Day 50: July 29, 2012 ~ The Miracle of Flight
"They done it! They done it! Damned if they ain't flew!"
~Johnny Moore, shouted while running to the village of Kitty Hawk, 17 December 1903
"First Europe, and then the globe, will be linked by flight, and nations so knit together that they will grow to be next-door neighbors. . .What railways have done for nations, airways will do for the world."
Claude Grahame-White, 1914
Orville and Wilbur Wright's first powered flight, 1903
Every time I step onto an airplane I feel a sense of awe. I marvel at how casual and nonchalant the crew members and passengers seem to be—I wonder, don't they realize what a miracle this is?! This giant bird weighing how many tons (?) powers up and barrels down the runway at 150-180 miles per hour in seconds flat until it gains the necessary speed to gently lift off the ground and fly gracefully above the earth. At cruising altitude it maintains a speed of about 500 mph, and upon reaching its destination it slowly descends and touches down, coming to a complete stop in a matter of a few seconds.
When a plane I am traveling on touches down, I want to shout "Halleluiah! Bravo! Great Job!" It always feels as if I have just experienced a miracle. As I exit the plane I want to hug the pilot. I always say "Thank you". I want to kiss the ground and say prayers of gratitude! For the crew, however, it's all in a day's work. They'll probably turn around and fly back, or continue on to some other destination, without giving it a second thought.
I think about what it must have been like in the days of the first flights. How exciting it must have been for the Wright brothers, who after years of studying birds in flight to understand aerodynamics and experimenting with gliders, in 1903 managed to get a plane off the ground for a full 12 seconds. Then in 1905 Wilbur Wright set a world record for the first successful powered piloted flight in history, remaining in flight for 39 minutes.
We've come a long way since those days. Now air travel is commonplace. I was curious to know how many flights a day there are, so I did some Google research. The numbers are pretty amazing: on any given day there are more than 87,000 flights in the skies over the United States alone (only 35% of those are commercial carriers; the rest are private planes, military flights and air cargo flights). At any given moment there are roughly 5,000 planes in the skies above the U.S.
I used to be a nervous flyer. Somewhere along the way I learned to relax and enjoy the ride, and now I just marvel at the agility, beauty, and grace of these big birds. I love to look out the window at the clouds and the landscape below, and I am very grateful for the miracle of flight.
When a plane I am traveling on touches down, I want to shout "Halleluiah! Bravo! Great Job!" It always feels as if I have just experienced a miracle. As I exit the plane I want to hug the pilot. I always say "Thank you". I want to kiss the ground and say prayers of gratitude! For the crew, however, it's all in a day's work. They'll probably turn around and fly back, or continue on to some other destination, without giving it a second thought.
I think about what it must have been like in the days of the first flights. How exciting it must have been for the Wright brothers, who after years of studying birds in flight to understand aerodynamics and experimenting with gliders, in 1903 managed to get a plane off the ground for a full 12 seconds. Then in 1905 Wilbur Wright set a world record for the first successful powered piloted flight in history, remaining in flight for 39 minutes.
We've come a long way since those days. Now air travel is commonplace. I was curious to know how many flights a day there are, so I did some Google research. The numbers are pretty amazing: on any given day there are more than 87,000 flights in the skies over the United States alone (only 35% of those are commercial carriers; the rest are private planes, military flights and air cargo flights). At any given moment there are roughly 5,000 planes in the skies above the U.S.
I used to be a nervous flyer. Somewhere along the way I learned to relax and enjoy the ride, and now I just marvel at the agility, beauty, and grace of these big birds. I love to look out the window at the clouds and the landscape below, and I am very grateful for the miracle of flight.
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