Plastic on Fire

While we were waiting at Cairns airport this morning (without the comforts of a Koru Lounge) I noticed that there was a new Boeing 787 waiting on the tarmac. Not for us, thank goodness.

I've long made my feelings known to my darling about my refusal to travel on these plastic beasts.

This started back when their delivery date was missed the first couple of times, and was reinforced when their test flight program had to be repeatedly abandoned due to unforeseen dangers and errors.

When they finally started shipping out my refusal was cemented forever when they all had to be grounded because their batteries kept catching fire. Something that was not actually fixed by the way. All that was added was the ability to suppress and contain the fires that did start. Yeah, that's gonna sell me on their safety.

Being made of plastic would be okay. Catching fire would be less okay but containment if it does, fine.

Being made of plastic and catching fire; not a chance in hell matey.

You know what happens if you hold a lot match to a supermarket bag? Now imagine that with 290 passengers screaming inside it. Yeah, so can I.

My darling was fascinated with it. He almost pressed his nose to the glass. He had a love affair with planes. He knows their measurements the way you know your girlfriend's, and he'll tell you stories about their production the way you reveal anecdotes from your childhood.

He pointed out the curved sweep of the tail, and how you can still see the slight shape of a shark's tail as it was originally envisioned, before the airlines found out it would cost extra and unanimously turned the shark design down. Spoilsports.

I pointed out that it was probably sitting away from the other planes on the tarmac because they didn't want innocent bystander planes to die when it burst into flames.

He scoffed at my suggestion, and a second later a fire alarm sounded and the terminal had to be evacuated. A fire truck rolled past on its absurdly large wheels and headed straight for the 787.

I won.