GREAT MARITIME FLIGHT PATHS

Until this past weekend, I've never done more than tour planes while they've been on the ground.  It's a little ironic since one of my brothers flies small planes and my brother-in-law is retired Air Force.

 I want to do something spectacular for my first plane ride, something to rival what my kids did for their first flights. For example, my eldest got on a plane and then transferred to a puddle jumper to go to in-line skate camp in Pennsylvania for his first foray into the air.  My daughter got on a plane for the first time to take a trip to Puerto Rico.  My youngest got on his first plane ... then jumped out of it, having his first take-off but not his first landing.

Last year I toured some WWII planes at the Beverly Airport, and I had semi-decided that I was going to take a flight up on one of the classics.  I couldn't afford the ride on the Mustang P-51 (I think it was something crazy like $450), but I was toying with the ride on the B-17 bomber (more reasonable at about $200).  I even had two credit cards with me as a choice for charging the flight.

My pal who is a muck-a-muck at the airport brought me over to a good vantage point in the industrial park so that we and a few dozen of our newest friends could watch the B-17 take off on one of its flights. Only, it didn't take off.  It taxied then stopped and limped back to the tarmac.  My grand idea ended before it ever "got off the ground."

I have no great fear of flying.  I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of heights in general, and I have some major control issues, though I'm getting better and better with that now that my own kiddos are grown and capable of washing their own underwear, which, in my mind, equates them with adulthood and independence. 

The simple truth is that I'm cheap.  It drives me crazy to fly somewhere in two hours for $125 each way when I can drive there for half the price.  Now that I'm self-supporting, though, it's more practical to fly.  When I was hauling the kiddos with me to places for judo tournaments and lacrosse tournaments and gymnastics meets, it wasn't cost effective to fly all four of us to places like Toronto and Philadelphia and Delaware and Maryland for the prize of some trophies and t-shirts.

It takes a grandchild to get me on a plane without guilt of the indulgence.  I hadn't deemed myself worthy of the convenience, as if driving Miss Daisy (myself) were to be my life's penance.  So, a friend/co-worker who is a veteran flyer takes me on my first two plane trips. 

I'm not going to lie -- flying is a blast.

But, truly, I do have one complaint.  We fly down on a mid-sized plane, complete with television channels and Wi-Fi, which is a fantastic way to spoil myself for flying.  (This is after discovering the I have been granted TSA pre-check on the heels of my traveling companion.)  Coming back, though, we fly on a big-ass plane, an Airbus.  Everything is louder: engines, landing gear, and the screeching toddler ten rows in front of us.  Even the pre-flight crash speech is grander.  It is shown via seat-back monitors and covers every possible scenario, including, and I'd swear to this in court, what should happen if the pilots were all to be decapitated in-flight and the heads should roll down the aisles like grotesque bowling balls.

This horrid little preview film ends with a neck-scarf-wearing video model smirking grimly and urging us to "Have a greeeeeeeeeeat flight!"  Jesus.  Not NOW I won't.

During the flight, we are instructed to stay seated as we're encountering storms and turbulence, which turns out to be no different than riding in the smaller plane on a good day.  The order leads to disappointment when we realize that no snacks or drinks will be coming our way.  Damn.  I'll be crashing and dying without benefit of eating my last pretzel.

This is the moment when I take a closer look at the screen on the seat back in front of me.  The video screen shows the plane's flight path, including the map where it seems like the freakishly large plane is actually in DC and NYC at the same time.  Off the coast on the map are names and dates.  Yup, names and dates just dotting the Atlantic Ocean right under where we are flying:  Lexington 1840, DeBraak 1798, Monitor 1862... Titanic 1912.

The plane's monitors are marking the sites of great maritime disasters.  Seriously.  I am on a plane hitting turbulence and the plane is telling me about dead, drowned people whose modes of transportation failed miserably.

As I said before, I don't have any bizarre agida about flying, but I'm not certain that it is wise to be constantly flashing the grim reminders of lost souls who were simply trying to get from one location to another location using the most current and populous modes of transportation of their times, coupled with the pre-flight disaster filmette and the turbulence-induced seat belt flying we are experiencing now. 

It's all for naught, though.  With a great tailwind, we arrive in Boston twenty minutes ahead of schedule and without any hint of the fate of the lost maritime souls.

It simply wouldn't be a Heliand Flight without some kind of wicked twist, and seeing the Titanic's grave marked just out of our flight path tops it all.  Oh, and next week guess which nonfiction story I start teaching my students?  Exploring the Titanic.  Much like the way my life always goes, the irony is not lost on me.