Dear Readers;
There’s still time to submit your best aviation weather photos for our annual contest. All you need in the frame is some sky and a part of the aircraft. If you’ve seen something that caught your attention enough to capture it, likely we’d like to see it too. Who doesn’t have a few hundred sunsets and sunrises that left them in awe? Vie for the rights to have your photo on the cover of our magazine and a few extra bucks in your pocket! How to submit your photo and a link to the contest rules is within this issue. Entries close on 31 August.
July 2021 will mark a milestone in our travel industry — the beginning of the era of space tourism. It’s been on the horizon for decades, but until there was a launch that put the untrained aloft, it was still just a concept. I had to shake my head when some of the talking heads on the news questioned the point of the flights of Virgin Galactic with Richard Branson aboard and the flight of Blue Origen’s New Shepherd with Jeff Bezos. They scoffed at the future of an industry for only the super wealthy. The era of manned flight within the atmosphere began with baby steps, too. The early Boeing Clippers that Pan Am flew from New York to Southampton, England cost $12,000 in today’s dollars! Regardless of the nay-sayers, one day, space travel will be a “thing.” I like to think I’ll remember this “one small step” as we watch this new phase unfold. I’d like to tell my grandchildren (not too soon, please) about where I was when I watched these first adventurers reach the edge of space.
Fly safe,
Craig Pieper
Publisher
