Thoughts from 40,000 ft

 

A very nice map of our anticipated travel across a good portion of the earth’s surface filled the colored seat-back screen in front of me.  The digital representation of our American Airlines plane slowly turned toward a runway as the pilot readied for take off.  

In a bit, we thundered down the runway.  We lifted off, and as soon as we became airborne the pilot made the necessary changes to our heading as we climbed through the congestion of one of the worlds busiest airports.

The runway was at London’s Heathrow Airport.  In a relatively short period of time, we would find ourselves on another runway, this time at O’Hare International in Chicago.

These changes were instantly reflected on my seat-back display.  I was able to keep track of our speed, both actual and ground, the outside temperature, the time of our just minutes ago departure, the current time at both our departure and destination locations, and the time of our anticipated arrival, this changing a bit with our airspeed.  If one was paying attention, he could even learn some geography.  Places appeared on the map in front of me with names I had last seen while reading of Capt. Jack Aubrey’s adventures in Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander series

To a guy who spent a business career in automation communications, this displayed information was absolutely amazing!  I do know a thing or two about moving ones and zeroes, and I was impressed!  Isn’t modern technology a wonderful thing?  My oldest granddaughter sometimes refers to me as a “fully trained technician.”  She always smiles when she says it, so I don’t really know if that’s good or bad.

I was comfortable with the fact that none of the displayed information required any input or action on my part. I felt sorry for those poor people in the seats around me who were already watching an ordinary movie, something they could no doubt see at home any time they chose!  My screen however was alive with exciting real-time, important, data.

Seeing our travel so neatly compressed into a digital presentation set my mind to wandering.

I’ve read enough WWll history to know many aerial battles between German bombers and the Hurricanes and Spitfires of RAF Fighter Command were fought in this very airspace. Had I known exactly where to look, and the puffy clouds permitted, I could have seen some of the many airfields which had sprung up to help England defend her homeland, bases from which Fighter Command launched their defensive attacks in what became known as the Battle of Britain. 

Had I been able to look to the rear, I might have seen in the distance Shipdham Airdrome where my Dad and his Army Air Corps buddies with the 44^th Bomb Group had worked on B-24 bombers repairing them, and getting them ready for their next bombing missions over Germany during that same war.

When we, Joyce, Angela, Ashley and I (there was no Aspen at this time) first made these journeys decades ago, the record of our travel was a paper map tacked to the bulkhead near the toilets. Our route then was traced in colored pencil. On one of our trips, I asked a cabin attendant if I could have the map.  I still have it somewhere.

But, on this October day of 2021, as we lifted off of London Heathrow’s runway over the varied greens of the multi-dimensional hedge bordered fields of England, there was no old fashioned paper map with its penciled lines. In its place was the crisp digital display described above.  

The crisp clean lines in the seat-back map now displayed Scotland as we slowly turned, climbing toward our assigned cruising altitude.

Scotland holds too many memories for me to really even get started, but let me share just this.

As near as I can tell, my Dad went to Scotland in 1944.  He would have been on leave from his base at Shipdham.  While in Scotland, he had his picture taken wearing Highland attire, his left hand on a sword, and with Edinburgh Castle in the background.  Can you imagine what that does to a young boy’s imagination, seeing a picture like that hanging on his Grandma’s wall?

My Dad could not possibly have dreamed of what would happen because of that picture.  With that, our family’s Scottish saga begins.  Providence with its intricate and many times unseen workings would some years in the future have the US Navy send me to Scotland as well.

As our story continues, a young Scottish girl becomes my wife.  Our three daughters all have close and varied ties to “the old country.”  One daughter lives and works there and five of our grandchildren call Scotland home.

We lived for a few years in a small village called Inverbervie, hard against the North Sea in Kincardineshire.  I was with the US Navy stationed at an RAF (Royal Air Force) base some distance away near the historic, wee, rural village of Edzell.  We were living the dream!

Meanwhile, back in the plane;  we turn slightly and Ireland is displayed. We’ve been there a couple of times. Always enjoyable trips.

Then a bit later, the display shows me the Norwegian Sea and Iceland’s Langanes Peninsula where all those many years ago, I spent a year of isolated duty at the Navy’s Remote Site H-2.

Then Nova Scotia appeared and I wondered if the Lagina brothers had found the treasure of Oak Island while we were gone. The treasure they seek is linked interestingly enough to some of the very places on the map we have been discussing. I can’t wait to get home and find out.

And then with a simple message on our plane’s intercom, my thoughts changed from history and geography back to my family.

We have three daughters of whom we are immensely proud. That pride extends also to our four granddaughters.

It was interesting as we traveled at speeds nearing 500 mph and at elevations of around 40,000 ft for nearly 4,000 miles from London’s Heathrow; over Ireland, the North Atlantic, a chunk of Eastern Canada and a slice of the northern US, to discover the Boeing 787-9 on which we traveled was piloted by Capt. Peri Hoffman and First Officer Kim Hickson. I also discovered as I visited with a cabin attendant about the correct spelling of our Captain’s and First Officer’s names, there was only one guy in the flight deck crew.

So, to our daughters and granddaughters: Know that there is absolutely nothing you can’t be or do.

Our daughters already know this, each being successful in their own individual families and careers, but we want our granddaughters to know the sky, where I am as I write, is literally the limit.

As we sat in Edinburgh International Airport waiting to board our delayed London flight, we sat looking at a wall covered with pictures of the ‘Scottish Women of Science.’  I sit here on the plane wondering why on earth I hadn’t taken a picture.

So, you go girls!

I think of Elspeth who lives in Scotland.  She was then just five.  During a FaceTime call, when I mentioned all the fun things she and I were going to do when we came over to see her, she turned and whispered to her Mom, “how’s he going to get over all that water?”

It all starts with a five year old girl asking a question like that.

And here Grandma and I sit, traveling in the aluminum tube that is the answer to her question, and it’s piloted by Peri and her accomplished crew of women.

Oh, and Cajun Chicken at 40,000 ft ain’t too bad!