Miscellaneous Monday: The Wonders of Flight

[Andy Gladstone]

Happy Monday Atlassian Community! I'm back with my first Miscellaneous Monday post in quite a while. I'll be filling in any of the gaps on the October-December 2024 sign up list with my own miscellaneous thoughts. (BTW, you can still claim a spot if you'd like to author a post).

Today is the first day back to work for many Community members that attended Team '24 Europe in Barcelona last week. While many of the attendees surely took advantage of the amazing rail networks in Europe (which as a US citizen I am always jealous of), many flew to the event from multiple regional, continental, and international airports. This had me thinking about the wonders of flight, and today is a historical day for modern flight.

On this day in 1947, decorated fighter pilot and ACE (not the Atlassian kind) Chuck Yeager became the first pilot to break the speed of sound in flight. He piloted the experimental Bell X-1 (pictured above) over the Mojave Desert in California to a speed of over Mach-1. This produced a sonic boom that was heard on the ground, but went unexplained for some time. The public only became aware of this feat eight months later when the US made the mission success public. Imagine that in today's day and age of instant access and 24/7 reporting!

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Please share a flight based fact, memory or anecdote in comments of this post. 

I hope your Monday propels you in to an amazing week ahead!

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If you'd like to learn more about the history of flight, here's a great timeline for you!

https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/1691-a-progression-of-flight-timeline

[Michael Karl]

Oh yeah. The picture of the X1 which Chuck Yeager named after his wife "Glamorous Glennis" immidiately caught my eye. I saw the plane which is now on display in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum at the National Mall in Washington DC on a trip to NYC an DC twelve years ago.

As far as I remember, that was a rocket propelled plane (not a gas turbine based jet engine). Since there is no visible air intake, I think it carried LOX within a tank to burn it's rocketfuel. Today Mach 3 and above can be archived using turbine-engines even at some 85.000 feet. And 5th. gen. fighter aircraft can travel at Mach 1 without the use of fuel-hungry afterburners.

Though this is a fascinating topic to me, when it comes to the effect of carbon dioxide to our planet's enviromental health, trains are more like it whenever it's a possible choice for travelling. We really do indeed have great railway networks in Europe and some really fast trains (like the TGV in france which can go at speeds around 200 mph). But it's a shame that our system in Germany is badly in need of maintainance (when it comes to the railroads themselves) and renewal (when it comes to the political and economical structures behind the system). We have way too many delayed or even cancelled trains in Germany these days.

I'd like to give a shoutout for Andy Gladstone for bringing up the topic. The detail about the first ever sonic boom was something I didn't know before.

PS: My pic of the X1 hanging from the ceiling of the Smithsonian in DC from 2012 below.

[Susan Waldrip]

Love the Smithsonian pic, @Michael Karl -- brings back good memories of when I lived in DC and walked to the Mall and the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum often (it's now moved out to Virginia).

[Andy Gladstone]

Thanks for sharing. As someone who uses the train system in New York to commute to and from work each day, coupled with walking and a 2 mile bike ride, I agree that we should focus on shrinking our carbon footprint through smart transportation choices. I like that the apps used to track my travel provide the CO2 savings my choices create. 

[Susan Waldrip]

Thanks @Andy Gladstone for this topic! My most memorable time flying was my first international flight, from the US to Germany for work. The moment we touched down, I remember thinking, "Wow, this land feels so old and rich in history, totally different from America". I felt like that the entire trip, it was (and still is) a strange and wonderful feeling.

[Andy Gladstone]

We live in amazing times. The ability to be on the other side of the world in less than 24 hours is something that astounds me every time I think of it. We truly have become a Global Village.

[Michael Karl]

I'm glad you liked my country! I have been to the US three times: Road trip with a friend of mine through ten southern states covering Houston, New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, Grand Canyon, White Sands, Roswell, Dallas... Also I went to San Francisco (loved it!!!), NYC and Washington DC. Such a great country, so many exciting sites to see.

[Barbara Szczesniak]

Happy Monday, everyone!

I'm going to go with anecdote. In my first flying experience, I was the copilot. 😱 My friend's dad owned a 4-seater plane, and he took us up to celebrate our high school graduation. As the most adventurous of the group, I was happy to sit in the copilot seat. The strangest part for me was how different the controls worked from a car—I had just gotten my driver's license 2 days before.

[Andy Gladstone]

@Barbara Szczesniak you're brave! I prefer not to know how the plane stays aloft.

[Shawn Doyle - ReleaseTEAM]

Back when I was in the Army, just out of training in OK, my first duty station was to be in South Korea.  I was handed a travel packet and told to find my way to St Louis for transport to Korea.

When I got to St. Louis, I got a big grin from the woman who reviewed my travel orders, and she said, "you'll want to go buy a warm jacket and get plenty of snacks before the flight".  While she was very helpful, she didn't tell me why I'd need a jacket.

