molly.com
Tuesday 7 October 2003
come fly with me
Today I’m on my way to Monterey, California and to get there I fly to LAX and then hop on a turboprop. I haven’t flown in one of those for a long time, they can be terrific fun.
While the complexity of travel these days is uncomfortable, and despite the tragic way planes have been misused as horrible, deadly weapons, I have always loved to fly, love the idea of flight, love many of its sensations. I know I have several pilots as regular readers of this weblog, and lots of people who fly a great deal visit as well.
What are your thoughts on flight? Do you hate it, love it, do it? Like the little planes? The big jets? What’s the scariest thing that ever happened to you on a plane? The most memorable?
Filed under: general
Posted by: site admin | 05:43 | Comments (25)
It’s odd; I adore plane travel. It also makes me incredibly anxious. When travelling I will wangle enough Trazodone to get me through the flight, with or without a prescription… it’s one of the VERY FEW circumstances in which I relent from my typical avoidance of anything in pill form my nervous and endocrine systems can’t eventually manufacture on their own.
When I was going for the first time to my foster parents’ premises in San Antonio, a month before my seventh birthday, the second leg had to pass through thunderstorms.
It was a different sort of experience. I learned right off the bat why they have seatbelts on airplanes.
For whatever reason we debarked that a/c from the aft stairwell. At the time, The Wall (well known to any Texan, fersure) was likewise a different sort of experience for the six year old Oregonian boy I was at the time.
My next plane trip was just as traumatic. The plane had to make a rapid spiral descent into Sea-Tac on account of (no) fuel. The pressurization couldn’t keep up. Only four times since have I experienced pain that intense – [censored], a second degree grease burn, throwing out my back, and a kidney stone.
Yet for all of that, I have always been fascinated and exhilarated by the whole experience. Notionally it can be said that the world is only what we can sense; plane travel puts what was sensed only hours before, utterly beyond reach. It’s a sort of third cousin to teleportation, maybe.
I don’t mind flying so much; it’s the take-offs and landings I have a problem with. Landing is a white-knuckle ride for me. Not coincidentally, the most frightening thing to happen to me on a plane was a landing at La Guardia on the runway that stretches out into the water. There was a stiff cross-wind that day, and the pilot was obviously fighting it to keep the plane as level as possible. We landed at what seemed like an angle, and on one wheel. The second wheel came down hard and knocked everyone around a bit.
The only other thing I dislike about flying is that I’m 6′5″ and rarely am able to get an exit row seat. Thus I spend most of the flight chewing on my knees.
Several years ago I bought a ticket from PA to MA from Brad Houston, a fellow classmate at Allegheny College.
The ticket was in his name, but since this was a long time ago, the airlines neither checked nor cared who used the ticket.
I got on the plane and found myself sitting next to a delightful woman. We chatted for the entire flight (something I usually dread, but enjoyed in this case). Of course one of the first things she asked was my name, and I told her (Tim).
Unbeknownst to me, my ride was running late to the airport, and tried to get a message to me the only way one could in those pre everyone-has-a-cellphone-days: by having me paged over the PA system in the airport. She paged me using the name “Brad Houston” since that was the name on the ticket.
So here we are continuing a lovely conversation after the flight lands…. we’re walking into the airport together, saying our casual goodbyes/nice to meet yous… when all of a sudden I hear over the PA: “Arriving passenger Brad Houston, please pick up a message at the lower level information desk. Arriving passenger Brad Houston.”
Without thinking I said, “OH! I’ve got to go get that. Bye!”
A few minutes later I wished that I had stopped to explain it to her…. I’ve always wondered what she thought about that… did she wonder why I gave her a different name? Did she wonder if I had lied to her about anything else?
I flew on September 11th this year, not for any particular reason other than it was the most convenient time to fly. I flew from Columbus to Boston to Portland. The Columbus airport was a near ghost-town. Very few people there. Logan (Boston) was much busier. The line at the security checkpoint was long and slow. They didn’t even have all of the screening booths manned. I guess no one told them that the horse was already out of the barn.
