F-L-A-T farming landscape. All the spring wheat is tall now, limey green, cool, beautiful. I can't figure out why I love that landscape so much, it's just flat, but maybe it's just the sense of all that space with a few farmhouses punctuating the horizon.
One of my favorite spots along this route, actually, though, is going by the Dover Air Force Base, an odd thing to like, but I love seeing all those GIANT ugly, bug-like cargo planes. I don't remember seeing any of those planes in the sky as we've gone by, they're just hanging out by the hangers mostly, but I like seeing them and marveling about the size of them. When we go down to Charleston, it's the same thing. There's an Airforce Base right there along the right side of Rt. 26 just before you get into Charleston. You can't actually see the base from the highway, but if you're lucky, a plane might be taking off or landing. And if you're REALLY , REALLY lucky, one might even fly right over your car. These planes are SO huge!! Enormous!! I am in awe of these ugly, monster airplanes. There's such a sense of power to these planes....and I don't know, something so amazing about them as well. How in the hell, do these gigundo monsters....and it seems like they're just slowly floating along....stay up there in the sky??!! It's astonishing!
I remember a teeny bit about the basics.....the airplane wing is contoured so that air goes faster over the top because that's the curved part and slower underneath cause that part is flat. When I'm making a big deal about it (again), Steve tells me it's Bernoulli's Principle....something to do with a difference of pressure caused by differences in velocity of the air passing by. STILL! It's only AIR we're talking about here....and I don't know.....this same see-nothing, feel-nothing stuff won't even hold up my arm when I lift it.
BUT, this AIR holds up this monster plane! I once saw a picture in "National Geographic" that showed one of those giant cargo planes being loaded with TANKS and BULLDOZERS for heavens sake. These are not light items either....tons of poundage...and then all those people are on the planes too. How does this work? I still don't get it, never mind about Bernoulli or Sir Isaac Newton or any of those other brainy guys. Those planes weigh TONS and they're up there in the air floating in for a landing at the Dover or Charleston Air Force Base. Amazing!
1 comment:
Ok, so good grief, I write the blog and then COMMENT on the blog too. A one woman show! How lame is that? BUT, I've figured out what keeps the airplanes UP....it's those arrows that are pointing up....there are invisible UP arrows everywhere that do it.
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