online: 7 april 2012 modified: 26 march, 6, 7, 10, 28 april 2012 23 march 2012 aviation as utopia
flying over the sea
...flying with a hundred or two others in a low-cost airline (that nevertheless charges large amounts of each person's money) to carry us through the stratosphere from one city to another... in evident safety yet with no visible means of support... with the audible broadcasting of large volumes of sound... and the invisible pollution of the atmosphere...
...how is it that i am so pleased and even astounded by artificial phenomena such as this happening all around me... as i write whatever words appear on this touch screen?...
...but i don't wait to answer that question... i simply look out of the little window beside me and see land now as well as clouds as the aircraft begins to descend and the sounds and sensations of flying become less static as small and fluctuating g-forces begin to operate on our bodies as the details of fields, woods and habitations become visible and the engines go quiet... while inside this peaceful airborne enclosure there is a hush...
...and now the view is of cloud like a rough sea of water vapour... like wavelets of snow but really it's cloud...
...now there is a slight shuddering motion as the flaps and slots of the wing become separated into multi-wing and the afternoon shadows of the farm buildings below become more and more distinct...
...the aircraft is now power gliding over houses and woods... each object with its shadow... we move very steadily in the prescribed manoeuvres of descent and of reconnecting with the earth... at which a crew member reminds me to turn the handheld off... (not just to standby but to close it down)...
...and during the long descent i realise again how safe is flying high above the mountains and the weather but how dangerous it becomes as the ground with all its unpredictabilities comes near... and the aircraft moves slower and slower until it becomes a part of the earth as people re-find their voices and their disobediences as our journey returns to normality in about a kilometre of walk inside the elevated tunnels through security inspections, baggage claims and such...
...and then suddenly we were outside the airport and back in what we might call our private lives...
...aviation: yes it is utopian when in the sky... but in moving to and from that utopian state it is dangerous indeed... but is made safe by care and regulation... by many people who whose work it is to devise and operate the whole astonishing process... aloft and on the ground... and in between...
...a realised utopia... is that what it is?...
...it is life as it is... as more and more of us spend time away from the earth at the beginnings of outer space... in our expanding habitat...
(as i edit this writing i hear the sound of a jumbojet flying exceptionally low over the city in darkness... but visible i hope and trust to the people in air traffic control)
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