It’s delightful to read well-written prose. In the following, the author Mark Vanhoenacker, a professional pilot, writes like a poet. I love everything related to aviation. Hence I recommend this to you.

A Pilot Explains Waypoints, the Hidden Geography of the Sky

An airplane navigates through the sky along a route composed of beacons and waypoints. Waypoints are defined by geographic coordinates or their bearing and distance from a beacon, and by a name, which typically takes the form of a five-letter capitalized word—EVUKI, JETSA, SABER. The idea is that they will be pronounceable and distinct to controllers and pilots regardless of their first language. The pilot’s map of the world, and the flight computers’ too, is atomized into these waypoints. They are the smallest nuggets of aerial geography, and in some sense the only such unit that matters once you leave the runway. They are the sky’s audible currency of place. … Continue reading →