![]() But at night, over a stratus layer, all sense of the planet may disappear. He is trying to understand it in all its moods to learn its flow, its laws, and to try and use this knowledge to his own ends.īy day, or on a cloudless night, a pilot may drink the wine of the gods, but it has an earthly taste he's a god of the earth, like one of the Grecian deities who lives on worldly mountains and descended for intercourse with men. His passage leaves a whisper, not a shriek. The soaring pilot makes an aerial excursion, not an incursion. When gliding operators have attained greater skill, they can maintain themselves in the air for hours at a time. We returned home, after these experiments, with the conviction that sailing flight was not the exclusive prerogative of birds. ![]() No one can realize how substantial the air is, until he feels its supporting power beneath him. It is strongest in those of us who fly and is responsible for an unconscious, subtle desire to slip into some wings and try for the elusive boundaries of our origin. Most are too busy to notice it, and it is stronger in some than others. Within all of us is a varying amount of space lint and star dust, the residue from our creation. The exhilaration of flying is too keen, the pleasure too great, for it to be neglected as a sport. More than anything else the sensation is one of perfect peace mingled with an excitement that strains every nerve to the utmost, if you can conceive of such a combination. It's the closest you can come to being a bird. Gliders, sailplanes, they are wonderful flying machines. Octave Chanute, regards people who tried his gliders, 1894. Scene I.Īll agreed that the sensation of coasting on the air was delightful. William Shakespeare, 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' Act V. Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. Most gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight-how to get from shore to food and back again. You haven't seen a tree until you've seen its shadow from the sky. There is no sport equal to that which aviators enjoy while being carried through the air on great white wings. The most beautiful dream that has haunted the heart of man since Icarus is today reality. To be able to dwell on an encounter of the human brain and spirit with the universe-Īll this enlarges the human horizon. To be able to contemplate the billions of factors in precise and beautiful combination that make human existence possible To see the relationship of the planet earth to other planets To be able, from a station in outer space, Sometimes, the world from above seems too beautiful, too wonderful, too distant for human eyes to see. Sometimes, flying feels too godlike to be attained by man. Pierre Georges Latécoère, early French aviation entrepreneur. There's only one thing to do: make it work. Walt Whitman, One Hour to Madness and Joy, 1860.Īll the calculations show it can't work. O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last! L'homme est un dieu tombé qui se souvient des cieux. The original French:īorné dans sa nature, infini dans ses vocux, Alphonse de Lamertine, 'L'Homme,' addressed to Byron in 1819. Man is a fallen god who remembers heaven. Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires, A time will come when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them. Man must rise above the Earth-to the top of the atmosphere and beyond-for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.Ī single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the study of so vast a subject. More than any other thing that pertains to the body it partakes of the nature of the divine. The natural function of the wing is to soar upwards and carry that which is heavy up to the place where dwells the race of gods. Mark Twain, Roughing It, Chapter XXII, 1886. And why shouldn't it be? -it is the same the angels breathe. The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |