According the Greek myths Ikarus and Daedalus were the first aviators. While Daedalus was the level headed fathher, his son Ikarus was the dearing young lunatic who liked to push hhis luck in order to find out, where this new experience of life in flying like a bird, would take him.Unfortunately he got carried away and so finally his life ended when he presumably was in his greatest of happy feelings.Only by the end of the 19th century humanity started to build thhe first flying machines, whioch they called airplanes. The brothers 'Montgolfier' had already been flying their hot air baloons by using the physical effect of the less dense hot air to arise by a bubble of this hot air through the atmosphere. But this was never regarded as flying also why up to this day riding in balloons or blimps is described as riding.Flying in our imagination is gliding through the air, like birds, like Ikarus. Flying is also a temporary experience, which, limited by its character reaches its end by either fuel, or updrafts which is the fuel for sailing planesand also described as soaring, maybe the most wonderful way of flying.I had the honor of flying gliders, which is the common name for a sailplane and I absolutely loved to only hear the air rushing by and by the absence of any noiseful powerplant, feeling like a bird.For me flying airplanes was not only a dream come true at a young age, but also flying for almost 50 years. Seeing quite some phantastic parts of our beautiful world from abvovewas for me the highest privilege I had achieved in my life.With my commercial license which I finally got in the US, nightflying had started and I absolutely loved it.Also, later on oiver Africa I did lots of flights departing in the dark from our gravel strip in the bush in Namibia. There were no lights and n o infrastructure as you find at commercial airports. There is only nature, darkness and the airplane to which you must have all the confidence you got after flying it through the weather and between thunderstorms. If you take off for a night flight from a gravel strip you must only do this when you know what you are doing, knowing the risks and throwing all your experience after thousands of hours in the air and also thhousands of take-offs and landings into this adventure. Once in the air and after the first 1000 feet, you reduce the power and the roaring of the engines finally settle into a comforting bariton of confidence while further asending, finally reaching your cruising altitude. Up here you relax and enjoy this wonderful feeling of soaring through the skies, admiring the stars and having detected the Southern Cross, one of thhe most famous star constellations, you know that up here all is peaceful and you don't want to decend back to earth, you want to stay up here for eternity.That is, when your phantasie takes over and for a little lifespan you become Ikarus, who sadly fell to the ground but his soul is still up there.The story which is told in this book is fiction, but it is one of the kind of stories which is the typical result of a n ight flight over Africa.
