the.com/airplane
a tube of strangers agreeing to ignore gravity at 500 miles per hour
means A powered flying machine with fixed wings, kept aloft by engines and the lift of air moving over those wings.
from A marriage of two old ideas: "air," from Latin "aer" by way of Greek, and "plane," from Latin "planus" meaning flat or level — the flat wing-surface that does the lifting. The earlier form was "aeroplane," coined in the 19th century (French "aéroplane" played a part), with "airplane" emerging as the trimmer American spelling that eventually flew off with the word.
- thin air
- cruising altitude has half the oxygen of sea level
- deliberate descent
- engines off, most jets can glide for miles
- flexible wings
- 787 wingtips bend up nearly 26 feet
- dull taste
- cabin pressure numbs your sense of flavor
- lightning proof
- struck about once a year, rarely harmed
wright flyer — first powered airplane, flown by orville wright on december 17, 1903, at kitty hawk, north carolina
concorde — supersonic passenger jet operated by air france and british airways from 1969 to 2003
airbus a380 — largest passenger airliner, first flight in 2007, carries up to 853 passengers