Late in the day on April 25, the US Senate unanimously passed legislation that would end the FAA controller furloughs and restore the nation's air traffic control system to normal, or close to normal, operation. The measure permits the shifting of more than $200 million from elsewhere in the federal budget to cover the required funding. The "Dependable Air Service Act" now moves to the US House of Representatives, where it is expected to be taken up as soon as Friday.

This should put a quick end to the delays and cancellations that have been plaguing the country's airports since last weekend. According to the FAA, roughly 1,000 commercial flights each day were in some way affected by the sequester-induced furloughs, with many delays lasting several hours.

I saw it firsthand:

This is my preemptive plea, an open letter to the media, to rein in another silly airplane story before it garners too much traction.

Too late, I know.

I'm referring to the story, which began making rounds on Thursday, about the possibility of using Android devices or similar gadgets to "hijack" or "take over" commercial airplanes by inputting rogue data to the plane's ACARS or FMS units.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, good. Chances are you do, however. If so, try not to take it too seriously.

On the one hand, Hugo Teso, the person behind this lecture/experiment, has a solid understanding of how planes fly, and is presumably familiar with the way pilots and their technology interact. Unfortunately, he's extrapolating wildly -- or certain commentators and reporters are extrapolating wildly -- and giving people the entirely wrong impression. What could be an interesting conversation is instead being dumbed down into alarmist nonsense.

ACARS is an air-to-ground communications system that allows messages to be sent back and forth over VHF radio frequencies or satellite link. The FMS, or flight management system, is the proverbial "computer" that you sometimes hear pilots mention. It presents an electronic, integrated blueprint of a flight -- the various courses, altitudes and speeds that we'll be flying at between city A and city B -- which the plane's autoflight system -- or the pilots, when flying manually -- then follow. This blueprint is based on a slew of manually and/or electronically inputted data. Much of this is data is loaded prior to departure, but a flight is very organic; our headings, altitudes, speeds, arrival and departure patterns, etc., are never forecast with certainty from the start. FMS data is subject to constant updating and revising over the course of a flight. Most of the changes are entered manually by the crew. Occasionally they are sent automatically from air traffic control or company dispatchers. Either way, we are clearly aware of them.

Teso wants you to believe your smartphone can send these instructions as well, causing a dangerous disruption.

The problem is, the FMS -- and certainly not ACARS -- does not directly control an airplane the way people think it does, and the way, with respect to this story, media reports are implying. Neither the FMS nor the autopilot flies the plane. The crew flies the plane through these components. We tell it what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Whatever data finds its way into the FMS, and regardless of where it's coming from, it still needs to make sense to the crew. If it doesn't, we're not going to allow the plane, or ourselves, to follow it.

The sorts of disruptions that might arise aren't anything a crew couldn't notice and easily override. The FMS cannot say to the plane, "descend toward the ground now!" or "Slow to stall speed now!" or "Turn left and fly into that building!" It doesn't work that way. What you might see would be something like an en route waypoint that would, if followed, carry you astray of course, or an altitude that's out of whack with what ATC or the charts tells you it ought to be. That sort of thing. Anything weird or unsafe -- an incorrect course or altitude -- would be corrected very quickly by the pilots.

Several websites that have picked up the story seem to contradict this by claiming that many modern planes "lack analog instruments" or have autopilot systems that cannot be switched off, etc., etc. -- basically claiming that pilots would be unable to recognize or react in time to pirate uplinks. For instance, in this report, it states: "A pilot could thwart an attack by taking the plane out of autopilot although he pointed out that several newer systems no longer include manual controls."

This is extremely misleading. While not all aircraft have direct manual reversion of flight controls, there is always a way for the pilots to disconnect the automation and, as we call it, hand-fly. Heck, more than 99 percent of landings a full 100 percent of takeoff are hand-flown every day.

To be clear, none of this is to suggest that beaming uninvited data into the electronic architecture of the cockpit is an acceptable idea. Of course it is not. There are aspect of this, such as how outside interference might interplay with fly-by-wire flight controls, and the emerging technology known as ADS-B, that warrant a closer look. That such things might be possible is, to be sure, a potential cause for alarm.

But, even so, this is not by any stretch the sort of imminent threat people are being led to think it is. In fairness to Mr. Teso, I'm less annoyed by his demonstration than by the the way some in the media have been spinning it. A hacker with an Android is not going to fly your 757 into the Empire State Building. Scary words like "hijack" and "takeover" have no place in this conversation.

