If you’re doing it right, a long-distance flight can be boring. Sitting in the same seat for hours at a time, watching George fly the airplane and occasionally acknowledging a frequency change isn’t the most stimulating way to spend an afternoon. If there’s no weather to worry about, and if you’re in airspace with little traffic, there simply isn’t much to do except scan the gauges, switch tanks every now and then, keep track of your position and look out the windows.
It likely was on a flight like this that the axiom “hours and hours of boredom punctuated by moments of stark terror” was coined. Fighting boredom also can help minimize fatigue (although many other factors can contribute to fatigue). How to keep yourself interested, stimulated and “in the loop” on an otherwise boring long-distance flight? Two suggestions:
