Aviation

Aviation plays a major part in our world. Whether you enjoy flying or not, most will be excited watching airplanes flying around. It allows a certain kind of freedom you just don't get with anything else.

Aviation has many different facets. Being used to move people commercially in small eight passenger hoppers, to mega 853 passengers certified on the Airbus 380 (at a cool 428 million dollars). Aviation is also used for private travel, with the myriad aircraft ranging from two seat piston light, to a BBJ (Boeing Business Jet) luxury 50 seat configuration. Freight is moved every day by aircraft, which makes hubs like Fedex Memphis one of the busiest in the world. Planes are used for agriculture, fish spotting, wildlife tracking, policing, and medical evacuation. But the best use is for fun. Whether you like to balloon, glide, or fly with power, there is nothing like taking the controls of a flying machine. Even if the controls are outside of the plane, as with R C (Radio Control). You can operate off of asphalt, grass, snow, water or even steel, (if you reside on an aircraft carrier). And if you have a helicopter, there is no place you can't go.

The way aircraft fly has basically stayed the same over the years. However the technology in the controls, safety and navigation have gone off the scale. Today most new airliners and a good portion of GA (General Aviation) aircraft can takeoff, fly, and land, hands off the primary controls. So much so, that you will often find airline pilots at the small airports flying a basic Cessna or the likes, just to get some real flying in.

The images above are some of my favorites over the years. From flights over the mountains, to fly-ins at the local airport. With some military maneuvers by craft like the Osprey to RC fighter jet scale models, that use mini real jet engines, and costing around ten grand. I have included our flight on one of the only flying B24 liberators, and what happens when you lose a main landing gear on a twin prop GA airplane. Look at where the fence post ended up. The cost to repair that was probably in excess of eighty grand. not a happy day for the owner. (Nothing to do with me).

So go on, take a flight in a small craft. Even if you don't know a pilot, there are always willing ones ready to share their love with you. There is a coming crisis in the industry, a shortage of pilots. Some of which has come about with the tightening of security at all airports, which has had the effect of removing the connection between them who fly and them who may want to fly. We need to push these groups back together, or face the consequences.