Long Letter

Toni, congratulations on all your many honors. I always thought you were pretty enough to be a movie star and now you are one.

Don't be afraid of flying! Just go and have a good time. Life is too short to worry about things like falling out of the air.

Whenever a plane flies, it is suspended in air which is too thick — far too dense — for the plane to fall through it. Even though you cannot see air, and thus cannot see how thick it is becoming, you do know you can’t pedal a bike much faster than twenty miles-per-hour; and yet, at five miles-per-hour, you walk across a room without being slowed by air at all.it is possible to go faster than the speed of sound, but as you come close to that speed, air becomes nearly as solid as a brick. And, even at the speed a plane accelerates to on the runway before taking off, air becomes as solid as jello.
Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the rocket-powered X-1 airplane. However, until that day, scientists were not sure it was possible. The plane had previously gone right up to the threshold of the speed of sound and stopped accelerating. It was as if it had hit a wall. Thus, the term, the “sonic barrier”. As it turned out, it is possible to go faster than the speed of sound, but as you come close to that speed, air becomes nearly as solid as a brick. And, even at the speed a plane accelerates to on the runway before taking off, air becomes as solid as jello.

Whenever a plane flies, it is suspended in air which is too thick — far too dense — for the plane to fall through it. Even though you cannot see air, and thus cannot see how thick it is becoming, you do know you can’t pedal a bike much faster than twenty miles-per-hour; and yet, at five miles-per-hour, you walk across a room without being slowed by air at all.

Thus, considering what a dramatic difference, effortlessly moving across a floor at five miles-per-hour and unable to pedal faster than twenty miles-per-hour because of the air holding you back, it is easy to imagine how much “thicker” air is at forty miles-per-hour (as thick as water) or eighty miles-per-hour (as thick as oil), or one-hundred-twenty miles-per-hour (as thick as molasses). Just a bit faster, and air becomes, as far as the plane is concerned, a mass of jello which sits on the earth and rises on up above the earth twelve miles to the edge of space.

The airplane, once it reaches “jello-speed” stays suspended in this huge mass of jello that covers the earth as a twelve-mile thick blanket. Or, if you prefer, think of the earth as a huge jelly donut, with the jelly on the outside. That is what we fly it. But it is a misconception to even say fly. Really we don’t. We simply sit suspended in jello as engines push us forward in it.

magine you have a plate of jello in front of you. There is a cube of pineapple suspended in the jello.  You pick up the plate and shake the jello. You shake it hard, trying to dislodge it, and make it fall. It is impossible. You cannot do it. You can only make the pineapple shake in the same direction as you shake the jello which is holding the pineapple.

Replace the pineapple with a toy model airplane, an inch or two long. Again, try to shake the jello enough to cause the model airplane to come loose and plunge through the jello. Impossible.

The jello is so thick that the plane can ONLY move forward, and it can ONLY move forward because of tremendous power from the engines shoving the plane forward hard enough to CUT the jello so it can move at all.

While the plane is on the runway, it speeds up until – as far as the plane is concerned – the air is as thick as jello. THEN, once in air as thick as jello, the plane can ONLY go where it is pointed, pushed by the tremendous force of the engines. So, the nose is raised a bit above the horizon, and so the plane goes exactly where it is pointed. The nose continues slightly up until reaching the desired cruise altitude, and is then pointed at the horizon so the plane neither climbs nor descends. Then, when time to descend, the nose is pointed slightly down, and because it is going downhill, the engines are not needed for it to cut forward through the jello.

The plane can only go where it is pointed. Turbulence can only make the jello jiggle, and thus the plane jiggle. It cannot make the plane come loose from the jello-like air. It cannot make the plane fall. In fact, use your imagination and you will find you can’t imagine the plane — in jello — going any direction except where it is pointed.


An accident can only happen under two possibilities: 1. The plane is pointed wrong, such as at a mountain, or at some point when near the ground other than the runway (there are warnings, now, to prevent both; 2. The plane goes too slow and the air is no longer like jello (that never happens with an airliner because the pilots are professional and there are warnings if the plane starts to go too slow).


If difficulty persists with concern the plane could fall, you will need to actually buy some jello mix and a little plane, and some skewers to simulate the engines pushing the plane forward (place the skewers against the rear of the engines and push).