’t crash the plane. Everything used in the cabin is both fireproof and self-extinguishing, and rated for far worse fires than you can get out of a single laptop. Also, the pilots have their own independent oxygen supply that lasts for hours, so they would be fine to land the plane.

This issue is the direct result of a difference in rigor between STC (supplemental type certificate) mod houses, and OEM (ie Airbus, Boeing, Embraer) level engineering. When an airline is looking to upgrade/redesign their interiors, they can either go with an external STC house, which is usually faster and cheaper, but not as detailed and can lead to substantial issues down the line like your article details, or they can have the OEM do it properly for what is usually a lot more money, and slightly more time. The use of a simple foam seal to block off the gap is a quick and easy solution, but leads to the lost laptop phenomenon, especially as the foam ages and deteriorates. The proper way to close out this gap is with a bulb seal mounted on a metal seal retainer putting the bulb into compression. Done right, with a seal that matches the sidewall contour (which is data the OEM has but an STC house might not) it’s pretty much impossible to get anything into the gap, even a knife blade. I happen to know for a fact that both Airbus and Boeing will not sign off on a foam seal being acceptable for installations like this, for exactly the issues mentioned, but STC houses generally aren’t held to the same standard despite the fact that they are supposed to be under both FAA and EASA rules.

Side tangent: this gap lead to one of my favorite work moments- not only is the gap an issue for fires, it’s also an issue for security because someone could stash a bomb or weapon there and it wouldn’t be easily detectable. We were working on installing a new airliner interior in a certain state known for it’s cowboy attitudes, and this gap issue came up. Some management types were in favor of the ghetto foam seal fix, while the engineers on-site felt differently. The engineer who actually had to sign for the FAA certification package proved his point running to his truck parked just outside of the hangar, coming back with a full duffel bag, and telling us to look the other way for 30 seconds. Then he asked management how many hijackers did they think he could arm just with the contents of the sidewall gap that he had half a minute of unsupervised access to. Four Glocks and two AR-15s later the message got across.

Jason learned that another autojourno has held a 12-year grudge against him. Livernois:

I may as well say it – I’m still mad about something Torchinsky did to me in 2014 too.

Did the camel suffer permanent injury? Well, no, but she could have. Did it end up costing me only 11 Thai Baht? Sure, fine, but sometimes it’s more than just the money.

I spent a lot of time learning how to dance the Lindy Hop. And when Carmelo Anthony had to push my motorized tricycle out of the mud, I sure was embarrassed.

But the worst thing is that the tuxedo Torchinsky lent me at the end of the night was Kelly green instead of the lime green he knew I needed.

He has my number. I’m still waiting for the call.

Have a great evening, everyone!

(Topshot graphic image: Author)