2025, History, Mysteries, Technology, Uncategorized

Flying High

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Today is an aviation milestone day.  In 1927 Charles Lindbergh landed his Spirit of St. Louis plane in Paris after his 33½ hour solo flight across the Atlantic.  Then five years later on this day, Amelia Earhart landed near Londonderry, Northern Ireland after the first trans-Atlantic solo flight by a woman.  The combination of a little shorter route and five years of advancing technology, it only took her 17 hours. 

My first thought when I saw these two feats on the same day was that it was a concidence, but it was only a fleeting thought.  I’d bet money that Amelia planned her flight very carefully to arrive in Europe on May 21. 

It does make me think about explorers and adventurers who put their lives on the line because I don’t care how talented Lindbergh and Earhart were, they were absolutely taking their lives in their hands when they took off.  Aviation was still a relatively young science, machines broke down at an alarming rate and then there’s the whole “across the ocean” thing. 

Personally I’m not a daredevil.  The scariest things I’ve ever done were hot-air ballooning in Africa and zip lining in Costa Rica.  The balloon experience came available on a Fam trip (which is a trip that hotels/suppliers pay for in the hopes that travel industry folks will then sell their products); I just had a feeling that this would be a once-in-a-lifetime thing and I should get over my fears and do it.  It was fabulous.  The zipline was another matter.  It was done with a client, more or less under duress and I was terrified the whole time.  When we got to the part of the course where you didn’t zip, but swung on a rope from one platform to the next, the two guides had to come back for me and basically force me to swing by reminding me that there was no other way to get down than to finish the course.  Bungee jumping is not on my list, nor is sky-diving.  I simply cannot imagine myself stepping out into nothing.  Nope.

So congratulations today to the memories of Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart for heading out across the Atlantic and taking that big step for aeronautics!

What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever done?  And did you do it on purpose?

28 thoughts on “Flying High”

  2. When I was a teenager, and living on Cannon Lake, we had a neighboring family with three teen boys. I was friends with two of the brothers who were close in age to me.

    Mike was shy and retiring. He had a sweet girlfriend, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister. John was a bit more adventurous, and he and I became close friends.

    John had a powder blue 1965 Ford Mustang. He was always really enthusiastic about that car. We were active in a youth organization called Young Life at that time, and we were going to Owatonna for a meeting. He picked me up and we literally flew down the freeway to Owatonna. When we got to Owatonna and left the freeway, we turned onto what is now called Hoffman Drive, and sailed along it, up the hill and around the bend at 50 mph. There are stoplights there now, at every block or two, as you go south along the busy street. I think there were stop signs back then, and we blew through them. John squealed the tires and accelerated to 55 mph in a busy 30 mph zone. He flew through the west side of down town Owatonna. I almost peed my pants.

    He did this another time too, on a motorcycle with me as a passenger. We were out in the country near home. There were a lot of skinny gravel roads nearby. We took off going fast enough on the asphalt road, then he suddenly turned onto a gravel road and hit the gas, spinning the rear tire and making the motorcycle fishtail. That time I yelled at him as soon as I caught my breath. I never got on another motorcycle with him. I did ride in the Mustang many times though. It was always hair-raising.

    Of all my friends who were guys, John was the one my mom liked. If she only knew.

    Flying in a plane terrifies me. I do not enjoy it at all. Most people aren’t afraid, but it really scares me.

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  3. I’ve done a lot of stupid things that scared me after the fact. Not too many intentional scary things.
    I have parachuted. That was fun and I’d do it again. It was the tandom jump so I was just along for the ride, so-to-speak.
    Lots of fast cars, fishtails, donuts, motorcycles, big equipment, sketchy repairs, stupid ideas, lucky incidents… spray paint cans pointed into my face, cows, stretched broken wires, trees whipping back, heck, now it’s my own medical stuff that scares me!

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    1. I was afraid of the young steers in the pasture at Mr. Christie’s where I boarded my horses. He got five baby Holstein steers every spring and grew them up on pasture all summer. Then in September, they disappeared. He sent them for butchering. They were cute and sweet when they were little, sucking eagerly on my fingertips. As the summer grew late, they were much larger, and they became a bit aggressive. They would chase me when I had to hike out into the pasture to get the horses. They were way out there sometimes, so I would run to Ben (my Arab gelding) and leap onto his back and just hold his mane to stay on. Once Ben started trotting to the barnyard, the other horses would follow and the steers would back off.

