Introduction

Flight is one of the oldest of human aspirations, and it is one that all peoples

have shared. They have incorporated visions of flying deities, spirits, and people in their various cosmologies, theologies, and mythic pasts. Yet for all

this global interest, the actual achievement of human flight has greatly exceeded the expectations of those who dreamed what flight would give to humanity. They could hardly have conceived a world in which hundreds of millions of people each year journey from their homes to transportation centers designed for aviation, where they enter specialized aircraft to rise several miles off the ground and travel at speeds of hundreds of miles per hour across their countries and around the globe.