Airline staff reveal why window shades must be kept open during takeoff and landing It's not just so passengers can admire the view below Saturday 27 February 2016 11:04 BST Lifting the shades on the windows during take-off and landing might seem like a trivial ask to many aeroplane passengers. Some travellers believe that this to prepare them for the jolty landing moment when the wheels hit the concrete below. But experts have now revealed the reasons why it is much more important to passenger safety than you would think. Aviation Safety Officer, Saran Udayakumar told Quora users that in cases of emergency the cabin crew only have 90 seconds to evacuate the aeroplane. In order to make this possible the crew prepare the passengers and the aircraft so if anything does go wrong they can evacuate quickly. This also means emergency personnel outside can see into the cabin to assess the situation. He explains: “Passengers are curious; hence they are perfect extra eyes to see if something goes wrong out there.

Usually passengers report stuff right away.” “In case of sudden emergencies, every second counts. Therefore if shades are open crew can easily see outside conditions to help them in planning the evacuation - which doors to use for evacuation.” David Robinson, an Aeronautical Industry Professional provides a further explanation. “If you've somewhat acclimatized to low light conditions before an unfortunate incident occurs, you'll have a visual capacity which initially may exceed 1,000 times better compared to if you were suddenly plunged into the darkness and had 90 seconds to disembark from the aircraft”. Airline pilot, Kare Lohse says: “There have been cases where passengers have noted technical problems by looking out on the wing or engines for instance. Of course, it happens very rarely”. Passengers are also asked to fold up their tables and straighten their seats during take-off and landing in the case of an emergency to ensure a quick exit. The best advice air crew staffs recommend in the case of an emergency is to take control.

In January 2009 the passengers of Flight 1549 landed on the Hudson River in what the Mayor called a “miracle on the Hudson”.  The 150 passengers on board survived and worked together with the crew to assess the situation and ensure the safety of their fellow passengers.Update: After two summers of experimenting, I am a firm believer in closing windows and blinds to keep the house cool when it is hot outside. But many people will resist. They can’t tolerate closed windows and blinds when it’s a beautiful sunny day. The assumption here is that you want to keep your house as cool as possible in hot weather without resorting to air conditioning. I checked* a couple of  dozen Internet entries for stances on whether windows should be open or closed to achieve a cooler house when the weather is hot. There were many entries to pick from; lots of people have reflected on this. The consensus is, it depends. Generally, if your house is decently insulated, keep the windows and blinds closed when the sun is shining.

Open the windows in the evening and at night. More specifically, keep the windows closed when the outside temperature is hotter than it is inside, and open the windows when it’s cooler outside than inside.Best Tapping Block For Laminate Flooring This doesn’t work if your house is not well insulated and was illustrated for me at a house in my past. Magnetic Paper Towel Holder Bed Bath BeyondWe had a stand-alone garage that wasn’t insulated, and it got quite hot in there in the summer if the doors and window were closed. How To Attach Towel Rack To Hollow Core DoorOur adjacent house didn’t get nearly as hot. Chad Skelton of the Vancouver Sun has written my favourite article on the open-close issue.

He went to the trouble of using a thermometer and confirmed that it is indeed a good idea to keep windows and blinds closed on a hot day. There’s more to it than that, though. Here’s an excerpt from his blog, posted in July 2012: “But it’s important to make a distinction between how hot the air feels and how hot the air actually is. “Opening the window on a breezy warm day may make you feel like you’re cooling off your house, but it’s an illusion. In fact, while the breeze feels nice, you’re actually letting loads of hotter air into your home. “The better strategy, in my view, is to keep your windows closed to lock in the cool air and then, if necessary, use a fan to move the air around and make yourself feel cooler.” Chad Skelton’s article is here. On southern Vancouver Island, it almost always cools off at night. That’s not the case on the Prairies, at least not when I lived there. It often stayed miserably hot all night. Same experience when I visited relatives in Ontario.

We can take advantage of the Island's cool night air. Hasten the cooling of your house by having a fan blow the cooler air inside. I have tried this, and it works. I put a fan out on the deck, and it blows cool air in through the patio screen. Open windows, of course, can bring security concerns. You’ll need to gauge which windows are safe to leave open in the evening and night, if at all. Still, despite the logic, there are reasons to reject the wisdom of closing your windows and blinds during the day: The cat likes to lounge in sunshine. The cat likes to have the windows open. Having a darkened house depresses you. You need to see what’s going on outside. You have a great view that you paid a lot of money for. You crave an outdoor breeze; the artificial breeze of a fan is not good enough. It’s summer, you want to embrace the warmth. For your basic stay-cool arsenal, you'll need an indoor thermometer, an outdoor thermometer that's in the shade and a fan.

Plus the discipline to keep the windows and blinds closed even if it makes your house feel like a dungeon. There are more cooling suggestions in the links below, like awnings, overhangs, plenty of insulation, and strategically placed vegetation. * Academics write papers all the time based on surveys of the literature on a topic. They do minimal or no original research. Instead, they review the research that has already been done and then offer their conclusions. That’s sort of what I’m doing here, though with substantially less rigour than what an academic journal might require. For instance, a journal might look askance at the way I found my literature. I typed variations of the phrase “windows closed or open in hot weather” into the DuckDuckGo and Google search engines. Articles that caught my eye: : Is it better to have windows open or closed on a hot day? : Summer comfort is an open and shut case Fixit columnist answers this question: When a house isn't air-conditioned, is it better to keep the windows open or closed?

A friend said it's best to keep the windows closed to keep the heat out. I think the opposite. The windows should be open to allow the house to cool off. Chad Skelton’s Curious Dad blog: On a hot day, should you keep your windows open or closed? B.C. Hydro: Power Smart tips to help you stay cool and save , where a few people favour keeping the windows open during the day. : Cool your home without air conditioning : How to keep your house cool in a heatwave : Simple strategies for keeping cool University of Nebraska extension: Keeping cool this summer Summary for a book, Warm House Cool House (PDF): Traditional architecture in the Middle East has ways of keeping cool. (PDF): A preliminary model of user behaviour regarding the manual control of windows in office buildings Among the observations: people like to open windows on summer days moreso than in winter; window opening and closing tends to happen when a person arrives. My previous posts are here.