The Magic of Flight

January 10, 2010 — This past November I was on trip with my niece through the south to visit some specific spots that interested us both. One such place was the Naval Aviation Museum at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. NAS Pensacola is the home of naval aviation and home to the Navy's Flight Demonstration Team known as the Blue Angels. I of course had to purchase a Blue Angels "hoodie" which I love to wear and along with it came a DVD set titled The Magic of Flight.

This video was produced for the museum by Macgillivray Freeman Films for exhibition in the museum's IMAX theater. The film is wonderfully narrated by Tom Selleck. I did not view the Windows Media version of this film until last night and after doing so I wondered why it had taken me so long to do so. It is simply...terrific!

The film chronicles what we have known for some time...that their is magic in flying. Mankind has observed the flight of birds since the beginning of time on earth and history is full of the attempts of how man pursued that which a bird could do and we could not. The camera work is spectacular and the documentation of birds in flight and how they accomplish this miracle is done so simply and accurately. Then comes man's pursuit of flight...the most notable attempts of Samuel P. Langley in 1903 and his failures followed quickly by the success of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. I did not realize until viewing this film that the Wright Brothers actually made four flights that day in December 1903..the longest lasting 59 seconds. They had finally solved some of the mystery of flight and we began to slip "...the surly bonds of earth¹."

All of the film of course is then tied to the Blue Angels. Since 1946 they have thrilled millions of spectators with their precision aerobatics...the taking of a high performance aircraft and demonstrating its capabilities and the abilities of its pilot to perform what are really basic maneuvers. The U.S. Air Force has its flight demonstration team known as the Thunderbirds an equally capable team and there are also international flight demonstration teams.

Well by the 21st Century we have moved far in our fascination with flight. We fly farther and faster it seems everyday. In the 1970's we went to and landed on the surface of the moon and then returned safely. Space shuttle operational flights began in 1982. We continue to look to the stars and know that we can one day travel to distant planets. Our technology continues to advance and man keeps pace with it all. Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the hero of USAirays Flt 1549 on January 15, 2009 that ditched in New York's Hudson River, wrote in his book Highest Duty that "Even when the controls are being manipulated through automation, pilots have to back up the computer systems with their own mental math." (Highest Duty, pg. 18). Why should we continue this fascination and exploration of flight...one only need reflect on our countries exploration of the western frontier and of Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery to find the answer.

I have always been fascinated with flying. My first flight was long ago from a small private airfield near my Mom's house in Abilene, Texas. I was probably eight or nine years old at the time. I flew with a man just going up for flight time in a Piper Cub type aircraft. He saw my interest in flying as I was always hanging around that small airfield. I was thrilled beyond words and memories of that day are still vivid in my memory. There was my brother-in-law Ed Robbins...a navy fighter pilot that I simply idolized. He took me under his wing and stoked my desire and dreams of flying. He once told me about the thrill it was to take an aircraft and soar through a hole in the clouds and the blue sky beyond. They were words that have forever been etched in my memory. I was fortunate enough to spend my 22-year naval career as a Naval Aircrewman and I learned what Ed Robbins really meant about the thrill he felt.

So every time I see a film such as The Magic of Flight or even Hollywood's Top Gun or read a book that has flying as its central theme I am completely taken by the moment. John Gillespie Magee, Jr., a young American flying for the Royal Canadian Air Force in Great Britain in 1941 found inspiration for and penned his poem High flight after completing a high altitude test flight in a new version of the British Spitfire. After returning from the test flight he wrote his parents and included the poem on the back of the envelope. The poem is included below. Anyone that has flown and enjoyed the thrill of flying has felt what Magee expressed so long ago...it's what really matters.

¹ High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

— John Gillespie Magee, Jr.