#aeronautical

By Jupiter Zirkua

I am sick and poor

An aeronaut

Cutting ballast, hempen rope

Between my fingers

Leaving blisters as it frays above a blade

Up, to unkind sky

Thin and fragile, underfed

Each new burden a lightness

Gusts work thus to make me dead

And death is always empty

Grief’s the thing that fills the space

Like livid gas expanding

I’m an aeronaut

An aeronaut!

I am sick and poor

An aeronaut

Chewing a cigar

The looming lure of lighting

To send this whole thing down in smoke

Down to solid, strong and stable

Loss made rhythmic to a song

But the impulse gains no traction

And it doesn’t last for long

For all so high is fleeting

Ruled by winding winds and physics

This gig is mostly maths

I’m an aeronaut!

The airplane seemed far more alive and human than any machine I had ever flown.

Charles Lindbergh

The cockpit in which Charles Lindbergh sat while piloting the first aircraft to make a solo non-stop transatlantic flight, the Spirit of Saint Louis, in May of 1927 was as pioneering as the flight itself.

It was an unusual design to an ordinary layout of a cockpit of that era. A periscope was used instead of a forward window. The Spirit was designed and built in San Diego to compete for the $25,000 Orteig Prize, which was offered by New York hotel owner Raymond Orteig to the first aviator to cross the Atlantic non-stop, either from New York to Paris or vice versa. Lindbergh, a U.S. Air Mail pilot, believed that a single-engine, single-seat, high-wing monoplane would provide him with the best chance of success.

Under his close supervision, the Spirit was designed and constructed in just 60 days. To enhance the centre of gravity and minimise the risk of being crushed in case of a crash, Lindbergh had the large main and forward fuel tanks placed in the front section of the fuselage, ahead of the pilot, with the oil tank acting as a firewall. As a result of this design choice, there was no front windshield, and forward visibility was limited to the side windows.

"Evening Flight" is an original acrylic painting from a photograph of a ww2 Era fighter flying at sunset. This one is available. Dm me for details and the link, or to start a commission!