Burke: We’re falling short of when we were flying high

By Tom Burke

I spent a day at the Boeing Museum of Flight recently. Awesome. Inspiring. Impressive. Daunting. Depressing.

Depressing? What could be depressing about a technological tour ‘d force? How does the story of how man climbed out of a cave, looked into the skies, and flew out of this world be a downer? How could the Wright Flyer, a DC-3, a Curtiss JN-4 Jenny biplane, or Air Force One depress me?

It’s complicated.

Start with the collection. It’s got “everything” and tells the story of flight so well even idiots like me get it. I doubt there’s a better aviation museum in the country. Its artifacts stand as a humbling monument to man’s ingenuity, tenacity and resourcefulness.

As I wandered I was completely overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of achievements. How could anybody think all that stuff up? Then build it? Then actually fly it?

Whether rugged individuals such as Orville and Wilbur Wright in the sand at Kitty Hawk; or the sophisticated business acumen of Bill Boeing and his corporate legacy; or the massive, coordinated government-private sector partnership between NASA and thousands of individual contractors who put Alan Shepherd into space and Neil Armstrong on the moon, the totality of all that brainpower, money and cooperation is daunting.

And to see it all in one place is uplifting, near-transformational. I got high on imagined Av-Gas and JP-4 fumes as I walked through the galleries.

Then I went to my car … and crashed with a bigger bang than one of those 1950’s early-experimental missiles blowing up on the launching pad.

‘Cause when I turned on NPR’s “All Things Considered” I was instantly reminded of how dysfunctional, how totally screwed-up things are. The contrast brought me low.

All the Red State/Blue State/Hate State, us-versus-them, name calling, traffic blocking, town-burning, wall-building, race baiting, class warfare came to mind.

The sorry state of our infrastructure; our proclivity to sue, sue, sue; our inability to provide for veterans’ health and the rotten state of education stands in stark relief to the miracle performed by “the greatest generation” who built and manned the air armadas of World War II; the pioneer rocketeers who shot John Glen into orbit; and the people, right here in Snohomish County, who crafted the 747 and the Dreamliner.

And the vitriol relentlessly, pointedly, deliberately-spewed out on MSNBC against the Republicans and especially the President-Elect and his every word, thought, and deed; and the same level of relentless, pointed, deliberate ill-will broadcast on Fox News tearing down Democrats and the current President is a witch’s cauldron bubbling over in a callous corporate clamor for ratings and advertiser money and the shameless employment of no-holds-barred political manipulation.

Health insurance is a disaster; education funding is a mess; the homeless crisis addles brains. Hell, we have become so rule-bound, so tied up in our own jockey shorts that the victims of the terrorist shooting in San Bernardino are being denied medical care, rehabilitation, and relief as the authorities involved say, “We can’t help. Our hands are tied by the rules.”

We can’t even figure out how to elect a president without somehow screwing it up with unqualified candidates, retread politicians, accusations of voter fraud and charges of voter suppression.

So I sat in my car and wondered, “If in 1903 we can put a guy in the sky and he can fly; and go from ox carts to steam trains to air planes to get from here to there; and fly, fly I tell you, into space, outer space, and live there; why can’t we solve our other problems with the same resolve and resources that gave man the wings of Icarus?

We created an airplane (the SR71 Blackbird) that flies at 2,200 miles per hour but can’t figure out how to feed hungry kids. Entrepreneurs are building passenger rockets to tour the moon but 405 is a disaster from Bothell to Tukwila. A guy pedal-powered the Gossamer Albatross II across the English Channel but we can’t peacefully, responsibly get oil from the well-head to market.

Progress has a price. Nungesser and Coli disappeared in L’Oiseau Blanc (the White Bird) trying to fly nonstop from Paris to New York in 1927. We lost three brave astronauts in the Apollo fire and seven more in the Challenger disaster. Aviation in its early days was deadly.

But we got through it. We crashed, flew, crashed, and flew again. But for me, for now, we ain’t fly’n; we’re in a stall (that’s an aerodynamic metaphor) and if we don’t pull out, if we can’t work together, I’m afraid there’s gonna be a big KaBoom!

Like I said, I got depressed at one of the most uplifting places on earth.

Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.