#109: The Airplane
How did a revolutionary invention become so unremarkable?
First question: is it ‘airplane’ or ‘aeroplane’? It’s the classic British/American difference, and I’m pretty sure you can guess which one is the British one (hint: it has a weirder spelling). Personally, I prefer ‘airplane’ (sorry Britain).
The first successful flight of a ‘powered, fixed wing aircraft’ — the definition of an airplane — was in 1903 by the famous Wright brothers. There were others before them, as there always are with inventions, but these two were the first to fly a machine that powered itself, and not what would now be described as gliders.
Can you imagine getting on that first airplane and taking off from the ground? Can you imagine how incredible that invention must have been and felt like at the time? Having half my family living in the United States, I have been flying regularly my whole life, having flown on my first airplane when I was only 6 weeks old.
I flew again just a few days ago, and it was no novelty to me. But as I sat on that airplane I tried to imagine what it would be like to fly for the first time at an age when you know what is happening, and you can remember the experience. It would either be incredibly terrifying or absolutely exhilarating, depending on what type of person you are. To sit there with the “fasten seatbelt” sign above your head as the engines begin to rumble, the airplane starts to shake and you are pushed back into your seat. You feel that rush as the airplane picks up speed, and that moment, that split second, before the wheels lift off the ground and your stomach is left behind and trying to catch up as you move so fast and in such a different direction against gravity.
Nowadays, I often start to get nervous when I fly. A combination of the threat of terror in the world, my own paranoid anxiety, and the lack of knowledge in how an airplane really works, always worrying that something terrible will happen to the aircraft. On this trip I was actively trying to combat this, as spending the majority of a 9 hour flight worried about all possible disasters is not very productive or calming. One way was to look out of the window and watch the wings, because I happened to be sitting just behind one of the them with a perfect view. Have you ever watched an airplane wing when you’re about to land? There are so many different parts to it and they move in different ways, playing with the wind direction and resistance to control the direction and speed of this giant hunk of metal full of lots of people and luggage. If you’re interested in learning how an airplane works, then this short and simple video is a good start.
I didn’t just watch the wing though. As we reached Canada the cloud cover started to thin out and I was able to look down on this wide and wild land. I saw rolling hills and forests, regularly interspersed with lakes all over. So much water! But it wasn’t all wild — you could see human roads cutting through the earth, little white lines, like roots or veins branching off from each other in their wiggly routes across this land. Then we reached the US/Canada border, and the land started to be regulated, clear squares visible from so high up in the sky. Houses appeared, little doll-sized shapes, and the roads had their little toy cars driving along them. Amazing how distance affects your vision, how you take in the world below you.
All of this, experienced in an airplane, seen from an airplane. What’s that famous, relevant quote of today’s world?
“Focus on the journey, not the destination.”
It’s cheesy, it’s a cliché, but you know what they say about clichés: they’re clichés because they’re true. Millions of people fly in an airplane every day, for business or pleasure. We fly all over this global world now, and as the time it takes to travel gets shorter, we focus on that destination. If I’m honest, I was much happier once we landed and I had space to stretch out my legs and breathe the outside air, and I didn’t have to eat that horrible airplane food. Flying on an airplane is not a luxury (unless you manage to get into first class), but I’m still grateful for the experience. I could look down on the world below and see it from a new perspective, see lands I’ve never seen before, and all from an airplane, an invention which has become for many of us an unremarkable thing.
