Jordan Levine

“Prenez vos place, nous sommes autorisé a décoller”— finally, I thought, as a sense of relief and excitement swept over me. I had been waiting for the captain to say those words ever since we left the gate: no longer was I forced to endure the plane’s forever-seeming taxi from the terminal to the runway. Tucking my knees into my chest and pressing my face against the window, I stared at the long line of green lights that illuminated the runway as we made our final turn. Any of the passengers could have assumed that I was just a six-year-old kid flying for the first time on Christmas vacation, mesmerized by the plane. With my parents by my side, their faces buried in the Harold Tribune and indifferent to the plane’s movement, I rotated my head as far as I could and watched the engines begin to spin. Then, abruptly, I was thrust back into my seat by the engines’ flipping to full throttle. Thrilled and with my eyes glued to the window, I watched as we lifted off the ground at Charles de Galle Airport and into the sky.

That was not my first time flying on an airplane—far from it actually. I had a passion for flying throughout my childhood; I loved seeing the stunning views, feeling the power of the engines, and hearing the flaps on the wings shift up and down. Because my mother’s family lived in Rome, my parents and I always travelled to visit them twice a year, starting when I was only five months old. At the age of six, I was already accustomed to the Paris-Rome Air France flight and its views of the snow-covered Alps.

Not only was I an impassioned flyer at such a young age but an avid reader of airline magazines. I especially enjoyed reading the airline’s route map and fleet lists on the last few pages of the magazine. The first route map I ever read was on a United Airlines flight to Paris. Stumped by the wide scope of destinations, I spent the entire eight-hour flight in a daze, picturing all those different places around the globe. It became my ritual: on every flight I took, I would always scan the route map and then the fleet list. As soon as I boarded a plane and reached my seat, in the blink of an eye, I would snatch the airline magazine and flip to the last few pages.

By the time I turned eight years old, I could list all the destinations United, Lufthansa, Air France, Delta, Alitalia, and Southwest flew to. Recognizing airplanes by the shape of their fuselage, length of their wings, and size of their engines, I also could walk down the terminal of any airport and identify all the planes I spotted—from a small Canadair regional jet to a large four-engine Airbus A340. I loved the knowledge of airplanes and airlines that I had attained; knowing these facts made me feel that I was a member of the “world of flying” as I called it, alongside pilots, aeronautical engineers, and air traffic controllers. Having memorized almost every kind of airplane and located the most popular flying destinations worldwide, I came across the idea of creating my own imaginary airline.

I named my airline “Bald Eagle Airways,” with hubs in San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, and Houston and destinations worldwide including in Hong Kong, London, Frankfurt, and Singapore. I also asked my father to order me the monthly Boeing, Airbus, Embraer, and Bombardier magazines so I could determine the most appropriate airplane fleet for my airline. By reading these magazines, I could learn in depth about the capacity, range, and dimensions of the most popular airplanes and discover new and innovative airplane projects. After picking a proper fleet for my airline, I simply could not put a magazine down.

I felt that I was a part of the world of flying—a world that I had been enamored by since my first flight. I stayed up late on school nights and learned about how the carbon fibers on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner increased the plane’s range and fuel efficiency and about the difficulties Airbus faced in designing the A380’s complex wiring system. If one magazine filled me with questions, I would seek out the answers in the next one I could get my hands. At that age, I never enjoyed reading in school but because I was so fascinated by planes, I was always satisfied after finishing a magazine.   

Because we lived in DC, my father often took me to the Air and Space Museum on the National Mall and the one in Langley, Virginia. Among the planes exhibited at these museums, my favorite ones were the Enola Gay, the last Concord to fly, the ancient Pan Am Boeing 314, the Lockheed Blackbird, and the Discovery space shuttle. Although I enjoyed the museum visits, I always found more pleasure in sitting down in the living room and cracking open one of my magazines. It was a more intimate experience: the more I learned about airplanes, the more included I felt in the world of flying. Museums were always too crowded to feel a connection with the planes themselves. Actually holding the planes in my hands, studying their features, and understanding their power—that’s what I wanted most and that’s what my magazines allowed me to do.