Air Archives - foXnoMad

Category: Air

What Really Works To Prevent Jet Lag

Jet lag is undefeated but there are some steps you can take to reduce its effects, though not everyone will agree with this advice. I’ve taken notes for flights over a decade and tried to determine what works and doesn’t.

These are my best – and probably unpopular – jet lag prevention tips.

1. Start Strong

First, try to get your sleep schedule at home stable, at least a week before you fly. That means getting up and going to bed at roughly the same time every night and avoiding caffeine after noon and alcohol in the evening. You want to build a base of good sleep and rest.

caye caulker belize

The more tired and off schedule you are at home the more likely it is to take longer to recover from jet lag because your body has triple duty. It has to recover from the initial poor sleep and then adjust an already chaotic sleep schedule while simultaneously being asked to accept that it’s now sunny at 3am. That’s a lot for your body and just like it’s not a good idea to run a half marathon the day before you run a marathon, the more recovery time your body needs prior to skipping time zones, the longer everything is going to take.

2. Schedule Wisely

Try to schedule your flights for the evening or arrive in the morning based on your personal body clock. Morning people who are most alert during the day should try to schedule arrival times in the morning. The opposite for you night owls. You can use your body’s natural response to light and dark to trick your sleep cycle into adjust quicker to the local time.

3. Nap… Or Don’t

Don’t nap after 2pm and if you do, keep it to 20-40 minutes. There is a big caveat though, if you’re not someone who regularly naps don’t start when you’re jet lagged. You’ll likely oversleep and feel groggy but if there’s time, learn to nap now. Napping is a skill anyone can develop.

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4. Compression And Run

Using a good pair like Nabee, I noticed I feel a lot better after a long flight. My feet and legs are less swollen and to better aid circulation (and get naturally more tired or awake) a good walk or run immediately after you’ve dropped your bags off at your destination is one of the most counterintuitive but effective things I’ve tried.

5. Avoid Airplane Food

Rather, bring your own snacks and try to be a little hungry when you land. The high sodium in airplane food can have you feeling more bloated upon arrival so stick to your own snacks and pack yourself a meal before heading to the airport.

You can watch the video above for the rest of my jet lag tips and let me know if you have any tricks of your own down in the comments.

How To Avoid Getting Sick After Your Next Flight (And Why You Do)

Have you ever taken a flight felt great about getting to your destination only to start feeling a cold coming on a day or two later? Well, you’re not alone. In fact, there may be up to an 80% greater chance of you getting sick on a flight, depending on where you’re sitting.

There are a few factors at play but you can reduce your chances of getting sick on your next flight with a little preparation and seating strategy. I show you how in the video above with some tips below.

The Myths, First

Let’s dispel some myths and airplane air, which a lot of people attribute to getting post flight coughs and sniffles. The air that is circulated on planes goes through high efficiency particulate air or HEPA filters and planes do in take some amount of fresh air during the flight. About 50% of the air you breathe on a flight is recycled with HEPA filters capturing about 99.97% of airborne particles over .3 microns in size. That’s enough to filter pretty much all bacteria and a lot of viruses.

austrian air plane

HEPA filtration and passenger ventilation systems so good that sitting next to someone on a flight is like standing 2 meters away from someone in an office, grocery store, or… airport. Check in lines, security queues, bathrooms, lounges, there are a lot of people you come into contact with at an airport so that’s where you’re more likely to catch a cold. If catching a cold is something you’re especially concerned about a mask is a good precaution but there are other steps you can take.

Wash Hands And Watch Seats

Make sure to sanitize or wash your hands often and be mindful about where you pick a seat. A study conducted by Boeing, Emory University and Georgia Tech in 2018 indicated there may be a greater chance of getting sick on a flight, with some caveats. Researchers found that sitting in a row with a sick passenger or in front of or behind a sick passenger increased chances of getting sick.

The study was examining flights with 3 seat rows but a person directly on the other side of the aisle isn’t entirely safe – they had an 80% higher chance of getting sick. For the people across the aisle in the middle or window seat had a 10-30% chance increase of becoming ill.

Gasping For Health

According to Dr. Mark Gendreau, you can create an air curtain using the gaspers if they’re available on your next flight. Gaspers are the name of those adjustable personal air vents familiar to many fliers. Doctor Gendreau says angling them at medium flow so the air is blowing just in front of your face, can create some additional turbulence that might push away airborne germs just enough to keep you from inhaling them or landing on you.

Of course nothing is completely going to eliminate your chances of getting sick right after a flight. And some of the congestion you feel could come down to how dry the air is in cabin. Most plane cabins have 10-20% humidity whereas for most people something 30-60% is more comfortable. When the air gets drier, your body produces more mucus to keep you from drying out too much but as soon as you get off the plane, there’s now too much mucus because it’s more humid all of a sudden, that mucus has to go somewhere and often it’s in the form of a runny nose.

For clogged ears and noses though be sure to use the safe method to equalize pressure again to avoid hearing problems.

