I enjoy flying, I like the minutiae of the experience. Maybe it is baked in me as I flew a lot as child. There is the element of excitement of new places, cultures, experiences, but I like the experience itself.
I have been flying regularly since my first long journey undertaken was at 6 months; one of several we did flying from Africa to Holland to visit my mother’s family, then to England and on to Jamaica where my father was from. The whole trip lasted six months and of course returning again. So boarding an aeroplane is so familiar. Nowadays, of course that familiarity is normal.
Strangely, I find flying a serene experience. Within the aircraft I love that slow, rising and falling rhythmical, acoustical beat of the engines, unfortunately not so much experienced now unless sitting at wing level by large turbofan engines. There is a peacefulness of the sounds, the vision of the vast, empty, deepening blue of the sky and softness of the clouds.
I find it breathtaking to gaze out of that little portal window to the wonders of the world below. With the speed of the aircraft it is so fascinating to be able to see the world from that viewpoint almost evolving as you traverse the sky. I choose, if I can, a window seat away from the wing to ensure I can get an uncluttered, privileged view of the unfolding world below. It is the best movie channel against all the screen options in the front of your seat. I am the one with the blind all the way up endlessly observing the changing patterns of the earth below; the dramatic, jagged mountain ranges, unpopulated, slowly flattening out to plains; then signs of roads and civilisation leading to a little cluster of houses, perhaps by a river; then more roads, larger settlements, signs of agriculture; then the density of roads and towns now increase and you see a group of buildings, perhaps a factory of some sort, an airstrip. Now there are more features; you follow the meandering river, having started as a stream in the mountains, now providing the water for human development. I imagine how the first settlements may have begun in such places and also wonder why in that particular place. [Unfortunately the trend in aircraft design is now to have automatically tinting windows which I am always battling against, made worse too by tinting them in a horrible cold blue.]
I remember once seeing a huge, hundreds of square miles huge, crater that looked as though it had been scooped out off the earth as it had a tail like section then went deeper and broader. I could imagine a meteor striking several billion years ago.
I love inspecting the sea with its choppy waves breaking with little flecks of white foam with an action like a vibrating plate of water with twinkling phyto plants. At night, the sea lit by the light of the moon takes on a dark, foreboding quality. The lights from tiny ships dotted in that huge mass look so vulnerable. From 36,000 feet above them, you feel a human connection to their plight.
The vast icescapes over Canada is another humbling experience, again as they they peter out to rivers and land you see increasing signs of civilisation. All of these experiences make you understand your own insignificance in the world, not that in our lives that is so but it useful as check on our ego from time to time.
I love the cloud formations, sometimes like fluffy cotton wool as though gently protecting the surface, sometimes like huge vertical structures suspended in the sky. And of course with the speed of the aircraft you end up chasing the sun, or running with it resulting in either this strange, prolonged sunset I once experienced flying from Finland to England, or in the other direction, a slightly disconcerting rapid sunset.
I love the darkening, darkening sky as you gaze further upwards to the edge of space, scary like the opposite view of a deep sea, crystal clear at the surface but gazing down into a an ever deepening blue of nothing.
And, on returning to England, I love the familiarity of the small, green fields bordered by hedges, and familiar features looming larger and larger as you descend finally to everything to you feel as home.