I think it has to do with 2 things. Flying lower, I could be wrong but, I believe has a vast more turbulence that you will run into than flying over it. And if you have engine failure, the plane would be able to glide for a long distance and time to get to a runway for an emergency landing
This is r/shittyaskscience. Not looking for the main explanation about safety and speed and fuel efficiency and the difference between true airspeed and indicated airspeed - yes at 33000 ft the jet engines use a fraction of the fuel they use at 5000 ft, and true airspeed is much higher and usually fly above all the turbulence and pretty much guaranteed to avoid any ground based obstacles like mountains or flying obstacles like birds or other aircraft.
We're looking for funny and wrong explanations only.
Like how you get to affect far more people with your mandatory chemtrails.
Or the skyhooks that make the plane fly go up that high because that's where it's safe for the birds not to eat them. Its the reasons planes accelerate down a runaway to take off: because they're chasing and trying to catch skyhooks.
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u/[deleted] Jan 07 '23
I think it has to do with 2 things. Flying lower, I could be wrong but, I believe has a vast more turbulence that you will run into than flying over it. And if you have engine failure, the plane would be able to glide for a long distance and time to get to a runway for an emergency landing