Drone Laws By Country: DroneMate App For Android Gets Premium Treatment

dronemate premium

Finding out the particular drone laws where you are or headed when traveling seems like a straightforward task – just do a quick search online and get the list. Right? Well, not all governments make their recreational drone laws easily accessible and even more sites simply have wrong or outdated information.

I know because for over 7 years I and the DroneMate team have been keeping official records of every single recreational drone law in the world. DroneMate is available online, on iOS, and starting today the Premium version has launched for Android.

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DroneMate Premium Features

In the biggest update to the Android app since its first release DroneMate Premium now includes 24/7 customer support through the app.

You can now subscribe to any of the comment threads under a country, US state, or local jurisdiction, ask your drone questions and get a prompt reply from one of our drone experts. You can also connect with drone pilots worldwide to share you experiences, find out good flying spots, and discuss the latest drone news.

DroneMate Premium also sends you location based notification of local drone laws and you can opt to receive notifications about drone law changes in countries and localities you choose.

Why DroneMate

I’ve been traveling full time for over 15 years and nearly a decade with a drone. I’ve encountered airport confiscations, confused border officers, and heard many more stories of people facing fines or worse because they didn’t know the rules. DroneMate was created to help drone pilots avoid those situations with accurate information from our local government sources.

Premium users also get help with the forms, contacts, and step-by-step help with any questions you may have. DroneMate is a living app with comments, replies, and traveler communities we’ve put a lot of work into. Download DroneMate for Android and iOS where you can try Premium free for 30 days and let us know what you think.

Happy flying,

-Anil

The Problem With Boeing Planes

You’ve probably seen the images from Alaska Airlines flight 1282 where a section of the plane was blown out in mid-flight. Fortunately, the plane was able to make an emergency landing and aside from 3 minor injuries nobody else was hurt or killed. Still, this was a brand new Boeing 737 Max 9 – only in service for 3 months before this incident – but since the Max line of planes was introduced, there have been two fatal crashes.

What is going on with Boeing and should you be worried about flying in their planes?

Safe But Less Safe

Previous generations of Boeing 737s have a fatal accident rate of .2 per million flights while the 737 MAX have a 4 in million fatal accident rate, still safe, but twenty times more accident prone. The Boeing 737 line is the most popular passenger plane ever – beginning production in 1968 through the latest generation called MAX which began in 2017. Throughout much of that history Boeing was the dominant jetliner manufacturer. Boeing’s main rival Airbus wasn’t a serious rival to Boeing until the 1990s.

alaska airlines

In the 2000s Airbus overtook Boeing in the narrow body aircraft market and today Airbus has 62% of the share of airliner backlog. Their main advantage: fuel economy.

Savings In The Sky

In the 2010s Airbus starting using a new engine design using with what’s known as high-bypass. Technical details aside, these are engines that are bigger than what was previously being used but 25% more fuel efficient. (And 35% quieter, a nice bonus.) Before this jetliner engines were made to be narrower thinking it would reduce wind resistance.

Over time airlines began gravitating toward these narrower, smaller capacity planes because they saved money on fuel. Those cost savings meant that airlines could run more flights versus the larger Boeing planes which burn more fuel. It’s easier to fill up smaller planes resulting in fewer empty seats. Again, economic benefits.

Boeing Plays Catch Up

Boeing isn’t able to put those newer more fuel efficient engines on their existing larger planes because the wings are too low for them to fit. This leads to the decision to make the Boeing MAX, their version of a narrow body jetliner to compete with Airbus. Building planes takes experience and Boeing didn’t redesign the 737 Max from scratch. The larger more powerful engines being placed on modified existing designs have lead to issues. Boeing had to put the new engines further forward on the wings of the MAX but combined with more thrust they have a tendency to pull the plane up more – in other words give it more lift.

jetliner engine

To compensate, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) was implemented. That’s basically a computer than detects when the nose of the plane might be going up too high and then forces the plane to pitch downward. Boeing engineers allowed the MCAS to be fed information from a single sensor with no redundancy because “they calculated the probability of a “hazardous” MCAS malfunction to be virtually inconceivable.”

The Federal Aviation Administration also agreed and did not adequately inform pilots about the MCAS in their manuals. Unfortunately in the case of Lion Air Flight 620 in 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines 302 in 2019 that lead to two fatal crashes, killing 346 people. Boeing was later charged with fraud and ordered to pay compensation of 2.5 billion dollars for concealing information from the FAA.

Failures For Dollars

There were failures on the part of Boeing and the FAA, who overruled their own engineers in the regarding the 737 MAX 8 and there have been well documented quality control issues with the MAX 9 (the plane involved in the Alaska Airlines incident). A U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure report also pointed to the FAA’s practice of delegating some of its inspection functions to Boeing’s own engineers, noting that this structure “creates inherent conflicts of interest that have jeopardized the safety of the flying public.”

The grounding of the MAX 8 cost Boeing 21 billion dollars. Still, the 737 MAX 8 and 9 still have 4500 orders combined so far but it seems like Boeing’s push to make a profit – which that haven’t done since 2019 – has lead to cutting corners in their race to compete with Airbus. Travelers can only hope there are no more accidents before oversight of Boeing, investigations, and changes both to personnel and production are implemented.

The Worst Websites To Book Flights With

There are a lot of reasons to not use any of these sites but terrible customer service, undelivered bookings, and general hassle are some of the main offenses.

1. eDreams

edreams

Let’s start with the first offender, eDreams, a site that keeps their airfare listings low by basically not having a customer service department and by sneaking in fees right after you book. For starters, eDreams shows you the absolute lowest price you’ll definitely not be paying when searching. A lot of aggregators do this but eDreams is a particularly bad offender where your final fare can be 30-50% more than what you’re first shown.

Another shady practice many have come across with eDreams is they show you fares with their “Prime” membership discounts included.

So, for example for a flight from New York to London is might show a $535 round trip. Notice the greyed out fine print in the video above though and it’s actually $608. But eDreams automatically includes a free 30 day trial of prime when you book, which isn’t very clear – because Prime is $59 a year – so many people are unwittingly charged a month later for a service they didn’t explicitly sign up for.

You have to click to “Show other fares” to see the true price.

2. SmartFares

smartfares

The trick SmartFares likes to do is show you low prices for a fare, then when you do book, will send you their confirmation code. That’s not confirmation by the airlines – a few hours, up to a day passes, then they say your flight wasn’t booked because the airline raised their price. They’ll then (hopefully) send an email asking if you want to book at the new, higher rate. If you try to cancel, they’ll charge you a fee to do so.

There are in fact so many issues with Smartfares that they’ve included an entire section in their terms about charge backs and credit card disputes. Basically saying you agree to not dispute any of their fees with your credit card and they you’ll be charged a $250 charge back fee if you attempt to dispute.

You know things are bad when there’s several sections in the terms on how you can not get a refund for botched bookings. My advice, avoid using SmartFares when possible.

3. GoToGate

gotogate

GoToGate is so bad, in my testing, I wasn’t able to book a single flight. All were dropped, requests for refunds ignored, and there are fees for handling refunds. And believe me when I say, Gotogate will fight you and your credit card tooth and nail for that refund or charge dispute. They’re really nasty to work with so avoid them. Seriously, you can find a flight elsewhere.

There Is Hope

All services and booking sites not to mention airlines, screw up. They make mistakes are incompetent, some percentage of the time. With enough customers, even a small percentage adds up. But with eDreams, SmartFares, and GoToGate, that percentage is very high. To stay in business they make refunds difficult, charge fees wherever they can – and just enough people have a smooth experience that sites like Kayak still work with them.

Keep that in mind next time you’re looking for a flight and see an unusually low price through an aggregator. It’s probably too good to be true and if it’s one of those 3 sites I’ve mentioned, not worth the trouble.

DroneMate Premium Shows You Local Drone Laws As You Travel

dronemate premium

A drone can provide you incredible shots from you vacation but traveling with a drone, especially internationally, can be a bureaucratic nightmare. A patchwork of laws, regulations, and registration forms that might not be clear or well-defined can get your drone confiscated or you fined. Not to mention that in some parts of the world authorities may not know the rules well enough to enforce them properly. (Or rely on your ignorance for ahem *cough* a bribe.)

DroneMate Premium Features

DroneMate, the app that puts all of the world’s drone laws on your phone (available for iOS/Android) also has a Premium version that unlocks the following features:

  • Track Specific Localities: Select countries, states, and other localities you want information on and receive notifications any time there’s an update to the drone rules there. When there is an update, DroneMate displays a notification with the complete updated drone laws, including links to any documents, forms, or registration materials needed.
  • Personalized Support: DroneMate Premium users will also get personalized support for any questions they have regarding specific drones laws, rules or regulations. Premium users are notified of responses by a DroneMate administrator to their questions in the comments section. Premium users can ask about specific rules, drone hardware, or travel experiences with a drone in a given locality.
  • Automatic Notifications: DroneMate Premium users will get a notification of whether they can fly their drone, need registration, or other restrictions on drone use upon arrival at your destination. The complete drone laws, including links to any documents, forms, or registration materials needed will be displayed and it works completely offline!

All of the Premium enhancements come with all of the regular DroneMate features including the built-in traveler network, specific drone requirements, and of course, offline mode!

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How To Get DroneMate Premium FREE

DroneMate Premium is an upgrade you can select from within the DroneMate app. It’s a yearly subscription you can try 30 days for free and connect with other drone pilots, just in time for your next trip!

Of course if you have any questions about DroneMate you can send me a message here. Have a safe and legal flight!

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About Anil Polat

foxnomad aboutHi, I'm Anil. foXnoMad is where I combine travel and tech to help you travel smarter. I'm on a journey to every country in the world and you're invited to join the adventure! Read More

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