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        1. My late, ex-father-in-law’s HUGE bull got out of the gate near where I was standing. He yelled at me in seriousness, “Quick, catch him.”

          I ran and hid behind a tree and let him go, to the ire of my FIL, but I did not care. That bull was so big, what would I do if I caught him?

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  4. Taking the Chunnel was sort of nerve-racking. I tried not to think about what was over my head. I never really liked carnival rides, and that dislike has increased over the years. I am a person of the Plains. Keep me on the ground and out of the mountains.

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  5. My daughter’s house was hit by straight line 80 mph winds very early yesterday morning. Two weather stations nearby reported that speed. She said that was the most terrified she has been. The winds lasted quite awhile.
    Right now Sandra is all wound up about events in her fantasy world. Scared in her own way.

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  6. Scary and stupid but on purpose. I attended a 2015 Trump rally in Columbus, Ohio. Never went in. Outside was enough.
    That one is exactly the same as every one I’ve seen on YouTube, 10 years later.

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  7. I guess I haven’t done a lot of physical risk-taking. Diving of a diving board is right up there… cuz I couldn’t really dive. Riding a big old horse was scary, riding on a friend’s motorcycle, walking on a narrow cliff edge in the Rocky Mtns…

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  8. Better Late than Never, Baboons,

    Ugghh, I am still struggling with migraines and body aches from the weather instability. I have been in several storms like Clyde is describing–either straight line winds, or tornados, which I find terrifying. The clean up after such storms is demanding.

    As a youngster on a relative’s farm, my cousins showed me how to swing from the barn roof from the hay rope. It was very high, in the style of the old prairie barns, and it is my number one physical escapade that was scary. They did this repeatedly with glee. Once was enough for me.

    Getting a divorce was also high on my list. That was also a scary thing for me, but a good decision and over the last 39 years I never once regretted it. So it was the scariest and best decision I made.

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  9. September 20, 2018, we had an F1 tornado here in Northfield. It finally hit here around 6:45 p.m. It’s starting to get dark by then. There was plenty of warning. I was watching it move toward us on radar. I had put some things I might need in the basement and grabbed Pippin’s leash and harness, hooking him to my belt loops. When it hit Robert’s Lake and the Faribault airport, I headed for the basement. I heard the sirens going off from the basement. Then I heard the train sound, and some smashes and crashes from upstairs. I could feel the low pressure in my ears, and I kept swallowing to try to relieve it. I held Pippin tightly, not wanting to be separated from him. Fortunately that wasn’t a problem. I texted a neighbor and asked her if it was over since I couldn’t see from the basement. She said “Yeah, I’m outside!” So I got up and went upstairs to look out on the deck. Part of my neighbor’s roof section was on my deck, along with a lot of other debris. Several trees were pulled out by the roots in our yard. Three were right in front of my driveway. I went outside wearing shoes and carrying Pippin. There was debris everywhere, and it was getting dark. That was really scary for me. My neighbor was upset about his roof. It took days before his roof section was taken off my deck. I had lots of nails and insulation to clean up.

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  10. Not really something I did that was risky, but it’s one time I remember being truly scared. Maybe soph year of college, I was studying downstairs in the sorority house I lived in. Right off the study room, there was an outdoor entrance to a lower garden place in the side yard. It was very late and dark, and I realized how vulnerable I was – you could see in through the glass doorway, wouldn’t have been hard for some nutcase or drunk student to break in…

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  13. I’m in the same category as Ben; done lot’s of scary stuff, but usually was oblivious to the danger at the time.

    I do recall my first dive off a ten meter platform, back when I was sixteen. My coach thought I was ready for some new challenges, and wanted me to perform a fairly simply dive from the ten meter platform. Previously I had spent a lot of time practicing dives on the three meter springboard, and the five meter platform.

    I gamely climbed the stairs to the higher platform, and was completely taken aback by how much higher the additional five meters were. I must have stood up there at least fifteen minutes, shivering in my wet swimsuit, contemplating which was more dangerous: just jumping or facing my coach if I climbed back down those stairs. My coach was standing below, alternately shouting encouraging, cajoling, or threatening remarks. He finally convinced me to go for it; what was the worst that could happen? I managed to pull off a dive without hurting myself but it was definitely not a high scorer. I never did get comfortable on the ten meter platform. Besides the three meter springboard was a lot more fun.

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