My big, old, magical plane

Casting a shadow
Orlando, FL
March 2020
This photo originally shared on Instagram

In the blink of an eye, nearly 400,000 pounds of airplane leaps into the sky, carrying the hopes and dreams of nearly 300 passengers and crew, painting its shadow, however briefly, along the scrub land beside the runway.

It's an old plane, this 767-300ER, but that doesn't make this moment any less resonant. It'll take us home safely, as it has countless other passengers since I first saw it fly through the dirt-flecked window of my high school class, awestruck at this then-new generation of efficient wide-bodied, glass-cockpit aircraft. Their flight decks were fully computerized, and they made then-dominant aircraft like the DC-8, 727, and DC-10 look like relics from the 60s. Which they were.

Time moves quickly, in aviation and beyond, and the 767 is now a tired old relic, too, a workhorse that gets the job done, but without the panache of even more sophisticated, newer aircraft. These next-generation craft sport carbon fibre wings and fuselages, automated flight decks, fly-by-wire controls, and exotic engine technologies, and were designed by computer to be even more efficient than the once-bleeding-edge 767.

Yet no matter what we're flying, that moment when they haul themselves off the ground and return to the skies remains something that never gets old, never feels anything less than wondrous.

Because not only does it mean these insanely complex machines are once again back where they belong. It also means we're one step closer to home.

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