Flight prices will be going up this summer. At least, that’s what the reporters said on the news the other morning. Book early, they said. But it won’t matter much, they said.
I don’t travel much these days, but from an outside perspective, it is easy to see that traveling by plane is becoming increasingly more difficult. You know? Most things get easier as we progress and learn more information about that “thing.” But flying commercially is not one of those things.
We’ve been flying in planes since 1903. That gives us 120 years of practice. So you would think by now we’d have the kinks worked out.
Looking back, there have been plenty of kinks along the way. As well as successes. I figured I’d take a look at a few.
First things first. A fact check. The Wright brothers were not the first people to put a plane in flight. Seven years before their December 17, 1903 achievement, a guy named Samuel Pierpont Langley sent a plane flying through the air. It was a 16-foot aircraft, and it traveled three-quarters of a mile. The thing flew for a full minute and a half. The difference? The Wright’s claim to fame was that they made the first “manned flight.” A human on board. In Langley’s case, the plane was unmanned.
Here’s a thing that’s pretty amazing. It was just 66 years after the first flight at Kitty Hawk that somebody walked on the Moon. That’s a big step.
Speaking of the Wrights. Again. The world’s first fatal airplane crash occurred in 1908, and it involved one of the Wright Brothers. The crash happened when a propeller broke. Not good. It sent the aircraft plunging 150 feet to the ground. The pilot escaped with a broken leg. But there was the unlucky passenger. Lt. Thomas Selfridge died instantly upon impact. The pilot of the crashed plane was Orville Wright. He was either unlucky or lucky, depending on how you see it. Orville Wright survived eight plane crashes in his life. Maybe because Orville flew for 43 years without a pilot’s license.
Pilots have come in all shapes and sizes. One guy that was a little obsessed with flying was Howard Hughes. Quirky Howard. In 1938 Howard Hughes filled his plane with ping-pong balls so it would float if it went down over the ocean. He didn’t need them when he was in the process of setting the speed record for flying around the world. He completed the feat in 91 hours. There were four other guys on board with Hughes. That would be his co-pilot, a navigator, a flight engineer, and a mechanic. Hughes did some bizarre and crazy things during his lifetime, due to mental health issues. But this was one of his successes.
Flying, flying.
A lot of people depend on it. It certainly is much faster and safer than driving. Yet 40% of people have anxiety issues about flying. I had a fear of flying, once upon a time too. But those fears just went away, somehow.
Maybe they will figure out a way to make our current flying conditions better.
Someone asked me just the other day if I thought invisible airplanes would ever be a thing.
I told them I just couldn’t see them taking off.
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“If black boxes survive air crashes, why don’t they make the whole plane out of that stuff?”
– George Carlin
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“You know the oxygen masks on airplanes? I don’t think there’s really any oxygen. I think they’re just to muffle the screams.”
– Rita Rudner
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“The only mystery in life is why the kamikaze pilots wore helmets.”
– Al McGuire
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Up, up. Fly a plane. Let’s get it right.
