Up, Up, and Away!

Some people's gaze can signal their mood. Those who are sad or insecure will often look down (perhaps as a way of avoiding direct eye contact). Those who are confident or seeking inspiration will often look up toward the sky. Clouds may seem threatening, lightning may be crackling, but the vastness of the sky always seems to offer hope for new possibilities.

Some people may look upward in search of heavenly guidance while others may spend a lifetime waiting for a chance to point at something in the sky and shout "It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Superman!" In Finian's Rainbow (a hit musical from 1947), Sharon has a lovely song which explains her father's philosophy to the chorus and audience.


Throughout history mankind has watched the behavior of birds and tried to figure out how to fly. In Greek mythology, Icarus used wings fashioned from feathers and wax by his father, Daedalus. But when he ignored his father's warnings about hubris and complacency, Icarus tempted fate by flying until the sun melted the wax that held his wings together. As the artificial wings collapsed, his body fell into the sea and the young man drowned.

The story of Icarus failed to intimidate aspiring aviators. On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright made history near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina when they achieved a previously unthinkable goal. Their first two successful flights only attained an altitude of 10 feet above the ground (the first covered 120 feet, the second nearly 200 feet). As Orville Wright noted:

"Wilbur started the fourth and last flight at just about 12 o'clock. The first few hundred feet were up and down, as before, but by the time three hundred feet had been covered, the machine was under much better control. The course for the next four or five hundred feet had but little undulation. However, when out about eight hundred feet the machine began pitching again, and, in one of its darts downward, struck the ground. The distance over the ground was measured to be 852 feet; the time of the flight was 59 seconds. The frame supporting the front rudder was badly broken, but the main part of the machine was not injured at all. We estimated that the machine could be put in condition for flight again in about a day or two."

The early days of aviation inspired numerous stunts and failures by people who couldn't possibly have imagined a gigantic aircraft like Airbus's wide-bodied double decker, the A380.

* * * * * * * * *

When launched, the RMS Britannia was considered to be a large oceangoing vessel. With paddle wheels on both sides and a two-cylinder coal-burning engine, the 207-foot-long steamer traveled at a cruising speed of 8.5 knots. With a crew of 89 and 115 passengers on board, it sailed from Liverpool on its maiden voyage on July 4, 1840 and arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia 12 days and 10 hours later. In maritime history, the Britannia is regarded as the original flagship of the Cunard Steamship Line.

In 1873, when Jules Verne published his adventure novel entitled Around the World in Eighty Days, the world was still enjoying the first fruits of fossil fuels. Nearly 40 years would elapse before the coal-powered RMS Titanic (referred to as "the ship that God himself could not sink") struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

During World War I, aviation changed the way nations did battle with each other. Following World War II, commercial aviation grew by leaps and bounds.

• In 1952, BOAC introduced the first commercial jet service using the de Havilland Comet.
• In 1958, Boeing's first jetliner (the 707) signaled the end of the Atlantic ferry era, as an ocean liner's leisurely five-day crossing was replaced by transatlantic flights of less than 12 hours.
• In 1976, the Concorde introduced supersonic jet travel between North America and Europe.
• Since then, several generations of widebody passenger and cargo planes have ruled the skies, with the cost of jet fuel subject to engine efficiency, fluctuating markets, and the introduction of lighter, carbon-based construction materials.

Poster art for Point of No Return

One of the most thrilling documentaries I've seen in a long time will be screened as part of the 2018 San Francisco DocFest festival. Entitled Point of No Return, it documents the efforts of Bertrand Piccard (a psychiatrist who co-piloted Breitling Orbiter during the first nonstop around-the-world balloon flight) and André Borschberg (a Swiss engineer and jet fighter pilot) to build a solar-powered plane capable of staying aloft through day and night; an aircraft that could fly around the world without needing to rely on fossil fuels. With the wingspan of a 747 and the weight of a two-ton automobile (compared to a 560-ton A380), their plane (built from extremely light and fragile materials) tested their willpower in unexpected ways.


With their mission control center based in Monaco, Solar Impulse 2's journey around the world began on March 9, 2015 in Abu Dhabi and encountered all kinds of challenges from weather conditions, thermal damage to its batteries, and unexpected problems with technology. Borschberg's five-day solo flight across the Pacific Ocean from Nagoya, Japan to Honolulu, Hawaii in an unheated and unpressurized cockpit in July of 2015 became a unique kind of endurance test.

