During an afternoon visit to the National Museum of the United Sates Air Force outside Dayton, OH I was struck with the amazing power of the human spirit. This reminder was brought home even more powerfully as I left Ohio to pilot an aircraft across the North Atlantic Ocean. Peering down from an altitude of 33,000 feet, between blankets of snowy clouds, I saw the cold face of the northern seas flashing and sparkling in the chilly sunlight.
Only 80 years ago Charles Lindbergh undertook much of the same trip I’m flying, only he did it in an airplane a fraction of the size of mine, without any crew, and a relatively primitive compass for navigation rather than multiple mission computers to blend GPS and inertial reference system navigation solutions. What seemed impossible at the time has now become commonplace, so much so that there are international agreements governing the times and locations aircraft can depart the eastern and western seaboards as well as mandating the sort of navigational and computer-controlled flight control systems required to be onboard.
It is staggering to see how far man has come, and how quickly he has learned from his scientific mistakes and studies. It also is cause for sober soul-searching as well. Next to the museum exhibit about the beginning of heavier-than-air powered flight was an exhibit that chronicled the use of aircraft in the two wars that shook the world. A brief timeline recorded the nationalism, fascism, and humanism that combined to create an interminable list of atrocities against mankind. In the midst of optimistic scientific and technological advances, the ugly spectre of war rose and dealt out punishment in terms previously unimaginable.
And now, my reasons for crossing the North Atlantic also give me cause for sober reflection.
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