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The Seduction Of Flight
AngelHedgie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I love to fly. Seriously.
It may sound silly, but I think that there is something beautiful and poetic about flight. Even in this day of budget carriers with cattle call boarding, $5 snack packs, seats that you barely fit in, and delay upon delay, there is still a poetic majesty that comes with the sensation of feeling the wind catch the wings of the plane, and being released from the bonds of gravity that hold us to the earth, if only temporarily. And I feel sad about missing the past days of air flight, where it was a treat and a privilege to get to fly, and the airlines treated it as such in so many different ways.
Airlines used to give to people who completed a transoceanic flight special certificates commerating such a feat:
And look at some of the fashions of the flight attendants from the Golden Age of Flight:
(BTW, those are Southwest attendants from the 60s, if you want an idea of how much has changed)
(Yep, Soviet era Aeroflot attendants. Even the Russkies had style back then.)
That's not to say that the modern airlines have completely lost that charm, though.
For example, Air New Zealand's "Nothing To Hide" campaign brings back a bit of playfulness.
Or how about the United sales director who recreated a PanAm first class cabin in his garage?
Even in this day and age of a workmanlike attitude that a lot of us bring to flight, not to mention the added necessary annoyance of the TSA checking passengers to keep everyone safe, it's still a magical moment when the nose lifts up, and you feel the landing gear go slack as the plane leaves the surface, to fly like a metal bird through the skies. Even today, I still watch out the window during takeoff - because that experience of achieving what was considered unthinkable only a century ago is still exhilarating to me.
It may sound silly, but I think that there is something beautiful and poetic about flight. Even in this day of budget carriers with cattle call boarding, $5 snack packs, seats that you barely fit in, and delay upon delay, there is still a poetic majesty that comes with the sensation of feeling the wind catch the wings of the plane, and being released from the bonds of gravity that hold us to the earth, if only temporarily. And I feel sad about missing the past days of air flight, where it was a treat and a privilege to get to fly, and the airlines treated it as such in so many different ways.
Airlines used to give to people who completed a transoceanic flight special certificates commerating such a feat:
And look at some of the fashions of the flight attendants from the Golden Age of Flight:
(BTW, those are Southwest attendants from the 60s, if you want an idea of how much has changed)
(Yep, Soviet era Aeroflot attendants. Even the Russkies had style back then.)
That's not to say that the modern airlines have completely lost that charm, though.
For example, Air New Zealand's "Nothing To Hide" campaign brings back a bit of playfulness.
Or how about the United sales director who recreated a PanAm first class cabin in his garage?
Even in this day and age of a workmanlike attitude that a lot of us bring to flight, not to mention the added necessary annoyance of the TSA checking passengers to keep everyone safe, it's still a magical moment when the nose lifts up, and you feel the landing gear go slack as the plane leaves the surface, to fly like a metal bird through the skies. Even today, I still watch out the window during takeoff - because that experience of achieving what was considered unthinkable only a century ago is still exhilarating to me.
XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
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I really can't get into airlines. After about 30 minutes there isn't really anything to see and you are just crammed in like sardines for hours in seats so uncomfortable they make me long for the hard plastic desks of my school days. It's just not particularly pleasant or interesting. I flew first class once. Free drinks and a bigger seat, but still pretty much boring.
I think part of it is that some of the mystique is gone from flight, which makes me a sad hedgie. That said, I've seen some neat things, like interactive trivia games where everyone in the plane can play against one another. That was actually pretty fun.
Not because anything spectacular or terrifying but because it was just plain neat.
I liked the feeling of it.
Wish I could do it more.
3DS FC: 5343-7720-0490
Which is a good point. It's nice that air travel is more accessible today. Still, you have to admit that we have lost a bit of that romance, even if we've gained so much in making air flight more egalitarian.
I do remember, though, being a little kid in the early 80s and flying. Getting to go up in the cockpit in-flight, getting sets of wings. The drink carts were plentiful, the seats were expansive. Those were the days. Now we're just cattle if we're not in first class.
Also, my dad worked for the FAA for 32 years maintaining instrument landing systems on the ground, and the number of near-misses he heard of were enough to make him refuse to ever fly.
I've crossed the Atlantic ocean more times than I can remember.
If I ever climb onto another goddamn plane it will be too soon.
When I was flying back from Sweden they checked the weight and dimension of every single persons carry ons. When groups of people failed they didn't let them re-distribute stuff. I thougt I was about to get front seats to a lynching.
Matt, try to nab an exit seat/tell them to give you an exit seat. It work more then you'd imagine.
They were still doing the cockpit thing when I was a kid as well, I imagine it was 9/11 which ended that right?
(all the personal flying I do is with easy jet online booking - no reserved seats either).
Maybe this is because some people seem to think a 50 lb full size suitcase that takes up 3/4 of a bin and only fits sideways coutns as "carry on."
Don't get me wrong, I laugh at the impractical size of the tiny "official" bin that your carry on is supposed to fit in (which everyone ignores, but some people try and take it so far to the other extreme that I sometimes wish the attendant would call some people on their space-hogging bullshit rather than delay the flight trying to help them find some empty bin way in the back, because I'm sure there is space on this overbooked flight for the last persons leviathan luggage.
/rant
I especially enjoy smaller planes, so I think I'm one of the few people who gets excited when they hear they have to make a connection through a smaller airport like Winnipeg.
The one thing that can really pull me out of the experience however, is a crying infant.
