Toy Airplanes

Photo by  Arnaud Gaulupeau  Some rights reserved

 Some kids like dolls or action figures, and some kids like guns, but I always liked airplanes. My favorite toys were always airplanes. Airliners to be specific. Most toy makers like to focus on military jets, but I was always drawn to big passenger planes like the 747, or L-1011. Without a doubt my favorite was always the Douglas DC-10.

The DC-10 was such a curious plane, it just oozed power. It was the rarest bird of all, not a twin engine jet like a boring Airbus, or a 4 engined giant like the 747, but a three engined brut. Sure the L-1011 was a more elegant design with its third engine blended smoothly into the rear, but the DC-10 didn't fuck around with cosmetic niceties like that. It just stuck that third engine into the middle of it its tail like a bulging bicep on a juiced up body builder.

Even today when I land at some airport i occasionally see a rusting hulk of a Douglas' monster sitting on some abandoned ramp I get excited. That airplane is a reminder of a more hopeful time in the world. Nowadays airplane manufacturers are concerned with lower emissions and quieter engines. The DC-10 was from a time when Americans would say "if I can safely build a plane with two engines, then surely lets just stick one more gigantic jet engine on its back". It was a world where too much was never enough. The DC-10 was built by a country that could save the world from Nazis and conquer the moon because As President Kennedy said "not because it is easy, but because it is hard".

Today the best the American aviation industry can do is build something called the "Dreamliner" whose main advantage is that it has blue lights inside and the windows are a little bigger than before. I know the world is running out of resources and America can't strut around like the we used to, but I just lament that the world my nephew has to grow up in will never again make the biggest or fastest or baddest, but instead will make the quietest or most efficient, or most sensible. When I was small we had toys that were boring copies of amazing planes, today kids have toys that are amazing copies of boring planes. Just kinda bums me out.

- Posted using my iPad