The first time I tried it, the FO and I each put on our smoke goggles. We were concerned with being blinded by a salt and vinegar explosion! although the bag did blow, we were dissappointed with the lack of shrapnel...
---------- ADS -----------
When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward,
for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.
I love explaining to pax what that sounds is.
No worries ma'am, it's just the chips exploding.
Which then wakes the passenger napping beside her, EXPLODING!!! WHAT!!!
(I'm seriously confused: is her concern is for something exploding? or they have just learned that their breakfast/lunch/dinner is being ruined on the flight up?)
---------- ADS -----------
Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
Semper Fidelis
“De inimico non loquaris male, sed cogites"-
Do not wish death for your enemy, plan it.
So now the food nazis at Health Canada will insist the manufacturer puts a warning on every bag of chips regarding "safe altitude of consumption" in unpressurized aircraft. I can tell you that the "McSweeny's Pepperoni" in the sealed bag are good to 21,000 ft. but they sure wanted out of that bag badly!!!
The biggest variable is the size of the bag. The large bags blow up earlier (~5-6000FT) than the smaller ones. I've had the snack size ones last up to 12000FT!!
This reminds me of the early days of air travel after WW2 and just before the jet age of the B707 and the DH Comet.
Apparently, when boeing introduced their Stratocruiser(A close cousin of the B-29), the airlines did not know too much about the pressure difference with altitude. Legend has it, they were serving pie with "real"whipped cream, and the cream would collapse around 6000ft.
Just a sec...never mind mythbusters....A huge business oppourtunity staring us right it the face. A very large government grant through TC and the Safety Board and Health Canada and a bunch of other federal ministries all contributing to a very comprehensive study of what packaged food products "blow" when and at what altitude. We will then have to study the physicological impact of the unexpected noise on the crew(s) and passengers of these aircraft. (Like post-traumatic stress) The trajectories and the ballistic co-efficents of the food particles leaving their confinement will have to be calibrated, published, and then the appropriate warnings issued to all concerned including all members of parliament, hangers-on, lobbyiests, party hacks, etc. Notams will have to be issued, perhaps airspace restrictions as well....Oh, this is going to cost an AWFUL AMOUNT OF MONEY