From stand-up comedian, Louis C.K.’s bit on “The Miracle of Flight,” I think anyone will understand the perspective of an aviator. In a short two minutes, 49 seconds, he marvels at how far technology has advanced and wonders how the Wright Brothers would react to people complaining about the petty inconveniences of air travel. Every time I think about his line; “Did you fly through the air like a bird, incredibly? Did you soar into the clouds impossibly? Did you partake of the miracle of human flight and then land softly on giant tires that you couldn’t even conceive how they put air in them?” I laugh, because it’s funny. It’s funny because it’s true. He is offering us a perspective with which we, as pilots are all too familiar, and of which the general public has lost sight.
As aviators we might have the cornerstone on perspective. From thousands of feet in the air, how can one not have perspective? Pilots are afforded a view of our landscape that is both familiar and unfamiliar. This view is composed of not only the physical landscape, such as the way roads drape across the terrain and lakes lay nestled among the hills and valleys, but also of the once thought unattainable dream of flying. What we can help teach is that it takes an amazing amount of science and engineering for us to leave “planet ground” anytime we want.
But flight has become so commonplace that, for some, it has lost the romance and wonder of days past. Many see flight as merely transportation from point A to point B. I have found this is true of both pilots and non-pilots. Of course no perspective could be further from the truth. If more people knew and understood some of the history, science and engineering that went into allowing us to travel in a chair at 500 miles per hour, six miles up into the air, perhaps we could re-kindle the aviators’ perspective and generate smiles among the passengers. So how do we, as aviation educators, inspire the current and next generation with this perspective in mind?
Having spent most of my career teaching in science and aviation museums, my job has been to inspire others and offer visitors refreshing perspectives and insights into our world. Working in the museum field has exposed me to teaching through hands-on demonstrations. If you have ever been to a science museum, and even some aviation museums, you have most likely seen these. Many such demonstrations are directly related to flight and offer the instructor additional weapons in his or her teaching arsenal. Not only are these ideas great for pilots, but may potentially draw in the next generation of flyers. I’d like to share with you some of the ideas that we use at the New England Air Museum when educating others in the history and science of flight.
Historical Perspective
Have you ever asked your students how long we humans have been flying airplanes? Putting our place in time and space can be most useful and tends to bring us right into the magic of the moment. Many are aware that the Wright Brothers made that first technology changing flight on December 17, 1903. That was 111 years ago. Seems like a long time… or is it? Consider how our desire to fly is lost in the past going back at least as far as the Greek legend of Daedalus and Icarus. The human wish to soar as the birds do reaches back to 630 BC. Do the math and that’s 2,644 years ago.
So let’s get this straight. We have been dreaming and struggling to get airborne as the bird does for over two and half thousand years and a mere 111 years ago we finally figured it out. Fast forward and now there are over 87,000 flights per day in the United States alone. Spacecraft regularly leave Earth and we have been to the moon and beyond. In the eyes of the ancient Greeks, we would be gods.
Atmospheric Perspective
Amazing Fact Number One: Did you know that we live at the bottom of a massive ocean of air? It’s called our atmosphere. Our atmosphere reaches some 60 miles above our heads. Three quarters of it lies within six miles of us and that is where we, as pilots operate. For perspective, take an average-size desk globe and hold a pencil eraser to it. That eraser represents the thickness of our atmosphere. The skin on an apple is another creative way to gain a perspective on the narrow scale of Earth’s atmosphere.
This air is made of molecules, and all those molecules are banging against us all the time. This is actually, a really big deal. First, the level of vibration of those air molecules equates to temperature. And, as the Montgolfier brothers demonstrated in 1783, if you heat air inside a bag, the bag will rise. It is not a very practical way to get around, but the hot air balloon is our oldest successful person-carrying aviation technology. So the idea is that we can heat air, thereby changing its density and thus rise off the ground. A great way to show this to a classroom full of students is to take a thin trash bag and tie off the opening just enough to make a small hole. Fill it from a hair dryer and watch it rise. Presto! We humans have the ability to change the properties of air.
