6 things pilots notice when they fly as passengers that you probably miss by Mark Matousek on Jan 30, 2018, 9:08 AM 
- Airline pilots are trained to be attentive when they're on planes so that they will notice details that slip by the average passenger.
- Some of these details have serious safety implications.
For the average person, air travel is an opportunity to sleep, work, read, or watch a movie with fewer distractions than you'd find on the ground.
But for airline pilots and aviation experts, the experience can be different. Pilots and experts are trained to be attentive on planes, so even when they don't have to fly the plane and can sit in the main cabin, they'll notice things that other passengers don't. We interviewed two airline pilots and collected responses from a Quora thread to find out what pilots notice when they're flying in the main cabin. Here's what they said. SEE ALSO: There's a gruesome reason why you can't use the bathroom on a plane before takeoff Ice accumulating  The average airline passenger is likely to be concerned about turbulence, but according to Tanya Gatlin, a pilot and associate professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver, it's not as bad as most travelers think. "It's not something that's going to cause an accident or is even a factor to safety," she said in a phone interview with Business Insider. Instead, Gatlin is worried about ice. When necessary, ice and snow are removed from a plane before it takes off, and the plane is coated in materials that will prevent ice from building up while it's in the air — for a limited amount of time. The difficulty can come when the plane turns down its engine while preparing to land. "We're coming down in a very short amount of distance and there's no way we can get down that fast without the power being at idle," she said. This means the engines don't generate as much heat as when they're taking off, which increases the chance that ice will build up on the plane and make a smooth landing difficult.
Suspicious scents  Scents can be one of the strongest indicators that something's wrong on a plane, as they can quickly hint at problems with the engine or fuel storage systems. "Sounds are always useful, but a passenger cabin often is pretty isolated from any sounds that might be indicative of a problem. Smells, on the other hand, travel around quite freely, and some (e.g., fuel, hydraulic fluid, superheated bleed air) are pretty distinctive," Tom Farrier, who claims to be a former director of safety for the Air Transport Association, wrote on Quora.
The angle that light comes in through the window  Experienced pilots know that a sudden change in the angle of the light that comes through a cabin window can be the first sign that the pilot is changing course. "An unexpected, significant shift in the angle of the Sun can be your first sign that a course change is being made," Farrier wrote.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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