I am guilty of being a complete airplane nerd. I remember one day around 1973, when my family
left
Queens and went on an amazing and terrifying (to my 6-year-old mind) journey to a faraway land
only known
to me as "The Cousins in Boston." We arrived by car on the first trip that I remember. We
traveled by
plane from Laguardia on later trips, but on this first trip, I can clearly picture the car-- a
big, shiny
new 1972 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight piloted by my Uncle Hank. Even in a car that huge, I was
uncomfortably
squished between my bitchy sister and my cousin who got carsick twice; us three kids stuffed
into one
single "adult spot" behind the driver in the back seat.
Arriving in Boston, I met the other side of family for the first time. The Boston people lived
in a
different world from the Queens/Manhattan home I was used to. They had huge trees and deep ponds
in their
yard, woods that seemed to go on for a mile where my older cousin shot BB's out his bedroom
window (this
was 1973) and an elevated back deck that was higher than a 7-foot snow mound.
But it was my cousin Larry's bedroom that stood out the most. Flying high from the ceiling on
fishing
line, cruising above the yellow Telecaster and newest Yes "Yessongs" album, were amazing models
of
airplanes, all meticulously painted and decaled. There were barnstormers and Zeros, helicopters
and
Monocoupes, but the ones that stood out to me the most were the jet fighters.
Cousin Larry had probably ten different F-15's hung in perfect formation from the ceiling. The
fishing
line was invisible in his lava-lamp low light, and the shadows the model planes cast on the
walls were
surreal and huge. These were the planes of tomorrow, rocketships that flew through the air. The
plastic
models tauntingly hung just out of my young hands' reach.
The video below would have been as fascinating then as it is now, although now I have a much
better
understanding of what's going on in the cockpit. This was a really interesting find on my hunt
through
YouTube today, and I wanted to share the experience with you all:
Fighter Pilot Breaks Down Every Button in an F-15 Cockpit | by Ars Technica