Best book ever read (or started) during a flight: PD James, “The Children of Men”… a great book (and a different kind of book than her other work, which is mostly detective stories…)
I’m sickened by what has happened in the last two years to aviation. Leave it up to Man to take something as beautiful as flying and turn it into something as obscene as a weapon. It took less than ten years, from the Wrights to the earliest air warfare in WWI. I’m frankly surprised it took as long as it did to get to 9/11. It’s easy, looking back, to see how poor the “security” was everywhere, but nobody really seemed to believe anyone would use a civilian jet to take so many lives.
If Norman Rockwell had ever done a portrait of the Kid at the Airport Fence, it would have had me and my dog and bicycle in it. I learned to fly back in high school before I had a car (something else people have trouble with–kids flying around at the controls of airplanes).
There is nothing as noisy as a private plane, but it’s funny–all of my memories of flying feature an incredible q u i e t ride.
I was in a huge car crash a couple of years ago, and lost my medical certification due to a concussion and loss of memory. I got it back in August and now I find myself looking skyward again, every time a little plane buzzes overhead. If I catch a few breaks in business and life this month, I hope to be back up there again soon, turning dollars into noise and having the time of my life.
Mark said – “I’m sickened by what has happened in the last two years to aviation. Leave it up to Man to take something as beautiful as flying and turn it into something as obscene as a weapon.”
It’s probably been that way since the beginning of time when that first man picked up a piece of something as beautiful as a tree and hit his neighbor with it.
Trick is to know that this is the way things are, find beauty where it lies, and recognize evil for what it is.
I’m afraid of planes, I wasn’t always afraid of planes and have been on a lot of flights, and I know how incredibly ridiculous it is to be afraid of them, but after having my daughter (6 and a half years ago) I became scared of them, for no good reason, and I haven’t been on one since.
What is worse is that I live in the UK, and my entire family live in Upstate NY, and I won’t get on a plane to go visit them …
I know … it’s very silly, I feel silly just writing this.
I love flying, despite always being stuck in between the screaming infant with colic and the overweight gentleman who forgot to shower that year.
I enjoy watching other passengers. Stopping to imagine what’s going through everyone’s minds…. the 7-year-old kid who’s never been on a plane before….. the guy sitting next to me, who flies every week like I do, but never bothers to pick his head up out of his work to look around….. the mother of the screaming 2-year-old, who’s anxious and embarrassed…. the flight attendant who has 5 more flights after this one, before the day’s done… the young woman in the 14th row who looks out the window and imagines her fiance waiting to pick her up at the arrival gate.
I wonder if the plane is aware of this diverse cross-section of life that it carries. The pilot guides her down the runway, and slowly her great wings flex and lift us all off into the morning light.
How can you help but take just a second and smile about it?
I went to the loo on a flight to Hong Kong from Sydney and afterwards discovered there was no loo paper. I had to stick my head out the door and wave and mime at an air hostess to get me some.
That’s also happened to me on a train, but I won’t go into that…
Flying is an absolute gas.
For me, the take off and landing are the high points. The flight itself is rather mundane. Diversions like people watching, napping, and in flight movies or reading usually make this time bearable.
My most thrilling moment came in a propjet on approach to Kennedy. One of the runways requiers an approach over NY’s lower harbor (by Coney Is. for those who know the area). Well it was early spring and cool so the water was winter cold. But the black tarmac of the runway was well heated. The temperature differential caused an updraft of humongous proportion. There were magizines and less wholesome bits flying all over. The sounds and aromas were unexpected and quite overpowering.
Have not flown since 9/11. No particular reason other than I am not a frequent flyer.
I’ve only flown a few times, never more than a couple of hours, and never had a traumatic experience. I enjoyed every second from takeoff to landing–the airport was another question. I get more nervous going through the metal detector than at any point in the flight. I haven’t flown since 9/11/01, so I haven’t experienced the new security hassles first-hand.
Color me unsophisticated, but I like to get a window seat (not over the wing), and I look out the entire time, & try to pick out details on the ground. I remember on one flight over the plains of West Texas it looked like I could see the curvature of the Earth, maybe that was an optical illusion.
The only thing is, I’ve always flown “coach”, and I’m a big guy, so I’ve always been wedged in as uncomfortably as on a Greyhound bus. On a long flight over oceans or clouds I would definitely want something to read.
I don’t particularly care for flying. It’s not that I’m afraid of flying, really. It’s that I’m always sitting next to some skinny little whiner who complains that my armpit is in his face. — I wear deodorant; I don’t know what the gripe is. I, like TiJean, am a larger person (read: fatass).
The other reason I don’t fly very often is that no one really wants to see me all that bad. So why go?
And last, but not least is that whole “In the event that all four engines fail, chances are we’re going to go into the ground like a f-ing dart” thing. (previous joke stolen from Billy Connolly).
I like small aircraft. I’m a big fan of planes like the DC-3 and the Ford Tri-Motor. Planes you could jump out of with a parachute if something goes wrong. Otherwise, the stuff you have to go through to fly via commercial aviation these days is so aggravating that I’d rather just drive. Unless I’ve got to go somewhere that’s farther away, say, than a day’s drive. Fortunately, it’s not often the case that I need to do that.
Flying is something I cant get enough of. Whether it is just interstate from NSW to VIC or international, its all the same. Its like a vacume in time where you see the world below from another perspective. There was one flight over the pacific ocean heading to the US and it was a full moon, you see the clouds below and the water illuminated from the moons light. Magic stuff. You just got to have that passion for flying and travel. A bit of old fashion romance in simply hopping on a plane and flying to some new place.
My biggest flying thrills have been looking straight down. The first experience was by looking to my right (the helicopter was was turning so sharply that “right” = “straight down”). The second was lying in the belly of a mid-air refueler. There is a window that looks straight down so the fuel boom operator can see the plane he will be refueling. I got to see the view a lot longer in the refueler – but the ground was A Lot Closer in the helicopter!
Flying may not be out of the reach of many of us in the near future, since the FAA has finalized the “Sport Pilot” designation. For very little cash outlay and relatively little training, anyone that can drive a car will be able to pilot a lighter class of aircraft. These planes will retail for as little as $30K (less than the price of a SUV nowadays), and the prices are sure to drop if enough people get interested. Here’s an article about the ruling:
http://www.sportpilot.org/news/030731.html
Hey there. Flying is pretty neat. I always thought it would be harder to go to the bathroom in a plane bathroom than it really is. It’s not too hard. It kind of surprised me! Then again, planes can do that every now and then.
I have only been on a few flights before. They consist of a flight to Cancun, D.C., and New York. They were all pretty awesome. The flight to Cancun was probably the worst out of all of the three, but hey, I was going to Cancun! That made up for the crappy plane ride.
You know what I really hate? I really hate those tiny little seats that you can’t move in. They cram you in that fricken plan so tight that you are practically hugging the person sitting next to you. That’s a load of crap. When I fly, I always pray that I’ll get the exit seat…..obviously because it has the most room. The flights are usually good if you have an exit seat.
Well, that’s all I have for today. Bye!
Molly*
xxox
Flying is a experience..
I havent flew so much as other,only four or six times when I was a kid..But I like flying and everything..I just dont like landing too much…But it has been a long time since I flew last,as I am HoH ( thereby having to wear a hearing aid since 11 months old) and from last flying in airplane developed something in my ear from pressure and humidity that still, today,makes my ear so sick I cant sometimes hear and my doctor has warned me to count down flies..and I was only twelve..Imagine that!
But I like to see airplanes, and I once lived near an airport and loved the noises and everything and knew which and which plane was
Loved it!
I think the idea of flight is marvelous although I’ve only ever travelled on a Boeing sized or one of those 50 seater Ryan Air type planes. I would love to fly business class or first class (whatever the most appropriate term is). A whole set of new flight destination have recently started at my local airport airport which means I could hop onto a plane and fly to Milan at a blink of eye. I have romantic notions of finding that little hotel where I could phone up, reserve a room for the weekend, jump on a plane and explore Italy. I’m waiting for flights to Genova though, I so desperately want to see where my great-great-grandfather came from. On a more serious note, I wouldn’t recommend the smaller planes for a first flight, I travelled to Ryan Air and thought that we were coming off the runway when landing and when they bank, they bank.
Anil likes to fly.
thankss