With acknowledgment to Dave:
Flight: LGA -> CLT,
Time: 9:00PM EST
Position: 1 hour 21 minutes from destination
Altitude 24,500 feet enroute to 30,000
58 Souls on board
Seat 12A
I watch a cumulus cloud float by through the molded plastic window of a Canadair Regional Jet. The tiny double pane window is, as normal, streaked with grime but provides a decent view anyway. The cloud is about two miles away and, in the way that they do, just hangs there as we wander past. I don’t know our speed but it’s not much more than 200 knots at a guess. The cloud has hung there for awhile as we inch along
Looking across the plane I can see out the windows to the west. The sun has already set and a smooth layer of clouds stretches darkly to the horizon 10,000 feet below us. Layered bands of color stretch up toward the heavens in colors that could only be created by the original Artist. Red, Orange, Gold, Peach, Wheat, Blue, Black. A mixed up rainbow of colors stretching north to south, occasionally decorated with high black clouds.
15 or 20 miles away I see the great anvil shape of a thunderstorm launching itself thousands of feet out of the cloud deck. From here it looks lower than us but I know that it’s not. The top stretches well above the horizon. It’s an old aviators rule of thumb: Things below the horizon are below you while things above the horizon are above you regardless of how they “look”. It’s a neat trick and handy in the case of thunderstorms.
Looking back out my window, another cloud hangs in the distance eight or 10 miles to the east and I watch lightening flash inside it. In time, it too passes into the darkness. The ride is perfectly smooth here with only the very occasional “clear air” bumps
Out the left side of the plane I can see the ground. The front that’s creating the clouds to the west is somewhere beneath us. Lights shine up through thin clouds that look more like fog or haze. Cities and towns float by with lazy slowness sometimes thousands or hundreds of thousands of lights clustered together, sometimes a few hundred clustered along a road, sometimes just one at some lonely place in the wilderness. The wilderness which we sometimes forget exists here on the east coast. I don’t know the names of the towns, I don’t recognize the cities. They’re just America passing by slowly in the night.
I’ve seen the same clusters all across this country from both land and air. They’re the places we call “flyover country” when we get so absorbed with ourselves that we forget that all of America isn’t brick and steel and glass. When we forget that while YOU might have a problem with overpopulation, *I* don’t. There are millions of square miles of those places all across America. I can see several hundred square miles out my window now and only see a few lights shining in the night. A very few. This will continue, off and on for the next hour. There’s more unpopulated land than populated. A lot more. I wonder if my neighbors notice and a quick glance around shows that they do not. They are absorbed in magazines that tell them of the true plight of our socially irresponsible nation or captivated by glamor shots in the latest newsstand sensation. A few people read the ubiquitous “Sky Mall” checking out all of the cool toys that they can buy while in flight. None of them look out the window to see for themselves. It’s dark out there… what’s to see?
As I type the engines grow quiet and the nose drops as the pilot begins our decent. The Flight Attendant announces that it’s time to turn off all electronic devices. I do and frown at the weenie across the aisle that tucks his ipod a little deeper into his pocket. His iPod won’t crash the plane but the principle of the matter annoys me.
As we approach the airport I plant my face against the window and watch Charlotte pass underneath us. Like most pilots I play the “spot the airport” game to try and find our destination before we turn final. This time I find two of the three airports but miss CLT itself. After a day in NYC and a completely packed flight on a regional jet I’m tired of people. I have one more hurdle of glass and brick and steel and then a thirty minute drive to my own little light in the darkness. I’m nearly home again and I feel it to my core.