[seanmcdirmid]

What are you going to plug into a power outlet on an airplane that isn't dual voltage? A kettle or a toaster? I assume they have a way of preventing people from using those.

Almost all the international flights I've flown have had power outlets, always between 220V and 110V countries (heck, only Japan is 110V besides the US as far as I know).

I it works for China because they use (as an option at least) similar outlets to the USA (just ungrounded, pop).

[Scoundreller]

> heck, only Japan is 110V besides the US as far as I know

Japan is an oddball by being 100V.

US is 120 and that extends pretty far south (and north).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity_by_country

I’m semi amazed motor vehicles are as standard as they are with 12V and the same socket worldwide. I guess the tobacco industry is a great unifier.

[troad]

Central/South America has a lot of 100-130 V too, I believe, but I don't have direct personal experience.

I find the standard voltages pretty interesting. The 230 V standard, for example, is mostly a lie. In reality, Britain and former British colonies tend to run on 240 V, and continental Europe/Asia/Africa tends to run on 220 V. The 230 V standard includes wide enough tolerances so that no one needed to actually change anything. I've never actually seen 230 V, the supposed standard, in real life.

[iggldiggl]

> I've never actually seen 230 V, the supposed standard, in real life.

I've just measured the voltage in a socket my home (Germany) and the multimeter says 231 V. (And it's nighttime, so no solar generation from houses in the neighbourhood potentially distorting the local grid.)

[Scoundreller]

Be careful in Montserrat: US plugs but UK voltage (!)

[troad]

With tidbits like that, you're my kind of person

[sidewndr46]

The US is most definitely 110 VAC at the outlet level for small appliances. It's not uncommon to see as high as 126 VAC however.

NATO compliant vehicles are 24 volt as far as I know

[troad]

I think 'assuming that the airline has a way of preventing' people from plugging in dangerous items is doing a loooooot of heavy lifting in your argument.

How, exactly? The airlines have absolutely no way to know what shoddy electrical device you bought god-knows-where you're plugging into mains power in their airtight travel-coffin, packed with hundreds of people, hurtling across some ocean.

> Almost all the international flights I've flown have had power outlets

Seems deeply unusual to me, but I won't dispute your experiences. I've flown internationally fairly often, and in my experience power outlets are rather uncommon (at least in the eastern hemisphere, flights to/from the Americas may differ, I haven't flown around there for many years).

[seanmcdirmid]

My experience in recent years is exclusively trans-pacific, which might differ from yours. Also, even if they have outlets they don’t always work.