Ailerons, not flaps. The flaps are the large extended bodies that increase the surface area of the top of the wing to create lift, while ailerons are control yaw and pitch, if I recall correctly. Maybe just pitch and the vertical stabilizers do yaw...
Almost and mostly right, flaps control surface area for lift (pitch) but also add a drag component. Ailerons control the roll amount but also add a slight yaw component. The Vert Stabilizers are there to control yaw. It all works out thanks to computers so just don't think about it and keep watching your inflight ABC comedy reruns.
I once experienced rapid descent during a flight. Weightless for four seconds feels like weightless for an hour. I will never forget the faces of every other person on that plane, they looked like they had just fudged their undies, which they probably had.
coming in to land at Midway airport in Chicago during an extremely violent windstorm, the wind kept trying to flip the plane over during the last sharp 180 turn before landing. The pilot was clearly struggling to keep the plane from going over but we were heeled over almost 90deg at several points. Crying and praying ensued, followed by thunderous applause when they finally brought it down. Never flew in or out of Midway again.
Landing at Reno:
Nice gentle descent, no bad weather. Seem to recall CAVU at mid-morning time. We're floating down at about 200 feet when the engines spool up to full power and we pop up to around 2000 feet real quick. I also notice some smoke coming through the ventilation at the same time. The pilot comes on the intercom: "Uhhhh... ladies and gentlemen, we had a little light come on up here in the cockpit. We're going to take a second up here and come back for another try at landing." We spent a few minutes flying back around to approach and landed straight in. When I was getting off the plane, I mentioned the smoke to the attendant at the door. She got pretty wide-eyed for a second, but kept her composure. "Thank you, sir, I'll mention that to the flight crew." I have no idea what actually went wrong.
Flying from LAX to Melbourne, we had "an unknown number of tires explode on takeoff". We did an emergency landing in Fiji (many hours later), where we all had to take crash positions. Fortunately we had only lost one or two tires and it wasn't a big deal.
On that same flight we also dropped about 5' during dinner. Everyone's food went up into the air and came crashing down, making a huge mess. 10 year-old me thought this was *hilarious*.
One time I was flying over Scotland when there was a huge bass noise like slamming a plastic bin down and then...nothing. Literally nothing. I regained consciousness ten thousand feet above Lockerbie, still strapped into my seat.
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