So next time, don't complain so much about leg room and TSA hassles, but marvel in the personal capability flying gives you.
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
"Living in the Age of Airplanes", Imax film takes you round the world for a movie ticket
The IMAX short “Living in the Age of Airplanes” rather
reminds me of the 1956 feature “Cinerama Holiday”, that latter filmed when
commercial flying was established but still a luxury. In fact, in that later film, I almost became
motion sick as it opened on the Antarctic (the rollercoaster in “This Is
Cinerama” never bothered me).
The new film, by Brian J. Terwilliger and narrated by
Harrison Ford, makes the case that personal mobility is a recent development in
historical context. In ancient times, people walked and typically didn’t go
more than 20 miles from home. Well, there were chariots and ships even in
ancient times, which is one reason the Mediterranean was a center of
civilization.
The development of the internal combustion engine (steam) in
the 19th century led to trains, and later to cars. The first passenger flight didn’t happen
until 1908 (look at the Burns and McDowell timeline here ).
The film does visit all seven continents. I can list the most interesting shots. One was the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge,
with the little island where SLDN held a big benefit in 2000 (which I
attended). Another was a Kenyan Airlines
takeoff, over the Serengeti and then Kilimanjaro. Then the Iguazu Falls in
Brazil follows, and Ayers Rock in Australia.
The most interesting shot may be much of the island country
of Maldives, with the unusual housing on the beaches, as the documentary
explains the seaplane.
It will also visit the South Pole, and the “end of the Earth”
in Patagonia. The film makes a lot of international flower shipments, tracing
one from Kenya to Alaska, arriving in three days, with ten days of “beauty”
left.
Before the age of the Internet, the possibility of efficient
air travel was an important strategy of my personal “reach”, somewhat
threatened by oil shocks in the 1970s.
The official site is here. (National Geographic). The film now shows at the Smithsonian Air and
Space Museum in Washington. The film is like that of the 50s
board game “Star Reporter”, where air travel was made instantaneous. Will worm holes provide us with new modes of
travel in the future? Maybe only going
one way.
So next time, don't complain so much about leg room and TSA hassles, but marvel in the personal capability flying gives you.
So next time, don't complain so much about leg room and TSA hassles, but marvel in the personal capability flying gives you.
Wikipedia attribution link island resort in Maldives,
picture by Frederic Ducarme, under Creative Commons Share Alike 4.0
International License.
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