Friday, May 23, 2014

Views


There is a different view of the world from the air.  I grew up in little single engine airplanes, and photographed farms from the air to earn money as a teenager to buy a suitcase full of professional camera equipment.  So I am pretty good at finding things on the ground from the air.  When we finally left DC for Chicago on Wednesday I had an entire row to myself, so I slid over into the window seat and watched the world go buy.  For the first couple hundred miles it was all clouds, then it cleared.  From 39,000 feet, I could see farmland, small towns, cities, expressways linking them, and bodies of water.  Over northwester Ohio and norther eastern Indiana, we passed over a wind-farm , I had never seen one from the air before.  As we started the decent into Chicago more and more came into view.  At about 20,000 feet I can see cars moving on roads, boats moving on lakes, at 10,000 feet I could see parked cars.  At 4,000 feet I could see baseball players moving on the field.  1-5,000 feet is the average flying elevation for the little planes I grew up in.  I was use to seeing the world from that elevation.  Flight is magical, so much moving on the air seemingly so effortlessly.  I was sitting there looking down, one foot over to the left and it was nearly 8 miles down. If you stepped over the edge would you panic, or would you accept the inevitable and experience soaring? 

4 comments:

  1. better you than me, dude; I don't fly (fear of heights).

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  2. Anonymous5/23/2014

    I love flying in small planes, and have piloted a few times with a qualified pilot beside me. But my question is...

    HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET A ROW TO YOURSELF ON A PLANE TO CHICAGO?!?!?!? Can you really afford two seats?

    Peace <3
    Jay

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There were only about 50 people on a 737-700. With the 7 hour delay many gave up or found other options.

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