In the beginning man's world was no larger than his I could see his horizon no
further than his legs could carry him the far side of the earth was a mystery
slowly bit by bit down through the centuries men ventured out across the seas
groped his way to the distant corners of the ear marked the lonely latitude explore
the jungle discovered the bull by the beginning of our century most of the world
was on foot with the ordinary men who wish to know the far place to see Baghdad
bank.
East on Rio to walk the streets of London an app for him time
was the end of last
and so little time until now until the birth of this new
age the age of the jets
here in the sky we make our peace with time the sky is our element.
Now up here is where man conquers the clock and the calendar.
It took the pilgrims ship Mayflower sixty five days.
Used to batter its way across the Atlantic
and America's jet Clyburn makes it in six
and a half hours it took the contest adornment Cisco bizarro for a
heartbreaking months to get from Panama to Broome jet passenger type in New
York to South America is four hours and fifteen minutes old.
And it took so Francis Frank three years to circle the phone
and Americans Jet Blue bird can fly around the world in less than three days
as far back as you can remember there are those rare moments of discovery moments
when you suddenly realize that the simplest things are remarkable.
When you can gaze at a flower and discover a continent and after
that nothing is ever quite the same again. Or as long as you live within you.
There will always be a touch of the bone seeking you were
there is a curiosity and as for my restless hunger to learn
and out of it has come mankind's most profound triumphs in the child who
watches and waits
and wonders how one wonders why you can see go panic a struggling to unlock the
secrets of the universe
and see Sir Isaac Newton groping towards the truth of gravity.
Now in our my side comes one of those rare moments when a great door swings open
and man enters a new age the age of the jet
no one person brings a new age it is assured in by thousands.
Most become obscured by the haze of history who was Magellan's Coca-Cola Mrs
Carpenter No one can tell you their names
that each did his part to change the world where today at this huge
airline maintenance hangar in this the age of the jet many are doing their parts
clerks mechanics secretaries engineers instructors technicians of every kind
of communications taking in messages from when I was I based on
that over in London and urgent
but Quest from Rome
and meanwhile I've been scheduling every flight as planned.
Every crew member assigned for weeks
and it's Which plane will be until tea on the fifteenth which pilot will be
and your husband on the twenty seconds which Navigator will be leaving New York on
the twenty ninth and landing and he stumbled on the thirty
and all the while a training program in progress a miniature university here
refresher courses and design and hydraulics engine theory radar
and communications.
Practice flight engineers mechanics with a dozen years experience going back to the
classroom to keep in touch with the latest developments of the Jets
for every hour in the air.
The jet Clipper spends twenty five man hours on the ground being checked
and tested stripped down the engines X.
Ray those hidden places inside the wings
and fuselage you replace the going box checked
and rechecked and check again. Exactly.
It's ready to be an appliance three hundred sixty.
That's why this is the nerve center maintenance control in
touch with every ground crew on the line knowing just what has to be done to each
plane and knowing exactly
when it will be ready to fly.
Me to carry license key than a maintenance thirty nine years old long a master
mechanic a skilled technician shore's a surgeon eyes sharp as
a jeweler a virtue also with a wrench
and a screwdriver eighteen years on the line playing nursemaid to airplanes.
Back in Sweden his ancestors were to makers for six generations.
Sometimes I come in for work in the morning
and find myself thinking of everything going on
and just this one building all it takes to keep those jets flying on schedule.
Right here in maintenance control is where I begin my day stop by
and pick up my assignment flight one sixteen she has to be checked out
and ready to take off for Paris and exactly three hours.
Look closely. This is the key that.
Unlocks the door to a new aid for a jet Clipper
bringing the far end of the world within reach of us all.
When you come from a family of tool makers one thing you inherit is to know
that I find machine is beauty without a wasted line.
Nothing meaningless is perfect.
The seashells already had a complete going over in the hangar
Now comes another doctor's another operational jet or bench.
My father used to say Make it Plain make it simple.
They sure did it with his jet engine the air just drives into the front gets
squeezed by the compressor heated by a burner and to build pressure.
Then shoots out to the tailpipe with the jet lever twice the length
of a railroad car with a wingspan big enough to line up a regular cruising speed
of six hundred miles an hour.
Before the first passenger ever stepped aboard
and there were four years of test flights millions of hours of engine time month
after month for all its power.
It's the simplest aircraft engine ever devised.
If you are moving parts less wear and tear easier to service.
