Why do we Fly?

Erik Minty, Staff Flyer

I love the window seat. I had my face pressed against the tiny window offered by this Boeing-767, apparently the standard aircraft used for the popular Vancouver-Toronto run. Even before we left the hangar, I was watching the airport traffic all around. A nearby CD-9 was dwarfed by its neighbour, a "stretch" Jumbo 747 of Japan Air Lines. Baggage carts and fuel trucks scurried about like little worker bees, while a twin-engine turboprop AirBC Dash-8 landed in the distance.

After a while we taxied to the runway and launched, the four powerful jet engines pressing me deep into my seat. Vancouver quickly funneled away below and then vanished as we eased into the cloud cover. Rising above the clouds, it became possible to see the air currents from the cloudtops. The amateur meteorologist in me could see small eddies, isothermal layers, turbulence, and calm air in a single glance, while the poet in me saw the etchings of a master artist.

Why do we fly, I came to ask myself. Well, for one thing, it takes days to get to Toronto any other way. (One might ask why one would be in a hurry to get to Toronto, but that rather evades the question.) Okay, so do we fly in order to cover great distances quickly?

Yes, this is true, but what about balloons? They don't go anywhere fast at all. Even gliders rarely take off at one place and land at another. So obviously, there must be some other reason.

In the beginning, I think it was a case of technologically mastering our environment. Birds could fly, therefore we could too! But you can only take this argument so far. With the invention of the airplane by the Wright Brothers came a century of continuous improvements and advancements in the areas of aerodynamics, airframe technology, structures, materials, stresses, engine performance, jet engine technology, meteorology, and pilot profieienct (to name but a few areas). Today, we have innumerable appli-cations of aviation, ranging from mov-ing people to killing people, and crop dusting to surveillance and mapping.

But at the very core of it all is a basic desire, a longing (for many) that must be fulfilled; this is at the heart of why we fly. Anyone who has looked out from a mountaintop, tall building, (or an aircraft!) has noticed that everything simply looks smaller. This is nothing amazing. The point is, that the higher you climb, the smaller things become, and the less important they become. It no longer seems to matter so much that there is a massive backup on the Second Narrows, or that somewhere in the city beneath you, someone is hav-ing a bad day.

More importantly, everything is the same. There are no borders from the air, no good people, no bad people, no distinct societies, no blacks, no whites, no races, no racism. These things become meaningless and unimportant; flying has offered a greater meaning independent of the biases and borders so apparent when on the ground.

As I gain flight experience, I am able to handle the aircraft with greater proficiency. There comes a point for every pilot, when for a brief moment, one experiences the sensation that one is no longer actually moving controls, thereby causing the aircraft to respond. You feel as though it is you who is flying, not the aircraft, but you yourself.

This might sound almost like a religious experience, and to some people it really is. Some people experience it through different activities: rock climbing, skiing, even software programming! I have experienced this feeling several times, and to me it seems that it represents the achievement of a deeper level understanding of what it is that you are doing, so that you reach a certain connection. The medium of your activity (your skis, computer, aircraft) seem to no longer be there, and you suddenly become more highly aware of everything. Things around you fall into place and make sense, and you feel more whole, more complete.

In a word, I believe this sensation is often called complete exhilaration. For me, this is why I fly.

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