The feeling when you are at the beginning of the runway. The plane has left the gates what may seem like a long time ago, now waiting for the permission for takeoff. The buzz of conversation between the passengers are louder than the engines, for a while. But there is in the air the anticipation of what is to come, and for that some of the passengers get really quiet.
Then suddenly, full throttle. You feel the power of the engines and the plane. The speed of the takeoff pushes your back against the seat. And up you go. The angle in the takeoff can be surprisingly steep, and in just a few seconds, you are hundreds of feet above the ground.
The speed at the moment of takeoff? It is never a constant value. It changes with take off weight, temperature, pressure, winds, the runway length etc. But on an average, a Boeing 737 takes off at about 230 - 300 km/h.
Let’s go through here, since it is Language Day, how runway is expressed in different languages. Or actually its function in just one way - the takeoff. Some languages have one common word for this air strip, some have separate words - depending whether the plane is landing or taking off. So here goes:
Danish: startbane Dutch: startbaan English: runway Estonian: rada Finnish: kiitorata French: piste German: Piste, Startbahn Hungarian: futópálya Icelandic: flugbraut Italian: pista di decollo Japanese: kassōro 滑走路 Norwegian: startbane, rullebane Polish: pas startowy Portuguese: pista de pouso Russian: Взлётно-посадочная полоса Spanish: pista de despegue Swedish: startbana
Finally, let’s watch this pretty intriguing 16 minute long video on a Lufthansa A380 departure and takeoff (with English subtitles). From Frankfurt in Germany en route to San Francisco, USA. We can clearly see - as if we didn’t know that before - how there is a multitude of things happening behind the scenes, with pilots checking all sorts of things before takeoff: