A railroad station? That was sort of a primitive airport, only you didn't have to take a cab 20 miles out of town to reach it.

But remember this, Japanese boy... airplanes are not tools for war. They are not for making money. Airplanes are beautiful dreams. Engineers turn dreams into reality.

The plane had lost power in all three engines, dropped from thirty-four thousand feet to twelve thousand feet. Something like four miles. When the steep glide began, people rose, fell, collided, swam in their seats. Then the serious screaming and moaning began. Almost immediately a voice from the flight deck was heard on the intercom: We're falling out of the sky! We're going down! We're a silver gleaming death machine! This outburst struck the passengers as an all but total breakdown of authority, competence and command presence and it brought on a round of fresh and desperate wailing.

A breeze blows up, touching my cheek like a little child's kiss. It flutters a piece of paper. Trash, out there? Must belong to one of us. We move closer, and when I reached for it, I find...... a perfect paper airplane.

When everything seems to be going wrong with you, you must remember the airplane takes off against the wind

There is not much to say about most airplane journeys. Anything remarkable must be disastrous, so you define a good flight by negatives: you didn't get hijacked, you didn't crash, you didn't throw up, you weren't late, you weren't nauseated by the food.

For all professional pilots there exists a kind of guild, without charter and without by-laws. It demands no requirements for inclusion save an understanding of the wind, the compass, the rudder, and fair fellowship.

Every time we hit an air pocket and the plane dropped about five hundred feet (leaving my stomach in my mouth) I vowed to give up sex, bacon, and air travel if I ever made it back to terra firma in one piece.

I wonder if politicians know less about the land, now that they campaign by air.

Lovers of air travel find it exhilarating to hang poised between the illusion of immortality and the fact of death.