Cathay Pacific first class, JFK to Hong Kong: caviar and handwritten notes from the cabin crew.

"The windows are absolutely amazing. You're not confined. You've got the outside inside." READ MORE

"Airmindedness” is a term that used to be everywhere and now it's nowhere. The word, as defined by the OED, means an interest in and enthusiasm for the use and development of aircraft. The expression emerged with the development of the airplane in the early twentieth century, during which an entire generation struggled to expand their conceptual boundaries skywards. Prompted by the invention of mechanical flight, this airminded cultural moment was sustained by the military incentives that ceaselessly pushed for improvements to air power. READ MORE

Preliminary Air France 447 black box info! (Preliminary, in air crash investigations, means "take with a grain of salt.") So, according to reporters, the airspeed sensors got all icy, and the autopilot turned off, and the plane stalled, and then... well. It's definitely premature to assign any blame to the co-pilots who were in the cockpit, so we won't! These reports still seem incomplete: even small-craft pilots-in-training know what to do in a stall: you pick up speed, using something really complex called "gravity," and you un-stall. (According to another reporter, the plane was in a steep climb instead.) READ MORE

"On a street of brownstones in Park Slope, Brooklyn—a run-down neighborhood politely described at the time as being “in transition”—one plane, a state-of-the-art jetliner, gouged long-lasting scars. The tail slammed down in an intersection. White-hot engines, smoldering cargo and badly burned bodies fell nearby. A stream of jet fuel touched off a fire that grew to seven alarms and destroyed 10 buildings and a church. Two men selling Christmas trees on a corner and a man shoveling snow were killed." READ MORE

NPR fired one of their news analysts, Panama-born (just like John McCain!) Juan Williams, author of Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary, for comments earlier this week on Fox News. He said that he gets "nervous" when he gets on a plane and sees "people who are in Muslim garb" and he thinks "they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims." The second part of this statement is what we imagine constituted the firing, because that's stupid. And dumb. And strangely French! That land of nationalism through conformity! In America? We don't do that. The first part, though... well? Heck. Juan just doesn't fly enough. Here are some things that make me nervous when I get on planes. READ MORE