Fun Facts

Fun Facts

Dig into our history and you’ll find some pretty cool facts!

Around 60 years ago, back when your grandparents were around your age, the first commercial flight landed at Adelaide Airport. It was on Wednesday, the 16^th February, 1955; and the flight was from Perth. Back then it took 6.5 hours – that’s like a whole day at school! Thankfully, today it takes less than that.

Not only was our terminal officially opened in October 2005 by the 25^th Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, but perhaps our coolest guest that attended the opening celebrations was Australia’s first astronaut, Adelaide born Andy Thomas!

Flying is fun. But facts about flying are even more fun!

Founded in 1920, Australia’s national carrier, Qantas, is the world’s second oldest airline (KLM is the oldest). Not only are they the second oldest but they have the best safety record across the world. Even better, they are credited with inventing business class back in 1979!

Of all the people in the world, only 5% of the world’s population have ever travelled on an aircraft – just imagine how lucky you are!

If you were a female pilot back in the old days, people would call you an Aviatrix.

Next time you’re feeling hungry on a flight, think about this. Between 1978 – 1980, a French entertainer named Monsieur Mangetout ate a whole plane — a Cessna 150. He slowly broke metal parts down into tiny pieces, and consumed plenty of water and mineral oil throughout the meal. (Don’t try this at home)!

Little known facts about things that make a big difference.

Ever heard of a Black Box flight recorder? Well, actually, it’s not black, but orange. And it records all the flight data so that any problems can easily be tracked. Anyway, this important piece of equipment was invented in Australia by Dave Warren. So when you’re up there, think of Dave and his cool invention that helps keep track of everything on the flight!

You know how we measure our lives in years? The life of an airplane is measured in pressurisations. Each time the cabin is pressurised during a flight, a little bit of stress is put on the airplane’s body. The general rule is about 75,000 pressurisations per aircraft. That’s about 20 – 25 years. How old is the aircraft that you’ll be flying on? Maybe ask the flight attendant when you get on the plane.

How’s this for a fun fact — the A380’s wingspan is wider than the aircraft is long. That means, it would take you longer to go from one wingtip to the other than it would to get from nose to tail!

If you go into the cockpit and ask the pilot and co-pilot what they had to eat, they’ll always give you a different answer. Because they’re not allowed to eat the same meal! The idea is if one pilot suffers food poisoning then the other is able to continue flying the aircraft without any discomfort. Wouldn’t be fun if both pilot and co-pilot fell sick on your flight, now would it?

Know how Superman’s weakness is Kryptonite? Airplanes also have their own weakness. Since their bodies are made of aluminium, they can’t stand to be anywhere near Mercury.

We don’t just refer to the time differently, we also have a different way of referring to the letters in the alphabet. Instead of simply saying “A” or “B”, we say a specific word that starts with that letter. For example, instead of saying “A”, we say “Alpha”; and instead of saying “B”, we say “Bravo”. So if someone’s name is “Sam”, we’d say “Sierra Alpha Mike”. It’s like speaking in a special code with specific words for each letter, as shown in the table below. How would you say your name using this code?