They just wanna be like Mike....
Posted on 03/13/2021 1:16:00 PM PST by SamAdams76
With my Plane Finder app, I've been tracking aircraft flying directly over my home in Newtown, CT at about 35,000 feet on average. Under about 30,000 feet there are no contrails but right around 29,500 feet seems to be the magic altitude number for contrails. I've had some planes sprout contrails right over my home just as they reached that height.
Most of them coming from Boston and heading to Florida, usually Ft Meyers but sometimes Naples and Tampa. A few headed to Charlotte, NC. One was on its way to Houston.
Even though six miles overhead, you can make out the shape of the plane pretty clearly and even see the wings. Some airlines are distinctive even from that height when the sun hits just right. For example, you can see the orange bottoms of Southwest and the yellow bottoms of Spirit.
So I was thinking what if all the planes currently in the air were to be time-travelled back 200 years where they would be suddenly flying over the America of 1821? James Monroe would have been president at the time. Would he have convened emergency Cabinet meetings to discuss the strange objects far up in the sky?
Abraham Lincoln would have been 12 years old and certainly puzzled by what he would see when looking up in the sky and seeing all those planes criss-crossing the skies of Indiana.
Would the people of 1821 recognize the airplanes of 2021 for what they were? Would they see them as cylinders of aluminum composites hurtling overhead at 450mph ferrying humans from point A to point B? Would they be able to understand the aerodynamics of how such heavy objects could get themselves up in the air like that? Or would they think we were being observed by aliens from a different planet?
What would they think of the contrails?
Also, what would the people of 2021 up in the air think if suddenly it was the America of 1821 sitting below them? Modern cities and highways would instantly disappear to be mostly farmlands and horse trails. The pilots would lose all communications with their air traffic controllers and be completely on their own.
They would need to find a flat, level place to land. Then, once landed, what would those early Americans on the ground think of these strange people, mostly in cargo shorts and sneakers, sliding down those rubber inflatable slides used for emergency landings?
Ask Fess Parker. I liked watching Daniel Boone and occasionally a contrail would show up when out in the “wilderness”.
You might want to worry about whether or not his date is human.
My great-grandfather was born in 1894 and died in 1991.
He remembered Queen Victoria dying and seeing his first automobile. He flew a blimp during the great war and then moved to South Dakota for a bit before ending up in San Diego in the early 20’s.
That said, the last 30 years have been insane.
I miss Reagan, Thatcher, and JP II.
How about just 40 yrs ago?..... a few thousand color photos on a thumb drive?
Until explosive powder was discovered, everybody was about equal in technology, when push came to shove. That’s what made colonialism in Africa relatively easy for the Europeans: the Africans didn’t have it first.
Just 200 yrs ago steel production had not become fast and effiecient. It was after that happened that the industrial revolution really took off. Steel is still the ‘common denominator’ of everything in this modern world.
In the movie, The Village, the allegedly 19th century community has a no fly zone set on top of them to help ignore the reality of the modern world.
All I was saying.
On the flip side, I don't think there really is that much difference of pop culture between 2001 and 2021. The cars don't look that much different. Heck my 2005 Nissan Frontier looks exactly like a 2020 model. And I think popular music of 2021 isn't that far off of 2001.
Setting pop culture aside, I do think a person of 1965 could quickly fit into 1985 more easily than a person for 2001 could slide in 2021 simply because 2001 person would not be able to operate all our little devices.
“...and now they just turn a handle”.
Running water (clean coming in, and getting the dirty stuff out) is I imagine the most important technology ever developed. Not getting sick from your drinking water or being sick sitting in your waste water frees up a lot of time to develop all of the other technologies.
Check out at 1:10 and 1:25 on this video and you'll see what I mean.
They just wanna be like Mike....
They would not have an economy otherwise.
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