14 February 2010

Sunday Quote 21410

It's a strange tension we feel when we fly.  Tense and relaxed at the same time, alert, and yet strangely aloof, consummate, coolly professional and safe, yet risking our lives every single time we go up.  Charles Lindbergh said it better:
"I may be flying a complicated airplane, rushing through space, but in this cabin I'm surrounded by simplicity and thoughts set free of time. How detached the intimate things around me seem from the great world down below. How strange is this combination of proximity and separation. That ground — seconds away — thousands of miles away. This air, stirring mildly around me. That air, rushing by with the speed of a tornado, an inch beyond. These minute details in my cockpit. The grandeur of the world outside. The nearness of death. The longness of life."

Charles A. Lindbergh, The Spirit of St. Louis


jj

No comments: