Flight

I was watching a plane pull a glider up into the sky today and I had this thought that flight is an anarchic act ... with no controlling rules or principles to give order.

Rules are imposed, chaos doesn't reign and yet the mere act of flight seems anarchic to me. Who dared think we might follow the birds? I went searching and found an interesting history of flight just because I needed to know.

In 1500, Leonardo da Vinci said, 'A bird is an instrument working according to a mathematical law. It lies within the power of man to make this instrument with all its motions'.

Meanwhile I have this love/hate relationship with flight. I walked on air for days after being allowed to 'fly' the airforce Macchi jetfighter simulator. And still smile when I remember my helicopter ride up Franz Joseph glacier, landing on the side of a mountain and walking around in heaven before flying back down the Fox Glacier in New Zealand. The bubble cockpit meant that there was glass under my feet and it was the most stunning sensation ...

And hate aspect ... ?
There are 23 hours of flight between Istanbul and New Zealand,I imagine Belgium to NZ is something similar ... this is flight at its most challenging. Departure lounge takes on a literal meaning for me, as I prepare myself, hoping the wax won't melt this time.