Captain Speaking
Captain Speaking
[The text is written above a large commercial passenger airplane seen from below as it turns left. The text emanates from the cockpit.] Captain: This is your captain speaking. Captain: Gonna be honest-I just woke up and have no idea where I am. Looks like a Boeing of some kind? Captain: Oh, hey, it says the flight number here. Captain: Okay, I'm gonna check FlightAware to figure out where we're going. Captain: Anyone know how to get on the wifi?
At periodic intervals on a commercial flight, the captain of the plane will address the passengers with information about the flight. Typically this will begin with "This is your captain speaking..." and go on to describe the progress of the flight, expected arrival time and other information about the flight such as if or when refreshments will be brought to passengers.
This comic takes this cliché and inverts it. Instead of the captain providing information, the captain tells the passengers that he has apparently forgotten everything about the flight, even down to what kind of plane he is supposed to be flying – although he does think it is a Boeing . He at least discovers the flight number and then plans to use the consumer app Flightaware that is made for tracking flights. He thus hopes to be able to find out what the destination of “his” plane is. But Flightaware requires Wi-Fi access, so he goes on to ask the passengers if anyone know how to access the Wi-Fi. This app was earlier referenced in 1363: xkcd Phone .
This even gets worse in the title text where he realizes that you have to pay for using the on-board Wi-Fi, which means he is trying to access the same Wi-Fi that the passengers have access to instead of using the on-board Wi-Fi that must be in the cockpit (to which he is supposed to have free access). Instead of just paying he then asks the passengers if someone has already paid, because then he would like to borrow their smartphone so he can check the Flightaware app to find out where they are going.
Options for explaining this scenario are:
Seeing as how planes cannot take off on auto-pilot (nor can they taxi, but some can actually land), and require a skilled, awake human at the controls, it is unlikely that this captain was responsible for take-off; which must mean this auto-pilot is much more advanced than current models, likely a future model, or that their first officer took off and then went away or asleep. In the event a pilot falls asleep, on medium sized planes, ground- or proximity-, radar would set off an alarm waking the captain if they are on a collision course.
Whilst it is normal for the captain to sleep part of a long flight, this can only occur if there are multiple pilots on the plane. Most flights are on auto-pilot for hours at a time, and the pilots serve primarily for takeoff, landing, and emergencies. They are completely clueless, having to use a consumer app and asking the passengers to get flight details, instead of radioing for help as he probably should. They would easily be able to get the information of where they are going by just asking any of the passengers though.
The fact that the captain is not sure of the flight number is not hard to imagine. Commercial pilots fly multiple flights per day and the numbers all run together after a while. Every radio communication starts with the flight number, but if the captain has been out of commission for some time, the flight number could easily be forgotten. However, he would probably know the aircraft type, as commercial pilots are type-rated for a specific aircraft type and with rare exceptions (e.g. Boeing 757/767) the type is specific to an airframe type. This makes it more likely that he is not professionally qualified, although he could just be rated for so many types of aircraft that it takes him a moment to determine which one is at hand (though such a veteran pilot would be unlikely to have slept through takeoff or forget how to look up flight information from the cockpit).
Three weeks later another plane related joke was released with 1669: Planespotting where it is also an open question if the plane in the comic is actually a Boeing plane...
[The text is written above a large commercial passenger airplane seen from below as it turns left. The text emanates from the cockpit.] Captain: This is your captain speaking. Captain: Gonna be honest-I just woke up and have no idea where I am. Looks like a Boeing of some kind? Captain: Oh, hey, it says the flight number here. Captain: Okay, I'm gonna check FlightAware to figure out where we're going. Captain: Anyone know how to get on the wifi?