One of humanity's inventions that most defies nature, our ability to fly in planes, is actually intimately shaped by nature. Planes do best when taking off into the wind, determining runway orientations around the world, as this map shows. Zoom in here: trailsofwind.figures.cc
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Similarly shaped by wind and trade, this map shows 19th century shipping paths, taken from the weather logs of 523 American ships. Note the whalers traveling to the west coast of South America. sappingattention.blogspot.com/2014/03/shippi
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The Wright brothers had trouble getting off the ground until they saw a slow motion film of an eagle 🦅 or hawk landing and saw the curvature of the wings; flat on the bottom, curved on the top & flaps for turning. Don’t know how much they knew before but it was the breakthrough.
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Every time I see a plane a still wonder how much progress humanity has made.
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