Nerves of Steel

In my daily commute, I pass an Air Force Base where jets known as C-5s can generally be seen.

The C-5 is roughly the size of a small town and is used to transport bulk cargo to battle zones. Reports on a 2009 test flight of the most recent model (C-5M) put the combined weight of plane and payload at 649,680 pounds (that's just under 325 tons) which makes me wonder how the thing ever got off the ground.

Today I was passing the Air Force base just as a C-5 was making a landing approach. My car was running parallel to the plane, which was still distant enough to look like an average size aircraft, and the relative speeds of my car and the C-5 were such that the plane seemed to be hanging motionless in mid air.

My eyes told me the plane was motionless but the logical part of my brain said anything that big would fall like a boulder if it wasn't moving somewhere near the speed of sound.

Which got me to thinking about what the first commercial airline flight must have been like. I thought about the few dozen passengers climbing on board a relatively new mode of transport. With no long term track record, there was no guarantee the plane wouldn't fall from the sky at some point in the flight.

Those first few passengers must have had nerves of steel. I wouldn't have gone anywhere near the new fangled flying machine.