THE ATTITUDE OF ALTITUDE

"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings" 
                          - John Gillespie Magee, Jr

The View from Up Top.

Rift 

Whenever I'm given the option of whether to sit on the aisle or next to the window, I usually opt for the window. (The middle seat, poor thing, is pretty much the bastard child of seat assignments. Nobody wants the center seat, and nobody in the aisle or window seats really want another passenger to sit there either. Anyone who tells you they want the center is either a liar, or needs serious therapy. Or both.) 

For me the window seat provides perhaps the truest sense of traveling adventure you can get on a modern airliner. Sitting in the aisle seat certainly makes for more convenience when making a bid for the head (restroom), but the view is pretty much the same as you would get on the aisle in any standard pre-stadium-seating movie theater -- without the big screen or filmed entertainment. More claustrophobic in fact, given the much lower ceiling, narrower aisle and the tightness of the seating arrangement.

Honolulu departure

(As you can tell, I try like the dickens to avoid being caught in that airliner Purgatory known as the "center seat" -- usually only suffering that ignominy when I am traveling with my lovely bride. I'll take the seat so she can have aisle or window...she prefers the window, most times, for exactly the above reasons.)

Anyway.

Regardless of the time of day -- daylight hours being preferable, of course -- the view out the window is usually pretty fascinating. An overcast day or long voyage over an ocean being exceptions to the rule, most of the time the window offers something far more fascinating to look at versus the seatback in front of you.

Window seat, please

Yosemite

(One of my more recent travel-related activities is photographing things from above. I've begun collecting airports, shorelines, mountains...or other geological features which we can't see from the ground, and go unseen in a center or aisle seat. Consigned to either of those seats I usually sit in mild annoyance when the person at the window sits and reads...or worse, draws the shade and sleeps. Grrrr.)

Looking out of an airliner's window and seeing the world from above was something I learned to love at an early age. It might also be the source of my acrophobia, but that's a supposition for another time.

From my childhood travels I recall one flight in particular, in which we were on a trip from Boston's Logan Airport to Los Angeles International. This would place it in the very late sixties, or 1970. 

(Given that it was a transcontinental flight, I'd tend to think we were in a Boeing 707, perhaps the most legendary aircraft of the commercial jet age. It's entirely possible this was my first trip in a jet. I would have been nine. While I'd traveled by air before it's more likely that those trips had been on the then more common Lockheed Constellation class of propeller-driven aircraft. And while it may have been the first 707 I'd ridden it would be far from the last.)

Real crop circles...

 http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20141020-the-plane-that-changed-air-travel 

(But I digress.)

As noted above, I prefer  the window seat. I love looking down at the world as it passes by, seemingly just below my feet. On this one particular voyage, we were crossing over the northernmost portion of Arizona. I know this because of what happened next. The pilot came on the overhead -- remember, this was the heyday of the JetSet experience we all remember so vividly and probably incorrectly -- and let everyone know we were rapidly approaching one of the greatest views on Earth: The Grand Canyon.

PHX airport

This, of course, got me very excited. Never having been there, my boyish perception of the Grand Canyon was based largely on a handful of TV documentaries and the Grand Canyon diorama at Disneyland. And now I was to see it for myself, at a height of thirty thousand feet. 

I was giddy with anticipation...right up until the point the Captain decided BOTH sides of the aircraft deserved a view. 

Um...mountains?

Slowly the plane banked first one way, and then the other, giving the window seats on both sides of the aisle a special downward view of the vast geologically ancient slash through the northern Arizona highlands. The cabin swung itself around dizzyingly as we rolled from side to side. Not good if you've got an eight-year-old's nascent fear of heights. Somehow I realized this was not how an aircraft should operate. What had been a relatively uneventful flight was seared into my memory for -- at this point -- four plus decades as most assuredly not the way I like to fly.

(I recognize, some 45 years later, my memory must be somewhat exaggerated. I'm almost certain the pilot did not bank at 30 degrees to either side despite my stomach's insistence that he did. Caveat emptor, as they say.)

Long Beach on an Ascent

But it never left me, that looking down. Yes, it scared the daylights out of me -- an experience unwittingly echoed decades later in a much smaller aircraft banking steeply above the Inside Passage in Alaska (the pilot anted us to see the whales below) -- but it also excited me at the things you could see if you simply looked down. And so, all these years later, despite the tug of nervousness that sometimes nudges its way into my consciousness, I love the window seat.

Looking down, looking out, you understand what it is to be in motion, in flight, going somewhere -- doing something exciting. Breathtaking. 

As much as we complain that the airlines are rapidly becoming/have become little more than Trailways in the sky, from a window seat you can always sit back, lean your head against the window frame...

...and fly.

To Fly...

