The Mystery of Flight: Time, Geography, Science, the Natural Observation of a Poet-Pilot Exploring the Mysteries of Heaven and Earth

Geography is a way of dividing the world. It can draw the boundaries of political entities, the lines of per capita income, or the precipitation that best highlights the surface of a spherical hometown, as well as the noisy civilized entities on the ground. feature. Flying writes its own geography, reflecting old physics, and so does every aviation worker and traveler.

Some places I have flown to, some places I have never flown to. Before I became a pilot, I never expected to see the Earth this way; but the more I travel, the more important it becomes, not less. On the long-range pilot's world map, some cities shine with the light of recent visits, some are less obvious, and some are completely dark. As a relatively junior pilot, my maps were more sporadic than many of my colleagues. Once or twice a year, I still fly to an airport I have never visited before. The reason may be that the route is new, the airport is new, or I have changed from another aircraft model I originally flew to a 747. A few days before a flight like this, I'll look at charts of this airport and other nearby airports, or flight data prepared for the previous day's flight. When we meet with colleagues before a flight, the captain often asks: Have you been there recently? Or, have you been there before? We would share each other’s maps.

I draw the boundaries between places in terms of those I have visited and those I have not visited. Beyond that, the world's most basic boundaries may not be as clear-cut as day or night above land or water, in clouds or clear skies. The simplest distinction in the sky is the area covered by radar and the area not covered by radar. The aprons and taxiways on the ground of some airports that are not directly visible to the tower personnel will be clearly drawn in our table. The whole world can be distinguished in a similar way by whether radar coverage is present. Surprisingly, a large part of the world lacks civil aviation radar. Once you are away from the coast, there is no radar on the ocean surface. There is no radar in all of Greenland, most of Africa, or large areas of Canada and Australia. When I'm within a certain distance of a radar station or radar installation - the thing that spins to detect our position is the "radar seeker" - the air traffic controller can "see" me directly. Without radar, they can't see, and we have to communicate our position through more and more sophisticated electronic instruments, or read out our time and altitude by radio. They must read back the "Position Announcement" carefully to confirm that what they heard is correct.

The feeling of being seen and not being seen can also be used to distinguish the world. Being outside radar range is different from being in a place with no cell phone signal because we are still communicating with air traffic control. That's different from driving into a tunnel and losing your GPS position, because the pilot knows where he is. This is different from feeling uncomfortable being observed. Pilots would rather air traffic controllers stare at them; if air traffic controllers say that we can be "identified by radar", it will make us breathe a sigh of relief and feel that we are traveling through a less desolate journey. section, or indicates that the end of the journey is near.

Mountains exceeding a certain height separate the sky into another world and another realm. When the altitude exceeds 10,000 feet, if the cabin loses pressure, you need to wear an oxygen mask. So the rough outline of the mountain peaks and the extra safety margin required is perhaps the easiest map for pilots to recite, as is a sudden two-mile rise in sea level. On this picture, there are only two obvious color bands left in the world. One of the long Eurasian belts starts from Spain, passes through the Alps, the Balkan Peninsula, and extends roughly eastward from Turkey to China and Japan. It passes through highland countries such as Iran, Afghanistan, India, and Mongolia on the way, forming the core of the map. Another long red line on the chart, representing the minimum flight altitude, stretches along the western edge of the Americas, from Alaska down the Andes, from the North Pole to the Southern Ocean.

On this height map of the world, the United States east of the Mississippi River cannot be seen. Nor do huge parts of Africa, Brazil, Russia and Canada, as well as all of Australia. The peaks of the Himalayas are covered with similar voids, only at the opposite height.

Occasionally, passengers become unwell on airplanes. At this time, the flight attendant is responsible for handling the situation, not the pilot. Flight attendants try to make the most profound connections in order to save lives, a situation that is reminiscent of the early relationships between nurses and flight attendants (Ellen Church, born in Iowa, 19 In 1930, she became the first female flight attendant hired by an airline. She was a registered nurse, and many nurses followed in her footsteps until the outbreak of World War II, when a large number of nurses were drafted elsewhere). Pilots are only indirectly involved in this medical situation - by going faster, seeking advice, or diverting elsewhere before reaching their destination. Pilots can call the unified management office via satellite to seek medical advice. There are doctors here to assess the conditions of passengers on planes or ships from all over the world, which is the most indispensable virtual medical treatment. Sometimes, crew members will look for medical staff among passengers. Doctors are frequent flyers; when I need one on a long-haul airliner, I've never been unable to find one.