Another property of air that we can control is its pressure. Most of us are more familiar with another kind of pressure: coming from a job, our peers or our financial situations. None of which feels very good. Likewise, this ocean of air above us is weighing down on us all the time. Even though you can’t feel it, it is important. That pressure helps us breathe, maintains our body shape and yes, helps airplanes fly.
There are numerous ways to demonstrate air pressure. Try putting that unsuspecting learner into a trash bag (from the neck down of course) and remove the air with a shop vac. Fourteen point seven pounds per square inch will feel pretty heavy. Don’t want to risk suffocating your student? Take a ruler and put in on the edge of a table, so only a few inches extend out. Now, whack it with your hand and watch the ruler fly off. Put the ruler back in the same position but this time cover it with just a single, unfolded, page of a newspaper. Squeeze the air out from underneath with your hands. Now, whack the ruler again. The weight of our atmosphere, pushing down on that newspaper, held the ruler in place.
What’s this got to do with airplanes? Quite a lot actually! That unique shape of the wing, a shape that almost all airplanes have (excepting aerobatic planes that can have symmetrical airfoils), is a pressure changer. It turns out they lower the air pressure above the wing, leaving high pressure below. This, the Bernoulli Principle, along with Newton’s Laws and angle of attack create that upward force that we call lift. A magical force? No, not at all. It’s technology that we humans created.
Need another demonstration? A roll of toilet paper, a long rod and a leaf blower or, as I like to call it, an Air Molecule Mover, demonstrates this with a dramatic flair. Place the toilet paper roll on the long rod held by two volunteers. Take the Air Molecule Mover, and accelerate those air molecules over the “top” of the toilet paper. Lower pressure is created at the top, leaving high pressure below. Your student is guaranteed to never look at this necessary bathroom item the same way again and perhaps will think of an airplane wing when they do.
Now that we are able to get off the ground, we of course want to go higher and faster. Again, an understanding of air is needed. That altimeter in the cockpit is really just an air pressure gauge. As you go higher, there are less molecules weighing down on you. The altimeter simply measures and translates it to a height. A great way to show this is to get an altimeter from a maintenance shop and put it in a bell jar. Using a vacuum pump, reduce the air pressure inside the bell jar. Watch the hands of the altimeter spin. If you see the altimeter spin like that in your aircraft you have a real problem!
This is a great demonstration for non-flyers. Try the experiment again with a little bit of shaving cream and you’ll see why spacesuits and pressured aircraft are needed at high altitudes. It seems bathroom products have a lot of place in the world of aviation! Of course, let’s not forget about those airspeed and vertical-speed indicators. They also operate by measuring the pressure of those little air molecules.
The technology of the wing with all kinds of other technological achievements like the combustion engine and light-weight materials, combined with an understanding of science and an unwillingness to succumb to an “it can’t be done” attitude, led to controllable, sustainable, powered, human flight! To many, it may seem like a mere moment in time, but it was a moment born of thousands of years of dreams.
Conclusion
Simply put, air, its properties and our ability to manipulate it, are just amazing. Perhaps that is just the perspective that we are looking to communicate. Airplanes are great little air manipulators that lift us up like Greek gods. Each time we fly, whether as a passenger or pilot, we are participants in the realization of this great quest that was started thousands of years ago. We only accomplished it just over 100 years ago. I have found that these simple demonstrations mentioned above help people see some of the science and history that goes into flight. So the next time we fly, we can stop and take a bit of perspective on our place in history and the application of science that can lift us off the ground, anytime we want.
Jason T. Archeris a museum professional with more than 15 years’ experience in aviation museums, planetariums, science centers and formal education facilities. His core passion is to tell and communicate the story, history, science and adventure of aviation and flight. He holds a private pilot certificate with instrument rating and tailwheel endorsements. He is currently working on his commercial and CFI certificates. He is an active FAASTeam Representative and a fixture at his home base of KHFD. If you are interested in learning more about how to bring aviation to your students or into the classroom you can contact him at info@thedaedalist.com.