The dangers of flying

We all know that guns, flares, knives knitting needles and more than 100ml of deodorant can all be lethal if they get in the wrong hands during an flight. But if you are like me many of the other in-flight safety concerns still confound me.

Seats in the up-right position. Why? Does that 10 degrees of recline available in economy class really endanger lives? If that is the case then I am glad that I cannot afford to travel in first class where the opportunity to lay in what must be nothing short of a suicidal horizontally position.

If a reclining seat is so potentially detrimental to our health they should be outlawed. The seats should not be able to recline, just like they do on budget carriers. But don’t stop there. The seats should all be relaced by tall, straight-backed wooden chairs from an Edwardian dining setting. No reclining there.

On many aircraft the headrests are adjustable. A taller passenger can raise the headrest to match their height the ends of the headrest can also often be folded in to allow someone to rest their head. If such a minor recline is considered so dangerous then surely a raised or angled headrest must be nothing short of a weapon of mass destruction.

Whilst focussing on the seats why is having the arm rest down important. Surely in the case of an emergency the arms rests can only impede our exist. Just like the tray tables it should be mandatory to store them in the upright position during take off and landing.

Window shades - up. May as well enjoy the views as we plummet to our deaths. I would like the pilot to act as tour guide and point out the views. “On the right you will notice the spectacular Andes mountain range. On the left you will see the flames and trail of smoke from the fire in engines 1 and 2. On the right you will notice the spectacular Andes coming through the window.

I like to think that the checks the rear-view mirror before s/he banks around to the left to commence the decent into the airport. The window shades must be up to allow for a clear view of any air traffic coming up from behind.

Don’t even get me started on mobile phones, computers and iPods. If they were really a threat then we would have to put them in our checked in luggage with our hair spay, talcum powder and sticks of dynamite.

Flight attendants diligently check each of these details prior to take off and landing. Waking passengers up if required to redress their indiscretions. Using risk management principles such specific attention and correction implies that the risks are of a high level of likelihood and the consequences are high or intolerable. What does this mean? An closed window shade is highly likely (yes) AND could cause serious injury, permanent disability or death.

I am still looking for the obituary that reads “he was taken early in a tragic accident doing what he loved most closing the blinds.”

© Darren Freak

SA Heaps good. Like good but better

This is the grand tourism campaign currently attempting to lure visitors to the southern state. I do not want to blow my own trumpet but when I lived there it used to be SA Great and Sensational Adelaide, now after only two short years in my absence it has slipped to only being better than good.

I would like to see the scale.

• Great
• Damn good
• Heaps good
• Good
• A bit of alright
• Better than ACT
• Giving it a crack
• Sorry

It is just so defeatist. The government is essentially telling the world that it is not that South Australia is not a bad place but rather it is just not a great example of an excellent one. Such an inferiority complex, I am surprised SA is not sitting in the corner complaining that no one ever want to play with it.

The website www.heapsgoodsa.com.au suggests that the following South Australian places, events people and stuff are all heaps good; Fruchocs, Adelaide Pie Cart (home of the pie floater), Central Markets, Emu Bay Kangaroo Island (previously voted Australia’s best beach), Adelaide Fringe, Monarto Zoo and the Heysen Trail. All of things offer some credibility to the site, but keep looking.

It also lists The Advertiser (South Australia’s only daily newspaper that as its name suggests does not make the reporting of actual news its min priority), random fish and chip shops, bakeries, pubs and pizza stores, an online scrabble community (if it is online is it really unique to SA? Though I am starting to understand why SA is no longer great if that is the best they have to offer) and a cardboard cut out of Men In Black. This right a left over advertising poster from the 1997 Will Smith film is one of the things that make South Australia heaps good.

But what about the people; no sign of Lleyton Hewitt, Dame Roma Mitchell (Australia’s first female QC), Sir Howard Florey (discoverer of the medicinal benefits of penicillin), David Hicks, Sunrise’s David Koch or Sir Douglas Mawson (of Antarctica fame). There was just not room for such luminaries on a list that posts people like Pete from Craigmore, Kylie from Wayville or the pre-eminent Gavo from Stirling.

What have they done to deserve such accolades? Nothing more than typing their names onto the website. But as their mates tell them, “Yous are heaps good.”

They are like good but better.