cities and green hills

By far the best way to see a city for the first time is from on high. Instead of coming in through a lot of dirty railway yards and uninteresting factory and poorer residential sections, you get a perfect panoramic view. Then, too, some cities are marvelous spectacles from the sky.
Among the finest sights of all is the great capital of Hungary. We pass right over the ancient citadel high up on the west bank of the river. On our left are the mosques, cathedrals, and vast rambling palaces of ancient Buda. Then we look down on the river with its world-famous bridges, the parliament buildings of Pest, the row of great hotels that line Franz-Josef-Quai, and then on over the heart of this modern metropolis where Orient and Occident meet. In fact an aerial photograph of this city looks much like one of Constantinople.

Perhaps our veteran Austrian war pilot was having an off day. We hit the ground with our wheels all right, but it was a terrific bump, and instead of running along over the ground, our Spad tripped up and dug her nose into the earth. The propeller was smashed to pieces. One wheel crumled up and the axle broke. When she nosed forward there was considerable confusion in our cabin. In addition to my wife and myself there was a gentleman from the Argentine. The force of the jolt and the tipping-up of the plane threw him heavily against the front wall of the cabin and hurled my wife on top of him. 'Mon Dieu!' said the traveller from Buenos Aires, thereby expressing our sentiments exactly!

Lowell Thomas, European Skyways (1928)

cities and green hills

---

Your comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated: e-mail Hanneke Hoogstrate! or, for the JavaScript-disabled: blagoAntiRobot@xs4all.nl, please remember to remove [AntiRobot]. This page is from Plane Writing: quotes from early pilots' biographies; please use a JavaScript-enabled browser for best results.