Turns out my flight to South Korea was on a Flying Tigers prop plane riding in the cargo bay.  I sat in a nonconditioned section of the plane with about a dozen others swinging on a cargo net.  This was probably the longest flight I have ever taken, it made multiple stops on the way to Korea and each segment seemed to last 8+ hours. 

They let us off the plane in Alaska to get coffee and stretch our legs, while they took cargo off and loaded more on, as we were in the way. It was 3 am and the base was all closed except for one person with a coffee maker, who was probably more there for the people unloading and loading the plane. than us.

After a similar stop in Japan, we finial made it to Seoul, three days later.  I was very glad to have bought a jacket and should have gotten more snacks.

[Andy Gladstone]

@Shawn Doyle - ReleaseTEAM I guess they were checking if you had the mettle to make it in the Army. Those were the days when taxpayer money was used more efficiently...

[Stephen_Lugton]

A lot of my airplane based memories are actually on the ground as I used to have a job where we did the final safety certification tests on new types of aircraft before they were licensed for commercial use.

But the one I'm going to share is a trip that my sister and I took when I was 11 and she was 9.  Our dad was going to a conference in Hawaii so he and mum decided to use it as an opportunity to take us there and then go on to New Zealand. 

But since they couldn't take us to the conference or leave us alone during the day, mum and dad decided to send us on to New Zealand by ourselves (Air New Zealand arranged for a staff member to meet us at security and look after us until got to the plane after which a flight attendant looked after us).

At the time Air New Zealand were giving children 'air travel logbooks' that a crew member stamped to show you'd been on the flight, and since we were by ourselves the captain invited us into the cockpit and stamped our logbooks himself (not something that could happen nowadays!)

Another thing that Air New Zealand did was to provide all the passengers with hard sweets to suck during descent to help with the changes in air pressure, and rather than the flight attendants doing this on that flight, my sister and I went down one aisle each and gave everyone sweets, which for an 11 and 9 year old was even better than being in the cockpit.

We also got to be the first two off the plane when we landed and go through the fast track staff only passport checks.

[John Funk]

My memory related to this was "running into" Chuck Yeager at a reception before a dinner he was speaking at. The reception was on the Queen Mary anchored at Long Beach, CA and the dinner was under the wings of the Spruce Goose next door more or less. 

It was very crowded in the area - shoulder-to-shoulder. I turned around at one point and Chuck Yeager was passing right by me! I kind of nodded but didn't speak. The guy I was talking with said, "Do you realize who that was?" I said "Yes, of course!" He said "Why didn't you say something to him!?". And I responded, "I was too speechless!".

I enjoyed his talk later that evening at dinner. What a true legend!

[Michael Karl]

This is a really cute story! Thanks for sharing.

[Stephen_Lugton]

@John Funk that reminds me of a time I met Jason Statham; his son went to the same school as my daughter and I had just picked her up and was going out through the playground gate as he was coming in, we almost walked into each other but didn't speak.  One of the other dads said, "Do you know who that was?" I said "Yes, of course!" He said "Why didn't you say something to him!?". And I responded, "I almost head butted him, I was too surprised to actually say hello!".

Strangely enough a similar thing happened last Halloween, we were both taking our children out trick or treating and we almost head butted each other again going to and from a particularly full sweet bucket. He even dressed up for Halloween; he went as every film character he's ever played!

[John Funk]

Yeah, I don't know that you want to butt into him - might not end well!  haha

[Sandra Franchetto]

I used to be scared of flying, I have only flown 3 or 4 times, I can't be on a plane for more than 4 hours and turns out now I am OK with flying I choose not because it's my own little way of reducing the impact on the planet. 🫶

[Sandra Franchetto]

Ironically I have been asked if Elon builds on Mars will I be going? It confuses people when I say 'that's a hard no'. 😅🤣😂

[Michael Karl]

After visiting foreign places by flight a couple of years from 2010 to 2016 (San Francisco, NYC, DC, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Odessa, Sebastopol, London, Prague, Rome) the urgency of reducing carbon dioxide rose to a significant level on the media, so I picked it up. I actually don't want to fly much more now. I decided to go to Stockholm, Kopenhagen and later Vienna by train.

This year I decided to join my sister to go to Viet Nam by flight. That is not easy to reach by train, I guess... and my in-law is Vietnamese. I wanted to visit the country for years. We met my younger Nephew who is living in Da Nang right now, met his girlfriend and her family and also the my in-law's brother and his family.

Still I consider it a personal goal to keep a low CO2-profile. I never owned a car and drive not very often. I try to reduce beef and ride a bike all over the year.

But I am kind of an aviation nerd. I read a lot about aviation, the latest tech, accident reports, stuff like that. Also I like travelling, so it's still an inner conflict.

[Vronik]

Hi

I had a strange, complicated but at the same time fun experience. Once, on a flight from Mexico to the USA, after not even 10 minutes, we had to turn back due to an engine failure.

A few hours later, they notified us that we could leave for our destination. Many people refused to fly on that plane and decided to wait for the next flight on that route. What a surprise many people had, that when they returned to resume their trip, it was still the same plane!

What will be, will be

Regards