Last month my son and I made a visit to McMinnville Oregon specifically to visit Howard Hughes’ ‘Spruce Goose’ in a museum constructed specifically to house and display that magnificent aviation folly. My interest in vintage aviation continues to grow. I’ve been collecting old New Yorker Magazines for years but only now begin to understand why the 1928 issues are so filled with ads, cartoons and articles about airplanes; it was the year that a long-brewing nascent technology finally burst forth into the mainstream and made itself–forgive the use of the term–‘user friendly’. 1928 for aviation was like 1994 for the internet, or like this year has been for A.I. People got their head around something that once sounded dangerous and threatening and began to embrace it. (And, much like the internet and A.I,, flying is indeed dangerous and frightening if one thinks too much about it–its benefits far outweigh its’ etc. etc. ) Flying–once an activity reserved for dare-devils and war heroes–developed into a service industry, delivering mail and such, before finally making the leap into an ‘even-you-can-enjoy-flying’ mainstream travel activity that made life considerably more efficient in so many ways.