Pic of the Day: Small Plane Warning

I have flown pretty much the entire spectrum of airliners in use by American airline carriers, and a few international ones. Boeing, Airbus, CRJs and Embraer. And I think a Cessna, once. In Alaska.

Big jets (747, A380), small ones (CRJ700, MD80), and almost  everything in-between. Each of them has their own personality, and each of them contributes something different to the in-flight experience.

But there is a sense of adventure -- fear? -- in flying a smaller aircraft. Particularly when it's a blustery day.

Below is a shot of the plane I took from Salt Lake City to Pocatello, Idaho. Pocatello is among the smallest of airports I've been to in the last few years, if not the champion. But it does echo more of a byegone era of commercial aviation when you enter a small terminal and march out directly onto the Tarmac to board a small plane. (It's a balancing act Long Beach Airport manages even today with significantly larger aircraft, while still reminding you of the adventure of flight in general.)

Small aircraft are not my first choice, but they do always promise that the trip will be a bit of an adventure.

Looking Down from On High

"I pick the prettiest part of the sky and I melt into the wing and then into the air, till I'm just soul on a sunbeam."  ~Richard Bach






The View from Up There...

I am not a poet, and so it may be more difficult for me to effectively describe one of the most astounding methods of travel, and that is the gift of flight. To be above the world, looking down, is one of the greatest adventures ever accomplished by humanity, but in this modern world of the bus-like passenger liner we tend to forget to look out the window and see the world from a perspective only granted us only in the last hundred years.

Missing the Bigger Picture

All too often we regard flying as, at best, an inconvenience. And, to be sure, it has become such an everyday maze of ticket counters, TSA, gate checks, boarding, small seats, rude passengers and baggage claim, that it's easy to get drawn down into the miasma of inconvenience and forget the rest. As a passenger I need to deal with these little difficulties, without losing sight of the true marvel of modern air travel.

Whenever I'm given the option of whether to sit on the aisle on next to the window, I usually opt for the window. For me it's the truest sense of traveling adventure you can get on a modern airliner. Sitting in the aisle seat certainly makes for more convenience when making a bid for the head (restroom), but the view is pretty much the same as you get on the aisle in a pre-stadium seating small, crowded theater, without the big screen or filmed entertainment. More claustrophic, in fact, given the much lower ceiling,

Phoenix Int'l Airport

Mountains

(I try like the dickens to avoid being caught in that airliner Purgatory known as the "center seat", usually only suffering that ignominy when I am traveling with my lovely bride. I'll take the seat so she can have aisle or window -- she likes the window as well, most times.)

Regardless of the time of day -- daylight hours being preferable, the view out the window is usually pretty fascinating. An overcast day or long voyage over an ocean being exceptions to the rule, most of the time the view offers something far more interesting to look at beyond the seat back in front of you.

Leaving Honolulu

One of my more recent travel-related hobbies is photographing things from above. I've begun collecting airports, shorelines, mountains...or other geological features which we can't see from the ground, and are easily missed in a center or aisle seat.

Looking out the window was something I learned to love at an early age. It might also be the source of my acrophobia, but that's a supposition for another time. I recall one flight in particular, in which we were on a flight from Boston's Logan Airport to Los Angeles International. This would place it in the very late sixties, or 1970. I would have been nine, which closely matches my recollection. Assuming then, a transcontinental flight, I'd tend to think we were in a Boeing 707, the importance of which I will arrive at momentarily.

( http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20141020-the-plane-that-changed-air-travel )

Crop circles over Nebraska

As noted, I like the window seat. I love looking down at the world as it passes by, seemingly just below my feet. On this one particular voyage, we were crossing over the northernmost portion of Arizona. I know this because of what happened next. The pilot came on the overhead -- remember, this was the heyday of the JetSet experience we all remember so vividly and probably incorrectly -- and let everyone know we were rapidly approaching one of the greatest views on Earth: The Grand Canyon.

Above Yosemite

This, of course, got me very excited. Right up until the point the Captain decided BOTH side of the aircraft deserved a view. Slowly the plane turned first one way, and then the other, giving the window seats on both sides of the aisle a special downward view of a vast hole in use ground. Not good if you've got a span scent fear of heights. What had been a relatively uneventful flight was seared into my memory for at this point, four plus decades.

But it never left me, that feeling of looking down. Yes, that adventure over the Grand Canyon scared the day lights out of me -- echoed decades later in a much smaller plane above the Inside Passage in Alaska -- but it also excited me at the things you could see if you simply looked down. And so, all these years later, despite the tug of nervousness that sometimes nudges its way into my consciousness, I love the window. 

My hometown of Long Beach

Looking down, looking out, you understand what it is to be moving, going somewhere, doing something exciting. 

As much as we complain that the airlines are rapidly becoming/have become little more than Trailways in the sky, from a window seat you can always sit back, lean your head against the window frame...

...and fly.

My soul is in the sky.  ~William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream