Feathers, Touching Down
There's still something magical about flying a long distance in a plane, the sheer fact that you and your bag (or bags) are just two of the many "heavy" items on board; throw in a zillion other passengers, then the weight of the plane itself --not to mention the nearly 26,000+ gallons of fuel*--and one has to wonder how this massive mechanical beast even gets off of the ground? Add in the weight of the air itself (as mentioned in one of my recent posts , thus the use of the term "air" plane) and you sometimes think that the whole thing --this flying that we so often just take for granted-- was magic. Picture yourself in front of your 24-inch fan set at maximum speed; it is still nowhere powerful enough to tilt itself back, much left break free from its stand and fly across the room. So double or triple the speed and maybe (if the blades don't fly off, a problem for wind turbines which have to be shut down during high winds), you'd get close to th...