Aircraft Fly

Seeing the contrail, a teardrop in the sky running towards me I pick up my binoculars and step outside. Excitement stirs deep within me watching the plane, now I can see details. It’s livery is Southwest, it is at cruising altitude and heading east. Likely it is moving in excess of 500 miles per hour at over 30,000 feet.

Tracking it I think of all those systems, in that plane, all the development of design, technologies and materials, all coming together, functioning together. Aerodynamics, fuel systems, hydraulics, turbines, electrical, navigation, on and on. Pulsing, pushing, pulling, and lifting. The result, this winged machine splits the sky and carries it’s crew and passengers across the country.

There is beauty in any great effort which appears effortless. Fruit growing on a tree, figure skaters arcing around a rink, this aircraft flying.

The view from the front window must be astounding. The pilot and co-pilot sit and monitor the plane’s functions. It all works so well, they probably spend much of their time trading stories, or maybe enjoying that view. I hope they take a moment now and then to marvel at what is happening around them, what they are doing.

The passengers may look out their windows and dream. They may be absorbed in their thoughts, they are in love, in sorrow. They are in life. And they are going somewhere. I hope they too take a moment to marvel at what is happening around them, what they are doing. Perhaps they have embarked this plane in Phoenix, and the next time, in only a few hours when they touch their feet to the earth it will be in Miami. Or, on another flight it could be New York and… Tokyo. Imagine. New York to Tokyo without touching the ground.

Gordon Bunker

P.S. As an aircraft’s wings move through the air a low pressure occurs above them. This low pressure pulls on the wing’s upper surface and is sufficient to lift the whole thing up. The Airbus A380 can weigh up to 650 tons at takeoff. Imagine, a shape simply moving through a medium able to lift that kind of weight.