#1. The mystery of flight, IOW flying machines and the kind.
From top to bottom and left to right: first is a drawing of Mme Sophie Blanchard's hydrogen balloons. She was the first professional female aeronaut and as such a great inspiration to me. I admit, though, that it's her dedication and fearlessness that get to me more than her gender: apparently she was quite a timid, easily startled mousey woman outside of her aircraft, but once in it she became quite a daredevil, masterful enough to earn the title of "Official Aeronaut of the Restoration". She cheated death time and time again.
Until the second picture, of course. She eventually did manage to die in a balloon accident (this making her also the first woman ever to die in an aviation accident) after surviving near drowning in a marsh and a couple of unconscious moments in altitudes that froze her fingers, not to mention all those times when she set off fireworks from her balloon that, as mentioned, was full of hydrogen...
The third picture is by Patrick Woodroffe again, and along comes one of the cutest poems I know of:
The Mystery of Flight
"Did you know",
Said the crow,
"That a condor can go
With never a flap of his wing?"
"But the moon,"
Said the fly,
"Can remain in the sky
With nary a flap of a thing."
"How, rather than fall,
Can you stay up at all
Is a puzzle to me."
Said the flea.
~Patrick Woodroffe
On the next row is a photo of the insides of Hindenburg and a nameless glider I once found somewhere on the internets. And finally a fail!gif of a hover lolita, all and any resemblance to me is naturally coincidental and I won't admit anything.
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