If you’ve ever found yourself white-knuckling the armrests during a bumpy flight, you need to know about the viral tip a pilot just dropped. Apparently, there is a bad spot to sit on a plane if you hate turbulence, but not that it will lead to an explosion or anything, just uncomfortable. According to Florida-based pilot on TikTok Joey Miuccio, the back of the plane is the worst possible place to park yourself, and he used a simple pen trick to prove exactly why you’ve been feeling so chaotic 30,000 feet up.
I know the feeling, and you probably do too. For anyone who deals with aerophobia, those sudden drops and shakes can feel truly terrifying. Even though the experts tell us that turbulence hasn’t caused a recorded plane crash in decades, that doesn’t stop your brain from panicking when the plane is being tossed around like a toy.
It’s a totally miserable experience when all you can do is hold on tight, keep your seat belt buckled, and maybe try to distract yourself with a terrible in-flight movie. Luckily, Miuccio has shared a video with a simple piece of physics we can use to make our next flight a little bit smoother. If you pair this with the new info on airplane coffee, it makes you a lot more informed.
Watch where you sit on planes
Miuccio, who shares flying tips on TikTok under the handle @joeymiuccio, responded to a viewer who asked him directly where the best place to sit on the plane would be to avoid feeling the brunt of the bumps. His answer was quick and definitive. “Definitely not in the back,” he advised.
To show the difference, Miuccio used what he calls the “pen trick.” He picked up a standard pen and held it horizontally right in the middle, demonstrating the center of gravity. When he shook the pen back and forth, you could see that the ends of the pen were bouncing and shaking wildly, but the center, where he was holding it, remained relatively steady.
This is a brilliant visualization, and it makes total sense. The center of the pen represents the center of gravity of the aircraft, which is usually right around the wings. He emphasized that while the whole plane is experiencing the turbulence, the feeling is amplified the further away you get from the center.
“The back is the worst spot,” Miuccio says. “You see the pen trick?” He continued to shake the pen, showing how dramatically the “back of the plane” gets bounced around. He clarified the physics behind the feeling, adding, “The whole plane is experiencing turbulence. But it’s worse further from the center of gravity.”
So, if the back is the worst, where should we be aiming for when we book our next flight? Miuccio highly recommends securing a seat closer to the wings. He suggested that sitting directly around the wing area is a good bet, or maybe even moving just a little bit forward of that center of gravity. Next time you’re booking, look for seats that are right over the engine or just ahead of it. You’ll definitely notice a difference in how much that plane is pitching and rolling.
