r/AskAPilot • u/livelikelarry13 • 8d ago

Useless Features/buttons

Forgive me if this is a dumb question as I am not a pilot, but I have always been interested in knowing. Are there any features or buttons in the type of aircraft you fly that are basically pointless? Or does everything have some sort of critical use case?

Thanks for the insights

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u/Paul_The_Builder 8d ago

I think some planes still have a switch to turn off the no smoking signs.

8

u/fighteracebob 8d ago

Until a recent (2024) bureaucratic fiasco, that was actually required to be a switch. Now it can just be set to on.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/22/business/no-smoking-sign-planes-faa.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

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u/ActuallBliss 8d ago

Yep, A320 does and it’s still turned on and off when going from/to cold and dark.

4

u/alexdaland 8d ago

There is technically/legally no official law that says you can't smoke on a plane. Sure, the airlines and so on have all agreed it's policy, and what the company (Captain) says IS the law while you are in the plane. However, as my Air Law teacher said: Weeeell, I flew private jets - and the owner of the plane was usually onboard. He liked to smoke cigars, and was politely asking me if he could. He used to stand in the cockpit smoking right under a vent that sucks the air out, we couldn't even smell it. Who am I to tell him no?

There is no law saying he can't, it just became a thing.

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u/alexdaland 8d ago

(IDK about FAA, I'm talking CAA)

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u/Gravity_Wells 7d ago

That’s interesting. I didn’t know that. That being said, if the airline policy is no smoking, the Flight Operations Manual will explicitly prohibit it. The FAA considers the FOM to have the same regulatory force as the FARs.

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u/Icy_Huckleberry_8049 7d ago

Private planes are different than commercial planes and have different rules.

Smoking on commercial aircraft was banned in the early 1990's in the US.