The View from Above
The Carlow Nationalist November 27th 2009
"You haven't seen a tree until you've seen its shadow from the sky," so said the American pioneer of flight Amelia Earhart.
As someone who had spent their formative years rooted solidly to the earth I was often puzzled by Miss Earhart's words. What is so different about a tree viewed from above? I would ponder, and why should its shadow be any different from those seen from the confines of terra-firma? It never struck me that I may actually be missing her point.
On a crisp Spring afternoon with scarcely a cloud present in the polished blue sky I got my chance to examine her philosophy at close quarter. It was my first time to venture forth in a light aircraft and apprehension was buzzing in the pith of my stomach like a swarm of hungry locusts. My friend, the pilot, who was seated on my left pointed to the things which I should most definitely NOT touch – which as it turned out, was just about everything. The small Cessna 182 bumped across the airfield towards the end of the way-too-short runway, turned to face the wind, gathered speed and before I had time to change my mind we were airborne.
In that instant rush of velocity land gave way to sky and things I had known all my life took on new form. Down there was no longer the earth I knew, but had been transformed to a three-dimensional topographical map of hills, rivers, moraines and other features rooted in my mind from extinct geography books.
Like eager cartographers we followed the course of the river Barrow until my home-town of Carlow came looming into sight; but from the air it was no longer the town whose streets and lanes I knew like childhood neighbours. Somehow they made more sense from on high; their centuries of progression from a simple crossing point on an ancient river to the sprawling newness of industry and housing was plainly visible. Then, as the plane banked steeply, Killeshin – the backdrop to my life – rose to meet us in a rolling sweep. The flatness of its summit, unseen from the flood-plains of the river's edge, now stretched far to the South. "So it is a Plateau," I said aloud.
This brief encounter with low-altitude flight had awoken a new realisation in me – Amelia had been right, from up here in this fourth dimension even the familiar looses its familiarity. The ordinary becomes extraordinary, the mundane spectacular. It made me curious and I wondered if others who furrow the skies felt the same way too.
On the forum of a well-respected travel website (www.travellerspoint.com), I recently posed the question: what is the best sight you have seen from the air? The answers came thick and fast as if those out there in the realms of cyper-space and cyber-travel had expectantly been waiting for the question to be asked. T-Maia, a long-time forum member wrote: "Flying for the first time from Germany to Tunisia. Great weather, completely clear sky all over Europe and North Africa and not a cloud in sight. The flight crossed the Swiss Alps and I got to see Venice and Sicily with Etna smoking from above. I could not believe my eyes, nobody had told me that flying could be this way. I had always expected to see the clouds from above and nothing else..." I too have flown this route and can vouch for her enthusiasm; seeing the Alps plummet to the lowlands of Italy and spreading their weight onwards towards the Mediterranean. The island of Sardinia with its spaghetti of winding roads; formidable Sicily; the heel and toe of Italy and then after miles of sparkling blue water the tawny coastline of Libya and the ever-creeping sands of the vast Sahara.
For another poster to the site, Margaretm, it was the view of Mexico City which captured her imagination. "One of the most incredible views must be when you're flying into Mexico City," she gushed, "not because it's particularly beautiful but because you come down out of the clouds and there it is, one of the world's biggest cities spread out in all directions as far as you can see. When flying into most airports, in a couple of minutes you're on the ground, but with Mexico City you fly and fly and fly and it takes about 10 or 15 minutes as you come closer to the city life below. You can make out the spiky high rise towers of Santa Fe, the enormous Bosque de Chapultepec, the Zócalo, the slums, the traffic... and you really begin to get an idea of how immense this mega-city is."
Other respondents to the question spoke of Robinson Crusoe Pacific islands circled by ivory-coloured atolls; like bands of coral on the neck of some rare, blue-skinned beauty. While even more spoke of their awe and frustration on seeing the vast green forests of the Amazon basin as they both thrived and were decimated side by side. From the air they had seen Hanoi and Hong Kong, Omsk and Olympus, Simferopol and Cincinnati. A winding river on the Siberian Taiga became a giant snake unfurling his great length; a rainbow over Mount McKinley became a bauble of the Gods; a Sunrise in New Zealand became the dawn of time itself. Each one had their own unique favourite.
For me I have seen many memorable sights from the air: the giant irrigation circles of the Libyan dessert; the evening Sun burning the Alpen glaciers in fiery shades of red and pink; the islands of the Adriatic with the Karst mountains of Croatia and Montenegro rising like walls from the sea; the vast grasslands of the Masai Mara and the gleaming waters of Lake Victoria; too many to mention. But however sensational these moments have been they have always remained intertwined with the notion that yes, you really haven't seen a tree until you've seen its shadow from the sky.