A certain American Airlines 757 pilot gave me and a couple of hundred others a very hard landing this week.
So my jaw finally began to cease chattering when I discovered NASA is beginning to work on dropping flying things from the sky to see if perhaps the impact can be absorbed.
NASA's Web site told me that it dropped a helicopter from 35 feet in order to see whether an expandable honeycomb cushion that NASA calls a "deployable energy absorber" could minimize damage to life, limb, and even nervous systems.
The MD-500's landing gear did bend a little, NASA said, but the agency seemed most pleased that "four crash test dummies along for the ride appeared only a little worse for the wear."
Perhaps you will be most heartened by the words of Karen Jackson, an aerospace engineer who was one of the brains behind the test, which was conducted at NASA's Langley Research Center: "I'd like to think the research we're doing is going to end up in airframes and will potentially save lives."
I know we're only talking about helicopters right now. But given that commercial pilots do enjoy the occasional drink and have even drifted past Minneapolis and headed out to Wisconsin, surely one can dream that one day someone will create an extraordinary cushion for your average 757.
I can't remember the last time I talked to a human being at an airline.
To get anywhere, you go online, you get some instantly concocted price that may be entirely different from that offered on other sites. Then you check whether the flight you'd like to choose might necessitate you getting on to one of the slightly creepy MD-83s with the engine at the back and only two seats on one side.
You might think that the airlines' own Web sites would be amongst the most reliable in the commercial world. They have to be, right?
Well, you might also think your urine turns purple after a starter of asparagus bruschetta, oven-roasted asparagus, and asparagus ice cream.
According to monitoring service Pingdom, airline Web sites are out of service 44 hours annually. Which compares to 35 hours for the average site.
I know you might find it odd that an airline has delays online as well as in the physical world. But there it is. Art imitating life.
Pingdom monitored 42 of the world's favorite airline Web sites from November 2008 to March 2009.
And, as in "Dancing with the Stars," let's talk first about those that passed the Pingdom judgment with flying colors.
KLM's site was up and running 99.99 per cent of the time. Then there was United Airlines--99.98 per cent.
Overall, sites in the US and Japan proved to be the most technologically alive. However, there were miscreants.
Yes, 26 airlines didn't even reach 99.8 percent uptime. In the dance-off for survival, you will find SAS (yes, probably affected by the huge amounts of Scandinavian pirating clogging up the Internet system) and, stunningly, Lufthansa.
However, Pingdom declared that last in line for takeoff are those interesting pioneers from JetBlue.
Personally, I find this result surprising, as I have generally found the airline's site both clear and efficient. However, according to the Pingdom people, JetBlue's site only had 97.37 percent uptime. This represents almost 10 annual days of disappearance from the Web radar.
On the other hand, JetBlue doesn't fly any of those pesky MD-83s does it?
A little honesty can often clear the air. And the arteries.
So I am heartened that the Irish airline Ryanair decided to put the PR flannel aside and pick up its finest titanium cudgel in a dispute with a blogger.
Jason Roe, a Web developer from Dublin, tried to book tickets on Ryanair's Web site and thought he'd masterfully found a little technical kink that allowed him to snatch tickets for free.
Like many a fine Web developer, he posted a note about his experience on his blog and twittered it to the heavens. But the kink was not a kink. The glitch turned out to be merely the scratching of Jason Roe's itch. Free flights could not, in fact, be had by one and all.
Somehow, members of Ryanair's diligent staff happened upon Mr. Roe's site and began to leave him messages.
One message read: "You're an idiot and a liar!! fact is! you've opened one session then another and requested a page meant for a different session, you are so stupid you dont even know how you did it!"
The use of exclamation points enhances the general lively feeling of the Ryanair employee's post. However, the airline decided not to stop there. When Mr. Roe traced the Internet Protocol address of this poster back to Ryanair, the company's PR department found itself a steel mallet, complete with rusty iron spikes emerging from its head.
Stephen McNamara, a Ryanair spokesman with whom, I suspect, I would prefer to have just the one drink in a brightly lit room, declared to CNN: "Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion."
I cannot confirm that this Ryanair employee is advancing on an idiot blogger she has spotted in seat 27B.
(Credit: CC Jon Gos)Swinging the mallet hard, he continued: "It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy in corresponding with idiot bloggers, and Ryanair can confirm that it won't be happening again. Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves, as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel."
Some might feel that the company's attitude will only help it drive down the runway of ruin.
Indeed, Ryanair's management can be quite naughty. Just last year, the airline was sued by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his then-girlfriend, Carla Bruni, when Ryanair ran an ad that featured an image of the couple--without paying for it. The airline lost that suit.
However, there is something faintly charming about about a company that is happy to reflect its true, scampish essence, even in this here "blog sphere."
What I find a little odd is that Mr. Roe seemed intent on getting flight tickets for free. Yet I have just, for the first time in my life, stumbled upon Ryanair's site. It offered to fly me from Liverpool, England, to Seville, Spain, for example, for a quite lunatic price of 5 British pounds. Which is something like $7. And Mr. Roe was highlighting ways to scam your way for free?
The world has taken on a very warped and wounded shape. I blame the idiot and lunatic bloggers, myself.
If this doesn't scare you, your nerves are granite.
The other day over the Indian Ocean, the pilots of a Qantas Airbus totally lost control of the plane. It made a rapid ascent and then plunged 8,000 feet.
Now, investigators are saying that among the possible causes are a laptop with its wireless switched on, a Bluetooth mouse, or a video game.
Frankly, I wish someone would explain in very simple terms whether it really is possible to affect a plane's controls with your laptop, video game, or cell phone.
I know people who, during a flight, will go to the restroom just to check their cell phone messages. Naturally, I try not to fly with these people. But I know they are still alive and have not caused any turbulence.
Still, something very strange and, clearly thus far, inexplicable happened on Qantas flight QF72.
The words of Julian Walsh, the investigator of this incident, make me feel desperately unwell: "Certainly there was a period of time when the aircraft performed of its own accord."
Please focus on those words carefully: OF ITS OWN ACCORD. Doesn't this make you feel a little odd?
Overhead bins were thrown open. Human hair was found stuck to the ceiling as those who happened not to be wearing their seat belts were catapulted straight upward.
Is it truly possible that the pilots only regained control of this terrifying flight when someone switched off their laptop or video game or took their finger off their Bluetooth mouse?
Apparently, the Australian transport safety bureau recently discovered that a passenger idly clicking on a Bluetooth mouse made the plane tilt 3 degrees.
I am sure that I am not alone in saying that I find flying frightening enough as it is. Is there some huge brain out there who can put our minds to rest this minute?
I only ask because I have a trip planned and, well, you know, I've spent enough of my week already banging my head against a wall.
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