Fog-Like Sensations

Ace reporter Spencer Ackerman tells me over IM that he's experiencing "extreme fog" delays at Dulles Airport this morning. Yesterday at National they told us a flight was delayed because of fog. The thing of it was that you could look outside and there was clearly no fog. I attempted to vent about this to a fellow passenger, but he sheep-like took the view that if they say there's fog there must be fog. I tried to gesture to the numerous large windows, but to no avail.

The experience put me in the mind of Michael Frayn's "Fog-Like Sensations".

Comments

This may be difficult to believe, but flights are often delayed due to weather conditions outside of the immediate vicinity of a single airport!!

Posted by drive by troll | June 7, 2008 10:47 AM

Great, another consumer advocate post where Matt comes across as a manchild.

Btw, since you don't drive, you may not have noticed there was a lot of fog in the area outside the airport.

Posted by anon | June 7, 2008 10:55 AM

You might want to consider an odd activity known as "reading blogs". Patrick Smith's "Ask the Pilot" blog (collected in his book of the same name), as well as Don Brown's Get the Flick ATC blog, have discussed this question in extensive detail.

The basics of aviation (both private and commercial) are simple; most people can learn to fly an airplane in empty rural airspace with 40 hours of classroom and 60 hours of in-plane training. The realities of operating a large-scale crowded airspace such as the Northeast corridor are unbelievably complex, difficult to grasp, and often non-intuitive (when not counter-intuitive) to the layman.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | June 7, 2008 11:02 AM

Really bizarre. This happened to my wife on Thursday night. Flight delayed from Seattle to SF for 3 hours because of "fog."

However, reports from the friend in SF were that it was a beautiful night

Posted by matt | June 7, 2008 11:07 AM

Really bizarre. This happened to my wife on Thursday night. Flight delayed from Seattle to SF for 3 hours because of "fog."

However, reports from the friend in SF were that it was a beautiful night

Posted by matt | June 7, 2008 11:07 AM

Really bizarre. This happened to my wife on Thursday night. Flight delayed from Seattle to SF for 3 hours because of "fog."

However, reports from the friend in SF were that it was a beautiful night

Posted by matt | June 7, 2008 11:09 AM

Fog = Flying out of gas?

Posted by JayDenver | June 7, 2008 11:11 AM

The weather for DC right now says "FOG". the weather channel must be part of the conspiracy.

Posted by fog man | June 7, 2008 11:27 AM

Correct. It is called National Airport.

Posted by David B. | June 7, 2008 11:40 AM

Yeah, Matt, see, airplanes, they go real fast into areas not immediately visible to people sitting at the airport. And there might be weather conditions in those other areas that, although it looks perfectly fine at the airport, create really bad conditions for airplanes trying to navigate through them for take offs and landings.

There are many stupid things at the airport, most of them beginning and ending with TSA and/or the DoHS. Listening to your air traffic controller when he says "wait a while before trying that" is not one of them. Hell, it could have been fog delays in ANOTHER CITY that backed up the capacities of those airports, thus backing up the traffic control of your crystal clear, fogless world. This is not something to spend energy on.

Posted by Sam Hutcheson | June 7, 2008 11:40 AM

> Yeah, Matt, see, airplanes, they go real
> fast into areas not immediately visible to people
> sitting at the airport.

Consider that a runway used for international flights will be 2-1/2 miles long, and the end of that runway might be 1-2 miles from the terminal gate. It is fairly common in the midwest for one end of that runway to be under a thunderstorm while the terminal/gate, say 4 miles away, is sitting in the sunshine.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | June 7, 2008 11:46 AM

The fog is getting thicker. And Leon is getting larger.

Posted by joejoejoe | June 7, 2008 12:10 PM

I'm about 50-60 miles south of Dulles, and when I woke up this morning, there was extreme fog all around here.

It was a foggy morning. You think the airport was lying?

Posted by JoyceH | June 7, 2008 12:18 PM

Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

Posted by McCroskey | June 7, 2008 12:26 PM

About his trouble seeing fog, I'd ask which he would belive: the illuminated sign or his lion eyes.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 7, 2008 1:19 PM

It was very foggy in Ballston at around 6:30 this morning... not heavy gray fog, but very bright, white-out type conditions. Unexpected and thus spooky in a way. I guess it's time for a post on the phenomenon and its awesomeness as a metaphor.

Posted by safety first | June 7, 2008 1:29 PM

For the last couple of days, much of the interior of VA has been experiencing "fog" that is in fact smoke from a large wildfire in Hyde County, NC, about 50 miles inland from the Outer Banks. Yesterday in central VA, smoke obscuring sunlight produced a kind of "nuclear summer" suppression of heat - the high temperature was about 6 degrees lower than had been forecast. It's not as smoky today, and it's about as hot as was expected.

Posted by allbetsareoff | June 7, 2008 2:23 PM

I suspect Matt was joking. Hence the paranoid style. Hence the ridiculous claim.

Posted by Tyler | June 7, 2008 3:00 PM

No, I think Matt is just frequently an idiot who thinks the entire world revolves within twenty feet of him.

Typical of "just out of college" wannabe pundits.

Not to mention that Matt is constantly telling us about his travels to emphasize his "wannabe pundit" credentials. "See? I travel all over! I'm wanted!"

Nobody wants you, Matt. You just happen to be here like most of us.

When you start logging a few hundred thousand air miles a year, maybe then we'll take you seriously.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | June 7, 2008 5:06 PM

"Fog-like sensatons" is the best philosophy joke ever. I think about it whenever I see idiotic BS like "these people feel that they are happy - but are they really?"

Posted by asfas | June 7, 2008 6:50 PM

The only fog is in Matt's head, especially when it comes to issues of national security or foreign policy.

Which is why his book sold like anthrax.

"Fog-like sensations" indeed.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | June 7, 2008 7:43 PM

I landed at Dulles from Rio at ca. 6:45 this morning. The pilot announced fog with visibility of half a mile. When my plane left for San Francisco at ca. 9AM, about 30 minutes late, the fog had cleared somewhat.

Posted by Etaoin Shrdlu | June 7, 2008 9:29 PM

Since nobody but asfas has even alluded to it, I'll say that Frayn's piece is funny as hell -- if you have read any Wittgenstein. I wonder whether it's funny at all if you haven't.

Posted by francis | June 8, 2008 2:36 AM

I agree with Matt. Airports should ignore weather reports and ask some impatient guy to look out the window to see if it's ok to take off. Damn government.

Posted by Jack H. | June 8, 2008 2:56 AM

Frayn's piece is funny as hell -- if you have read any Wittgenstein. I wonder whether it's funny at all if you haven't.

It isn't.

Posted by radon chong | June 8, 2008 4:04 AM

On the other hand, weather delays are Acts of God that don't require an airline to provide hotel accommodation to travelers who miss their connection due to the delay.

I was on a flight from Des Moines to Chicago a few winters ago and I overhead the flight attendants complain about some mechanical problem (the de-icing truck wasn't working properly). The flight took off an hour late and I'd missed my connection by the time we got to O'Hare. The gate agent told everyone since it was a weather delay, anyone who missed their flight had to pay for their own hotel room. No biggie to me-- I was on an expense account, but it's made me a little suspicious of airline explanations ever since.

Posted by beowulf | June 8, 2008 11:52 PM