----- Original Message -----
Subject: Low Flying War of the Worlds
"Actually, checking the topo, we are just a bit off west from a line
connecting Brookhaven Labs and where Flight 800...."

Ken,
Are you suggesting a new historic preservation realm - famous air spaces.
Out here in the West, historic trails are the current growth industry for
historians and consultants and adventure tourism.   Researching them,
finding the trail remains,
restoring and reopening them as biking/hiking paths and linking them with
commercial tourism ventures is all the rage.   What was once a dirty old
rail
road track or overgrown brushy pack horse route through a swamp is now am
picturesque historic experience.

At the coast near Vancouver, there was currently a bit of front page
controversy about
what is junk and what is an historic experience.   A scuba diving holiday
group
wants to sink a large air liner as an artificial reef play place for
recreational diving.   They already have sunk a big war ship and some other
stuff and are claiming worldwide status as a great place to see stuff while
diving.   To some, the macabre aspect of an airliner broken up and under
water is not a happy use of the place or the object.   After reading your
note, the image of not only demarked and celebrated historic flight paths
but also destruction sites comes to mind (unfortunately).   What spectacular
opportunities for re-enactors.   "Let's do Flight 800 next weekend."
Interesting how we (some) humans are keen to re-enact at places where people
died while at war but not places where people died while at peace.

Somehow it sort of reminds me of the high school Junior Civil Defence Rescue
Group I was part of during the atom era, where we went out on weekends with
our club's rescue van, an old blue laundry truck, and practiced retrieving
victims of an atomic blast, led by professors from the Nuclear Physics
Department at Cornell who should have known better but were probably trying
to ease their consciences.   Although I liked learning the first aid and
ropework skills, I always felt very uncomfortable about the potential
massive scale of the disaster we were practicing for and the miniscule scale
and miniscule skills of our rescue group.   It all seemed really silly but
was a lot of fun as we tried to learn what it was to be professionals and
how to wear hard hats.

Also, your mention of saving gas to dispel aliens and other life forms
suggests creating a collection of historic gas.

I hereby nominate Ken for the first "Famous Farts" award.

cp in clean air bc

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