RELATED STORY: MORE MEDIA CLAPTRAP ABOUT COCKPIT AUTOMATION

It's interesting sometimes, the stories that get media traction.

This time it's the one about the tiny Samoan airline that has decided to charge fares based on a passenger's weight. The move has touched off discussions about whether such an idea makes sense for mainline carriers as well. After all, Americans are quite a bit larger than they used to be, and doesn't that extra weight affect an airplane's performance? Is it just a matter of time before passengers on United, Delta or American are asked to stand on a scale, like their suitcases, when checking in?

Before we get going, thanks to everybody who took the time to read my little paean to Logan Airport a couple of weeks back. If you missed it, it's here.

Logan may not be the greatest airport in the world, but it's underrated, and certainly it's a far cry from the worst. For that dubious honor, see here.

Moving on…

Commercial air travel has long been a breeding ground for myths, conspiracy theories, urban legends, and plain old misunderstandings. Most of what people think they know about flying is wrong.

In my columns, blogs and books, I've spent the better part of a decade trying to set the record straight, but for the most part, it's been a losing cause. Certain notions just never seem to die, to the point where many are now accepted as conventional wisdom. They've been spun and re-spun by a lazy, irresponsible media that sensationalizes even the most innocuous mishap and refuses to check its facts, often trundling out supposed experts who all too often have little idea what they’re talking about.

Here are some of flying's most stubborn myths, fallacies, and quasi-truths:

Is it just me, or is Logan Airport one of the most underrated airports in the country?

There aren't a whole lot of good things to say about US airports in general. They're noisy, dirty, confusingly laid out, often in poor repair, and sorely lacking in public transport options. We've got nothing on the airports in Europe or Asia, many of which are architecturally stunning and jam-packed with amenities. If you've ever been to Singapore, Incheon, Munich, or Amsterdam, among many others, you know what I'm talking about.

But if we had to pick one of our own...

Washington's Reagan-National has an excellent subway connection, and the terminal, with its sun-splashed central hall and vaulted ceilings, is one of America's greatest airport buildings. The international terminal in San Francisco is similarly impressive. Orlando is clean, green, and well laid-out. Portland, Oregon, is many people's favorite.

Nobody, though, ever mentions Logan. And I don't think that's fair. It's squeaky clean, well organized, and unlike the vast majority of US airports, it has an efficient public transport link to the city. It's even got some flair: what's not to like about the inter-terminal walkways, with their skyline views, terrazzo floors, and inlay mosaics?

A tour:

Last week, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced it would rescind its longstanding ban on the carriage of small knives. Effective in mid-April, passengers can once again carry implements with blades of up to 2.36 inches onto airplanes.

The decision has raised the ire of some, including flight attendant unions, who have called the decision reckless and dangerous.

However, if you ask me, this is one of the more positive things TSA has done in a long time, and will make the checkpoint process at least marginally less tedious. That some are opposed to the changes is not surprising, but the backlash strikes me as counterproductive.

WHENEVER I TAKE THE TIME to remind people of just how inexpensive flying has become, my inbox gets socked with hate mail. People simply hate flying, and the level of anti-airline contempt is so high that it has become almost impossible to say anything positive about the experience without being called a shill, a lackey, or worse.

I wonder if Derek Thompson, over at the Atlantic, is feeling the heat. Thompson just published a short but very revealing piece showing how the price of air travel has fallen 50 percent over the past three decades. You can read it here. It includes a remarkable graph, which I'll reproduce below:

Notice the upswing since 2009 or so, but overall the trend is very clear.

Normally when I bring this topic up, one of the regular rebuttals is the likes of, "Oh, well maybe base fares are down, but it's those [expletive, expletive] fees that are killing us!"

Except they're not. I realize that people feel nickel-and-dimed when asked to pay a surcharge for checked luggage, onboard food, or a reservation change. But as the graph clearly shows, these "unbundling" fees, as they're known, barely change the picture.

Welcome to Ask the Pilot, a blog about All Things Air Travel.

Fewer things are more confounding, aggravating, and frankly, misunderstood than the experience of commercial air travel. Its mysteries are concealed behind a wall of specialized jargon, corporate reticence, and an irresponsible media that sensationalizes even the most insignificant incident. Almost everybody flies, yet much of what people think they know about flying is wrong.

In this space, I will answer your questions and address your worries and anxieties. I will also rant and rave about whatever facet of this weird and exciting business happens to be on my mind.

About me: