Icarus' Wings.

Icarus had an amazing set of wings made of wood, feathers, and wax by his craftsman father, Daedalus. If you remember this important story from Greek Mythology, Icarus got carried away and flew higher and higher – until he got too close to the sun, his wings quickly melted, and he fell to his death in the sea.  How often do we stretch and push our frontier of possibilities even farther than we ever imagined –only to have our wings melt and we fall back to Earth? The human spirit must be allowed to soar to stay strong and healthy. To overcome and move forward, and build muscle memory. What if our fear of melting wings is the biggest challenge we face today? What would happen if we encouraged a strong, pioneering spirit in our children to soar closer to the sun more often?

It was a cold, dark night. I vividly remember one Tuesday evening almost 40 years ago when I got home just after 9pm from my weekly Boy Scout meeting. I was sitting at the kitchen table with my father enjoying a snack when the rotary phone hanging on the wall rang. That was an ominous ring. My dad answered - and the world seemed to come to a complete stop. It was shocking and tragic news that my gentle and kind Uncle Mike, a pilot, had just died in a plane crash. That afternoon he had been trying to land a cargo plane in a Manitoba snowstorm; during a very rough landing, some heavy cargo that wasn't secured properly had broken loose and caused the plane to crash. There are times when the world completely stops and you begin to think about things differently. Fear. Deep sadness. Only a year or so earlier, my brother and I enjoyed our first taste of flying on an Air Canada flight out of Toronto. It was magical. A young mind experiencing flight for the first time– and it was so amazing. Growing up we would occasionally go to air shows in Ontario and Michigan, and watch fire-fighting bush planes and air tankers practice bombing runs down along the river near our home. Years later, I would take several flying lessons from a crop duster named Rusty in a tiny Cessna 152 up in Wheatland, Wyoming. Known as one of the most windiest places on Earth, it was a interesting place to learn the basics of flying. Talk about fear. I have never forgotten the rush of some of those takeoffs and landings, and feeling like you are literally fighting Mother Nature. Great flying machines allow us to reach for things that can’t been seen by the naked eye. The human spirit wants to soar into the heavens, no matter the risks. 

Ralph Ade is my wife’s grandfather who was an early pilot and trainer in the U.S. Army Air Corp, before the U.S. Air Force was officially formed in 1947. Ralph was a great man with tremendous flying skills and experience, and a military flight trainer for the early fighter pilots during World War 2. He also helped train the glider pilots at a facility in Texas –these fine, young men would quickly become a strategic part of the offense when Allied Forces stormed the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944. Jennifer has fond childhood memories of flying with her grandfather in a small private plane, doing maneuvers across farm fields – and buzzing numerous houses just for fun in their small town of Lindsborg, Kansas. Flight caught her imagination at a very early age, too. It still inspires her in so many ways.

Flight has always captured the human imagination. The first recorded human flight was a hot air balloon flight in Paris on October 19, 1783; three Frenchmen flew as high as 2,000 feet for more than two hours. The next great challenge was to fly across the English Channel, a feat accomplished on January 7, 1785 by Jean-Pierre Blanchard. Blanchard went on to make the first manned flight of a balloon in America on January 10, 1793. His hydrogen-filled balloon took off from a prison yard in Philadelphia and reached an astonishing 6,000 feet above the Earth. President George Washington was among the guests observing the monumental takeoff. Leonardo da Vinci first developed the concept of an “airplane” back in 1480, and made hundreds of diagrams of his innovative idea. But it was two simple brothers and bicycle shop owners from Dayton, Ohio, Orville and Wilbur Wright, who made flight a reality at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903. Orville piloted the 600-pound glider-plane that day, and changed the world more profoundly than any other folks in recorded human history.

I was quietly sitting with several hundred classmates around a giant television at Northern Heights Public School on April 21, 1981; we were watching the first space shuttle launch in recorded history. The excitement and anticipation was almost too much to bare that day. Even though it was so long ago, it was simply a moment you will never forget. That day our dreams instantly became too small. Our view of the world was too small. We were challenged to dream bigger. And we did. Over ten years later, a girl from the neighborhood became the first Canadian female astronaut to go into space. Dr Roberta Bondar was a humble neurologist who modeled “big thinking” and a passion for adventure, and she changed the game for me and millions of other admiring young Canadian children. She remains an enormous inspiration even though the years have passed and we are now scattered around the globe. Her remarkable story can be seen here: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvZAio0zgoA)

We are inspired by courageous men and women who reach for the stars and challenge us to think bigger. Sometimes, we fly too close to the sun- and our wings melt. And we fall back to Earth. And we tremble with fear. But we never give up for too long, we shake off our fears, and we begin to dream bigger dreams - and reach for the stars again and again. It is programed deep in our spirit –we want to reach higher and higher. No matter the cost. The human spirit must always be allowed to soar –especially in our children. They will continue to dazzle us with amazing feats of courage in the future. I’m sure of it. 

In Memory: This writing is dedicated to the memories of Ralph Ade and Michael Allen, two great men and excellent pilots. And the brave men and women of the Shuttle Program over the years that inspired us to dream bigger dreams. And we have.

Let's Create More Sparks: Robert is a curious Irish-Canadian and well-traveled American who naturally enjoys story telling that includes lots of interesting facts and figures. Stats and data points help tell powerful stories. Interesting quotes and good books bring vivid colors and memorable shapes to a story. Good stories inspire the human spirit. Ideally you found an idea or two in this LinkedIn article that you can now use as a fantastic conversation starter with friends or colleagues over a coffee on a leisurely Saturday afternoon.