A stop in Phoenix, Arizona allowed the expedition's co-pilots to visit a vast desert graveyard for decommissioned jets. Solar Impulse 2 completed its 26,000-mile circumnavigation of the globe when it arrived back in Abu Dhabi on July 26, 2016.

Solar Impulse 2 files over ancient Egypt's pyramids outside Cairo

Many Baby Boomers remember watching Apollo 11's July 20, 1969 moon landing on television. Although today's rocket launches are often taken for granted, what sets Point of No Return apart from other aviation documentaries is its ability to cover the nerve-wracking tensions of the expedition with footage that exquisitely captures the beauty of flight. Because of its need for an unpressurized cockpit, Solar Impulse 2 does not fly high. Nor is it an especially fast plane. Some may think of it as the equivalent of a covered wagon that crossed the American frontier.


Its creators insist that Solar Impulse 2's circumnavigation of the planet is meant to deliver a message that, at some point in the future, solar-powered flight will become a norm rather than the exception. The ability of solar power to make flight without fossil fuels possible will be a healthy step in the direction of environmental progress.

Solar Impulse 2 flying over the Pacific Ocean

Filmmakers Quinn Kanaly and Noel Dockstader have done a spectacular job of capturing Solar Impulse 2 on land as well as in mid-air through the creative use of helicopters, GoPro cameras, and other techniques which offer viewers a tightly-edited story. Nerve-wracking moments are buffered by breathtaking footage of Solar Impulse 2 slowly traversing the ocean, landing in foreign countries, approaching the San Francisco Bay area, and enchanting audiences around the world (who can watch parts of the expedition in real time on their computers).




Like many documentaries, Point of No Return defines its challenge, focuses on its key characters, and follows an experiment in exquisite detail. Yet few films of this genre leave viewers with a lump in their throat as well as such deep respect for science, teamwork, courage, and man's ability to dream while honoring both the history and poetry of flight. Here's the trailer:

* * * * * * * * *

I may not be one of Andrew Lloyd Webber's biggest fans but, with a few strokes of poetic license (rearranging the order of some lines from one of his most famous lyrics), I can offer a beautiful introduction to another documentary being screened during the 2018 San Francisco DocFest.

"Slowly, gently, night unfurls its splendor
Grasp it, sense it, tremulous and tender
Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind
In this darkness which you know you cannot fight
The darkness of the music of the night.

Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation
Darkness wakes and stirs imagination
Silently the senses abandon their defenses
Hard as lightning, soft as candlelight
Dare you trust the music of the night."

Directed by Sriram Murali, Saving The Dark is an hour-long documentary with a timely message. With increased levels of light pollution from urban areas, it has become increasingly difficult for the average person to be able to look up at the night sky and fully appreciate the glory of the stars which form constellations, much less grandeur of the Milky Way.

In his director's statement, the filmmaker explains that:

“Astronomy has been my passion for years and photographing the night skies has been a way for me to express my passion towards astronomy. Most people questioned whether these stars in the photos were real. So, I made a short film entitled Lost in Light to show how light pollution affects the view of the night skies. It became a huge success that was featured on National Geographic, made the news in over 40 countries, and was seen over half a million times. Not only was it used by the National Park Service, schools, and scout clubs for education and outreach purposes, it was screened at film festivals and spurred a conversation about light pollution, its effects, and what we can do to fight it.”

Filmmaker Sriram Murali (Photo by: Tommy Lau)

“Over the years, it has saddened me that we do not care enough about astronomy or the night skies. When I attended the San Francisco Green Film Festival earlier this year, I realized how much people care about environmental issues and was inspired to make my own documentary. This is a non-profit movie, funded by me, done solely on my personal time, and made only for educational purposes. I'm going to have this movie available to everyone to watch for free (it doesn't make sense to charge people when I want to create awareness). I do this out of my passion for astronomy, the night skies, and the drive to make people care more about it.”

In 2015, Su Rynard's documentary entitled The Messenger described how light pollution was interfering with the migration patterns of millions of birds (many of which showed signs of malnutrition when their bodies were found on the ground after they collided with glass skyscrapers). Murali's film delves into some of the research and and resulting policy changes in cities which have switched from high pressure sodium street lamps to those outfitted with cheaper and easier to maintain LED technology.

Not surprisingly, some of the simplest explanations come from groups of astronomy lovers who gather together at campsites far from the lights of the city so they can take in the wonder of the universe. Their insights (combined with Murali's stop-motion time lapse footage of the Milky Way as seen on a clear night) are a winning combination. Here's the trailer: