FLYING

One might think that winged angels flying about is a christian invention but no, it's a very human wish, maybe almost an obsession, for men since milleniums.

In greek mythology, Icarus, trying to escape from his  tower jail, made wings out of feathers and wax and flew out supposedly gaining altitude, and "getting nearer the sun" the wax melted and he fell into the sea...  Now an island inhabited by the Icarians, bearing his name, is in the Aegian sea.

So, there is nothing new with man's wish for flying or having wings...

One can just think about the  recent decennies;  Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, the Flying Nun T.V.episodes came straight out of man's imagination, one can also think of Harry Potter's dragons, of the movie Birdie where the main character believes he is a bird or maybe it's antithesis, The Birds, by Hichcock.  How frequent is it that we encounter conscious flying beings with wings in sci-fi or in the bestsellers of mass reading, such as James Patterson adolescent heroes with wings from some kind of made up DNA experiment crossing embryos with birds...  If you live in a country where there is some snow or sand, have you ever made angel wings with your arms when you were young...?

Yes men can do many things, walk, crawl, jump, walk backward, swim, swim for short periods underwater like many other animals, but they cannot fly... 

In1946, Leonardo da Vinci, whose inspiration for this was supposedly sparked by a hawk taking flight next to him in his infancy, was the first to invent a flying machine, which is very closely related to a glider today.  With his ingenuity,he developed too the helicopter concept with his ornihopter (that is aside from many inventions and new concepts he developed such  as changing the way anatomy was studied).  It seems Leonardo da Vinci did his paintings in order to make a living. We have to mention the Wright's brothers, who approximately at the same period, developed too a flying machine but inferior to the Da Vinci one, flying much less great distances.

In China, kytes have been roaming the skies for milleniums.

Nature has always been a great source of inspiration for men;  just think of the symbolic white unicorn with wings.  Winged horses, as other animals , C.S. Lewis flying lion,have sparked  men's imagination for a long long time  (horses are supposed to be a great sexual symbol too,whatever that means).

In many alternative religions, cults, many beliefs about flying are deeply ingrained: think about astral travel and what about witches on their broomsticks, the list is endless...

Men invented planes with wings for quite a while now; they seemed to always want to get them to go faster (there was the fiasco of the Concord), but planes are just normal these days, just another way to travel...

So wouldn't you agree that men have a strong desire almost an obsession to fly ?  Is it envy from those winged birds or winged insects that go so much faster (another example here is in the middle ages communication over long distances made by pigeons)?

Anyway, I believe there is a  point here about man and FLYING...