"In the next five years," he said, "the world will have a practical flying aircraft that could be used for commuting.
"Centuries before any real progress toward a practical flying machine was achieved, Leonardo expressed the seeds of the ideas that would lead to humans spreading their wings," he said.
For those who spent their youth reading sci-fi magazines and dreaming about a Jetsons-style future, Dale McFetters of The Dickinson Press in North Dakota offers this thought: "Many of us are still waiting for a practical flying automobile, but the personal robot has arrived and not in the form most of us imagined.
Wilbur wrote to Chanute in late 1906, "…we are convinced that no one will be able to develop a practical flyer within five years".
LOCATION On the Amstel River and the Muntplein, one of the city's busiest squares, the hotel is sufficiently central that a visitor can arrive by taxi, tram or water taxi or make the 15-minute walk from the Central Station, a key hub in a country small enough to make train travel more practical than flying.
Suppose one night, say in May or June, every American soldier is put aboard a plane, along with as much war matériel as practical, and flown from Iraq.
It's not practical to fly cross-country for haircuts, and my barber calls if I miss a month — which makes me feel guilty, so I go back to him.
THE coming year will be a time of reckoning in business travel, as airlines reduce service at many airports and prospects fade for practical alternatives to flying, including the long-term promises of high-speed rail.
Alexis's mother, Valerie, a 26-year-old Myrtle Beach convenience-store manager who was returning home from a vacation in Ocean City, Md., offered more practical reasons for flying Hooters Air: the price ($99 each way) and the fact that food is served and the service is nonstop.
The practicals Brian Logan flew to Trinidad with BWIA (www.bwee.com), as a guest of the Trinidad and Tobago tourist board, TIDCO (020 83501009, or www.visittnt.com) Flights to Trinidad cost aboput £450, rising to £750 during carnival season.
To the Editor: Re "Airlines' Holiday Tidings" (Practical Traveler, Oct. 30), flying is now painful.
