What can you tell me about the process of takeoff? I live in San Francisco, where takeoffs are very nerve-racking. Can you explain how a plane takes off and why it bumps, jigs and turns, sometimes at a high angle?

Interestingly, takeoff is the more critical point than landing. Here the airplane is making the transition from ground to flight, and its grip on the latter is much more tentative than during landing.

The characteristics of every takeoff are basically the same. The plane reaches a predetermined speed, based on weight. The point at which it reaches this speed depends on temperature and other factors. The pilots then rotate the aircraft to a specific angle and begin the climb. All of this, from the rotation point to the thrust setting to be used, is calculated beforehand. After breaking ground, the pilots follow a "profile" of speeds and altitudes at which they retract the landing gear, flaps, slats, reduce or increase climb angle, etc., all while turning to assigned headings or fixes and climbing to assigned altitudes. It is probably the busiest portion of any flight.

If it seems that takeoffs from certain airports are unusually hectic, it is probably because the plane is following noise-abatement procedures on behalf of residents below. These can change the departure profiles somewhat, and usually require lower-altitude turns or steeper climbs. You are more prone to feel turns and jigs because you are climbing, close to the ground, at high power settings. The sensations tend to be exaggerated.

What is wind shear? And can it rip the wings off?

Well, to keep it simple, wind shear, one of those horrific buzzwords that scare the crap out of passengers, is a sudden change in the direction and/or velocity of the wind. It can happen vertically, horizontally, or both, as in the case of a microburst preceding a thunderstorm. A microburst is an intense, localized burst of air from a storm front. Think of it like an upside down mushroom cloud. The strength of the shear can run the range of barely noticeable to potentially deadly. Fortunately it has become easier to predict, and as a rule wind shear does not simply appear out of nowhere, flipping a plane upside down without warning.

This "rip the wings off" business is something I can't begin to address. It's like asking, "Can a wave break a ship in half?" Theoretically, yes. Practically speaking, no. In the case of wind shear, pilots are not worried about losing wings, they are worried about losing speed when a certain number of knots from a headwind suddenly "shear" to a tailwind. But again, conditions in which this will happen are generally predictable, and pilots are trained to deal with them. Wind shear got a lot of press in the 1970s and 1980s when it was still a misunderstood phenomenon. The crash of Eastern Flight 66 at Kennedy Airport in 1975 is considered the watershed accident after which experts began to study it more seriously. The last major accident attributed to wind shear was in Dallas in 1985.

Is it helpful to speak up about something that doesn't look or sound right? Is it even possible that a passenger could discover something the crew doesn't know about?

Customers pass along concerns like this all the time. Never once have I known a pilot to sneer or mock anybody's well-intentioned query. The only time crewmembers take offense is when it's done arrogantly, such as when a guy pokes his nose into the cockpit and mumbles, "Hey, your tire's flat," and then walks off. (Of course, the tire is not flat.) It's never happened to me, but I've heard of instances where a passenger discovered a minor mechanical discrepancy. Usually it's just a missing rivet or some such, but always the information is appreciated.

Often it seems like the airlines only want to fly in good weather. Yet the weather service routinely flies low-tech planes through hurricanes. How much of avoiding weather is safety, and how much is the airlines just not waiting to scare the passengers? I would rather endure a few bumps and arrive on time, than sit at the airport for three hours.

While NASA or the weather service may occasionally fly research airplanes through hurricanes, it is not anything you want to try, trust me.

The vast majority of weather delays are caused by traffic congestion at destination airports, or en route saturation along routes, or "airways." In the first case, separation requirements change as ceilings and visibility go down, and aircraft must be funneled into instrument approach patterns. Fewer aircraft can land in a given stretch of time, backing up the arrivals. In the second case, even high-altitude routes often become blocked by storms, and so flights are diverted around them, causing backlogs. Often these two situations occur simultaneously, and the congestion can reach a point where departing flights are held on the ground so they don't exacerbate the gridlock.

If a flight is diverting around a weather cell, it is not doing so to placate squeamish passengers. If that very airplane were empty but for the pilots themselves, they would be making the same decisions.

According to several accounts, pilots are notoriously cheap. Wanna take a swipe?

If pilots are cheap it's because it often takes them years and years of slugging it out at low-paying commuter airlines before they ever make a halfway decent blue-collar salary. The pilots on the upper parts of a major airline's seniority list indeed make a good living, but it didn't come easy. Those working for smaller regional carriers often make embarrassingly poor salaries, and it can take many years before they join the ranks at a better-paying major airline, if ever.

Flying, it has been said, is much like acting, painting (or writing for online magazines), etc. Rewards loom for the fortunate, but many pilots are suffering for their art.

Do you have questions for Salon's aviation expert? Send them to AskThePilot and look for answers in a future column.

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