Flight Level 390

To think how far aviation has come in only 80 years...simply AMAZING!
 

Yes, that's mind-boggling to see how far aviation has come in 80 years since its beginning! I am SO GLAD that I live at this point in history.
 

Just the other day a Nepali Sherpa named Apa reached the summit of the world's highest peak for a record breaking [his own, BTW] 17 times.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10231450&ft=1&f=1004

Now when I think of the feat of climbing to the heavens I do not think of all those that made the ultimate sacrifice, I think of this man that has done it 17 times, and I think that it seems very possible that I can do it.

Now consider, for a moment, what the first thoughts were of the climbers facing this peak. Thoughts of death were present, but not incapacitating, for who would set out on a suicide trip.

But more importantly, who would set out on what they very possibly considered a near-suicide trip, to do something that has never been done before? A trip to the very definition of human survivability, and add to it the voices of all those who can't hear the call, the naysayers that allow the negatives to suffocate the positives, and cannot for one second find the excitement over the fear.

It almost begs the thought of what is left to pioneer? The bottom of the sea? The depth of Space?

Either way, these Pioneers we have among us, the few we have left [recollections of a previous post of a certain Doolittle Raider], are quite simply the most amazing Humans on the planet.

"Where do we find such men"
 

No GPS, no VOR and not even a windscreen in front! Absolutely, truly amazing how far we've come.