She's a mechanic scream.
Thank
you.
It takes an intricate team to open the door of a new a new His name is Captain Don
Michaels pilot on the jet run to Paris this afternoon twenty years of flying
experience including a thousand hours in just an hour ago
he was playing with his kids in his backyard in Connecticut before dawn tomorrow
he'll be checking into a hotel up the chandeliers a
it's an hour and I have to departure now
and Captain Michaels has a lot of work to do take up the flight plan
and then weather folder.
No problems today up there in the jet stream it'll be clear skies
and a tail wind all the way across the Atlantic.
With things
up in the briefing room the crew is waiting sign in
and make sure they're all here copilot navigator flight engineer purser
and stewardesses pass on the word about the route
and the weather regulations call for a checkup quiz on flight procedures before
every take on just to make sure everybody's on his toes.
Flight attendants come from eighty eight countries France Sweden Germany
California Connecticut Minnesota and noble like Minnesota to be exact.
Her name is Dorothy Roberts.
She speaks three languages parties listening to jazz
and putting together an international wardrobe the
ring is attacking the comeback this week Paris the wristwatch from Hong Kong
forty nine minutes till departure.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
THANK YOU.
There are explorers who will never have their statues in a public square discovers
a new world who will never be mentioned in the history books adventures like this
family from Kansas City about to take off on their first jet Flight
forty five minutes till departure
and they've buttoned up the operational check made
it ready.
Thanks thanks thanks to
and for me just going on for seven and meeting for the pike.
You
know where you live where
eleven months and two weeks a year.
He's a salesman on the road in Kansas while his daughter's learning spelling
and long division and his wife is busy with the laundry in the supermarket
but for the next two weeks they'll be Marco Polo
and Company joining to Kathy Kathy being a blaze of lights on the River Seine
called Paris over months of planning dreaming
wondering what will it be like to fly in a jam now in the answer is so close
every tick of the clock seems an attending
on this bright spring day Kansas City has a rendezvous with Pat What will it be
like to fly in the comment about the wait twenty seven minutes till they know the
answer six hundred gallons a minute enough to
reach Paris with these healthy reserves check deliver the menu for today.
Peasant and roast beef stew caviar. Champagne.
Check
and then the crew takes over for a final last minute inspect it
when you sing
or hear on the ground.
You can't know what she's like Believe me you don't really know a Jap until you fly
and.
This has checked the galleys four of them
each with an emperor a cooking bank who automatically breweries pouring out thirty
two cups every two men who checked the cabin my
air conditioning.
Production stands waving and all that stone glory parents.
Wait
a while
and hear a bit by bit the intricate design of departure falls into place.
Checked.
Gyro compass checked the oil cooler for the right check.
Suite aircraft this one with everything
that genius a man has been able to devise to make are safe and simple
and easy to handle. I remember the first time I stepped aboard a jet
and sat down at the controls.
I felt like like a kid on Christmas morning
where.
Yes hey you go.
Time is racing now the last cargo is stowed abort
but the two passenger doors go into place in Baltimore the
porch
steps out over seven
point one sixty. Cyclists through a twelve year old day.
What's it like to fly J.
Four minutes and they'll know.
What's it's my birthday.
Thanks so you
never get sick.
Thank you.
It's a tactic of the outer perimeter.
Thanks a
new a day
and
a thanks a.
Way they
have
a headache
am
old.
So smooth you can hardly tell
when you start down the line my way
and suddenly your elbow on you wonder how a moment was missing
and then you realize what this is
about the capricious winds
and weather up into the pure blue of the stratosphere outside in the beginning.
It's sixty degrees below zero. But here in the cabin.
It's like a gentle June morning.
A loser.
A day it's
the
way up here the sky is blue deep blue bluer than any sea.
There's no sensation of speed.
You seem to be floating motionless and me
and a kind of peace settles over a song.
Only the whisper of the wind rushing by and the majestic silences distance
that sky at six hundred miles an hour
and you try to imagine what it will mean to the world this age of the jet how it
will shape the mind our future.
Our children so much more to B.C. and Felt and heard and on Life's tough.
It's so many fly out to meet our fellow man
and with intimacy comes understands the last generation was a stranger to the
people of far places so the next generation becomes a neighbor's son
who
has so where it's
who who say
it's so jets
and scribe their signature across the sky
and great door swings open and man steps across the threshold
and well right. When you say I am
and am
and it's thirty one
K. and I am.