Soaring

I had the good fortune to attend an air show last weekend. It was the very best kind of air show: LOCAL! The Idaho Falls Regional Airport, along with many sponsors, hosted a fantastic event which was headlined by the Blue Angels.

The Air Force was also represented with its latest generation fighter, the F-35; there were a variety of warbirds; and plenty of amazing aerobatic displays performed by pilots flying propeller-powered planes.

Whenever I have the opportunity to watch talented aviators guide their aircraft to dance, dart and weave through the sky, I am reminded of the wonderful poem penned during the Second World War by American pilot John Gillespie Magee:

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hovering there
I've chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.

"Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.