I have a friend who serves as a captain of a passenger aircraft in the United States. He once told me about his early flying experiences. At that time, he would fly small planes for anyone who paid him. He often carries corpses by himself in the middle of the night, and is responsible for sending people home who have died in a foreign land. In those days, banks would cash personal checks and return them to the person who signed them, so sometimes he would fly alone at night, carrying a body and bags of cash. I was reminded of this story when I first saw a document listing the presence of human remains on the plane. It is particularly sad to die in a foreign country, and perhaps the sadness is more primitive, even in this era when fallen leaves can return to their roots. We who are responsible for this important event do not know the names or any details of the deceased, which perhaps best symbolizes the connection and disconnection with the modern world.

One time, I was in the cockpit preparing to take off when a business car sped towards the plane with its warning lights flashing. The driver brought what looked like a picnic ice bucket to the cockpit. He said that it contained human corneas for transplantation. This operation, like the transport of remains, is anonymous. We do not know any details about the donor or recipient, and our role in the donation process is entirely accidental. But after that, every time I was faced with an organ donation situation, like applying for a driver’s license or my parents passing away, I thought about that plane and who the cornea was going to be on; I thought about where they were and how good their vision was. . I remember we carefully strapped the box in the cockpit and flew to London as quickly as possible.

I have carried many passengers and occasionally met people I knew. If friends and family are on the plane, it feels a little weird when I broadcast something because I know there is someone in the cabin who thinks I sound different when I speak, and I'm not even used to people I know hearing me. Later, they would tell me that my voice sounded different when I was on the air. When friends who live with me see me getting ready to go to work in uniform or just coming back from get off work, they will repeatedly look at the face they recognize and the uniform I am wearing.

I once discovered that a neighbor was a passenger on a flight. She didn't know I was one of the pilots. I went downstairs to say hello and told her it was a surprise to meet her on a 747 seat on a transatlantic flight instead of in the stairwell of our building. Her expression went from a quizzical blink to a smile as I reverted from the uniformed pilot to the neighbor she often helped cook dinner.

Once I flew to Berlin. It had been a busy day. The captain and I had traveled back and forth between London and Madrid, and now night was falling. We will soon descend and land at Tegel Airport, where we will then go to our hotel to sleep. I announced to the passengers that the weather was good at their destination, told them the arrival time, and that passengers on one side of the plane had a view of the city on a clear night.

A few minutes later, a flight attendant said over the intercom that a passenger had heard my announcement and said he knew me. But they forgot the man's name, so I still didn't know who he was during the descent.

We landed, taxied, parked the plane, and opened the cabin and cockpit doors. He came towards me from the aisle, bag slung over his shoulder. I recognized him immediately.

The term "souls on board" comes to mind. This outdated term is occasionally heard in flight, for example, when an air traffic controller wants to know the total number of people on the aircraft, including Passengers and crew. This plane has carried tens of thousands of passengers and crew, and will carry hundreds of thousands more; these people are now scattered like stars in all directions on the earth. Who would have guessed that we have been on the same plane? I changed out of my pajamas in front of two rows of uncovered windows. The night sky outside was as lonely as inside the cabin.

I walked upstairs, walking carefully through the dark corridors on the upper level. The cockpit door was open the whole trip tonight, there was no need to close it. From a distance, the cockpit screen at the end of the upper cabin emits soft light, as warm as a fireplace. I passed the rows of empty seats and entered the open door. My colleague made me a cup of hot tea and placed it on the cup holder of my seat. I walked into the cockpit and asked: Guess who I am? The captain laughed - who else could it be tonight?

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This article is published with permission from Facebook/Mark Vanhonak "The Mystery of Flight: Time, Geography, Science, and the Natural Observation of a Poet-Pilot Exploring the Mysteries of Heaven and Earth" "Flying" Mysteries: Time, geography, science, natural observations of a poet pilot exploring the mysteries of heaven and earth"

Author: Mark Vanhonak

Publisher: Facebook