I'm already being subjected to idiotic security regulations (let's live in perpetual fear of shoelaces, that'll show the terrorists!) and being crammed into coach with no food or anything, and now you're making your flight attendants act all overzealous? Fuck that.
Needless to say, never flying that airline (Virgin) again.
My next flights will probably be a a series of flights to Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji. I'm actually dreading THAT much time on a plane, to some extent. 7 hours from Toronto to London or vice versa is fine when you factor in :
- 1 hour of that is taking off/landing (aka reading time since no electronics are allowed)
- usually there's at least ONE good in flight movie which lasts 90-120 minutes (1.5-2 hours)
- I bring my mp3/video player along and purposely don't watch my tv shows for a couple days (2-3 hours)
- I do more reading since I like to mix things up (1 hour)
- I love doing Sudoku/Kakuro puzzles as well (1 hour)
Add in a few bathroom breaks (even when I don't really need to, just wanna get up a stretch), and it's easy. Doing that for 20 hours.... It's gonna be tough to stretch things out. I'd like to get a plane that has an AC adapter and have the option of playing on my fiance's laptop for most of that time.
Khrushchev was right. In this case, they are the future.
I used to fly a great deal. Before I settled down in the US, anyway. Which might be good, because I'm hearing more and more American commercial pilots, and probably pilots from other countries, are being forced to rely on things like food stamps now in extreme situations...
What i suddenly gained a new romantic appreciation for is travel by long distance rail. Sure its cheap and usually shoddy, but some of the older ones are very fun. Also in today's fast world there is something to be said for a slower trip where you can look out the window and actually see things pass by. Sometime in my life i want to go across Australia in a train (if its comfortable at least) and take the trans Siberian. The whole notion of even the dullness of that in my life today seems relaxing. Some overnight trains in Europe have this, but they cost a ton.
And yea, romantic is synonymous with exclusive, but its nice to do exclusive once in a blue moon.
Yeah, flying itself isn't too bad, especially if you fly an airline that at least makes a token effort to make you comfortable (which, from my experience, means either JetBlue or Virgin America).
The TSA can eat a fat dick, though. I can't stand those fucking people.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
they fall into the same category as cops. Either idiots on a powertrip or normal helpful people. For example, I normally dont have a problem with them because I figured out how to do things to not annoy them or myself. Such as emptying your pockets into your carryon before you get to the security gate. Just throw your bag and your shoes in there and walk through. The backpack I take on business flights has a lot of, i dunno, tassles and whatnot coming off it that would half the time get stuck in something in the xray machine. So in order to avoid this I would put it in a bin to keep all the loose ends out of the way. Last time I flew I did this like i had done the last dozen or so times and the guy at the machine starts giving me all this guff about it. When it's obvious im not listening to him he starts to get even more belligerent and makes me basically do the entire rigamarole again. Im sure if he could have he would have sent me to the back of the line. (there was no line. business class lines are so worth the money)
Anyway, I make a pretty big distinction between "flying" and "traveling." Flying, for me, is going up in a glider, Cessna (or something similar), or heli in order to see the world from a different perspective. I've had a few scenic glider rides, which were awesome, been up in a few Cessnas and King Airs for skydives, and done the heli trip around Kauia - which blew my mind!
Whereas traveling for me involves waiting in line at security, waiting in a departure lounge, waiting in a cramped seat surrounded by the smelly/sick/morbidly obese/et cetera. I can't stand it.
That said, I make a trip down to New Zealand every year or so, and having a family friend that works in the crew scheduling department of Air NZ makes the trip much, much better.
Still, it's a perk I'm glad we have access too. It's not something I really take advantage of because of the aforementioned hassle, but it's nice knowing that I could fly home for the weekend.
Also I am going to school for Air Traffic, and the Controlling Thereof, so hey!
Also also, my uncle used to be head of the air traffic controller's union and is currently running for president of the FAA.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Our club took some photos, though they don't really communicate how busy things were. At some points there were probably planes going down that runway at 30 second intervals for several continuous minutes--making it quite entertaining to use the pedestrian path between the campsite on one side of the runway and the hangar-turned-cafeteria on the other.
PS2
FF X replay
PS3
God of War 1&2 HD
Rachet and Clank Future
MGS 4
Prince of Persia
360
Bayonetta
Fable 3
DS
FF: 4 heroes of light
I occasionally get mild vertigo if I'm leaning back a lot--either the plane is pitched up or the seat is tilted. It was a real pain in the ass for a while because one of the places I was flying at had rental aircraft where the seatbacks were pretty well broken.
Not enough to disorient me or anything, so it wasn't ever unsafe to fly, but I was afraid of stalling the plane for a good while.
I dunno why, but being a few feet from 3 blades whirling at high speeds really freaked me out.
Yeah, puddlejumpers are an experience in themselves. Though lately I haven't seen many of the old prop puddlejumpers like the Dash 80 - a lot of regional carriers are moving to the Canadair Regional Jet.
This.
Also it probably varies pretty dramatically by region, but the Virgin Pendolino services are very deliberately modelled on the experience of flying, and they do it better than most standard class airlines.
Ha! You know what's even freakier? Seeing them stop. Then start again!
Multiengine training was fun.
I think if I were on a long distance train I'd feel like I were on Hogwartz Express, and would not be able ot take anything seriously.
PS2
FF X replay
PS3
God of War 1&2 HD
Rachet and Clank Future
MGS 4
Prince of Persia
360
Bayonetta
Fable 3
DS
FF: 4 heroes of light