Craftsmen in Kansas riveted together my old Cessna 120 many years before I was born. On quiet evening flights I would sometimes think about that, imagining the men who had built her and the pilots who had flown her before my mom even knew my dad’s name. Sometimes I almost thought that if I listened hard enough, I might hear some of her other pilots talking or feel their hands on the controls. We might have lived in different times and known different worlds; but we were linked by a plane that had touched all of us as it passed through our hands and lives.
Airplanes may not have hearts beating under their cowlings (although I know some people who would argue this point). But they have a powerful way of connecting the hearts of those who know or fly them — sometimes when we least expect it.
