I’ve never been particularly afraid of flying. I’m cognizant that I am thousands of feet above ground, and that I could plummet for as many seconds before landing in a very painful way… but I can rationalize that it’s like worrying about being struck by lightning, i.e. out of my control.
However, selection of airplanes, and in particular, airplane seats, is under my control. The design of the seats on Delta’s MD90 fleet was also presumably under the control of some sadistic chair engineer of some sort.
Hopefully I’m being unfair, and the MD90 chairs grew into a crippling, convoluted, C-shape from years of use, rather than intelligent design. If the latter, that would mean that similar seats are being designed for other airplanes not yet in production! The horror!
Am I really so old that the shape of a seat for 90 minutes can be so painful? I hope not, because as I write this, 240 minutes of the same are coming up!
[Update: Thanfully, I ended up sleeping through most of the second leg. I'm definitely going to start taking into account plane model for future trips!]
[Update: Forgot a picture. It's a mannequin for some clothing shop in the Salt Lake City airport. It's rather frightening, no? Clownlike I guess.] 
