Saturday 19 September 2009

On Flight..

I was watching a program on the History channel the other day, about the life and work of Burt Rutan, one of my personal heroes. This triggered another trip down the lanes of aircraft history, and I started reading up on the net, yet again, about various airplanes and their makers and their stories. And I realized that they were people who fascinated and inspired entire generations in their quest to make flight safer and accessible for all of us. They put their lives and fortunes on the line to prove to the rest of the world that what it thought was impossible was merely difficult for these guys. And ironically, all their adventures and risks went to making aviation that much more safer an commonplace for us, that chances are that a kid today wont give much thought to it when he looks up in the sky and sees and airplane leave a contrail across it.

I sometimes like to think, naively or not i leave it to you, that I'm a part of a dwindling group of people still fascinated enough by the whole idea of flight that we decided to go and do something about it. But ironically again, my meagre efforts too would go towards making flight a little bit more commonplace, a little bit less fascinating. oh well..

4 comments:

vaidehi said...

Yeah, as Roald Dahl put it (and this was nearly 20 years ago)-"Nowadays you can go anywhere in the world in a few hours, and nothing is fabulous any more"

fulcrum said...

Speaking of Dahl, i happened to watch the movie Matilda based on his novel on TV the other day.. was fun :)

vaidehi said...

You should read this book 'My Uncle Oswald' by Dahl.. it's one of the most bizarre books ever

fulcrum said...

will do.. just finished a book a few days ago n was wondering what to read next..