Flying

AirTran Airways said yesterday that it plans in May to begin flying five times a week to Seattle from Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. It will mark the airport's only nonstop flights to the Northwestern city. The airline also said it would resume seasonal service to Dallas-Fort Worth and Milwaukee, in April and May, respectively. It also will add service to Charlotte, N.C., beginning in May. The news comes on the heels of an announcement that the airline would launch service to Portland, Maine, and fly daily to BWI, beginning in June.

THE FIRST TIME I ever went flying with a woman instructor, she restricted herself almost entirely to the laconic flightspeak of pilots."Compensate the rolling moment with opposite stick pressure. Now apply back pressure to maintain your pitch attitude."And with that she guided me through a series of what seemed like incredibly steep turns in both directions.She was an engineer, you see, and I think she was getting even with me.Earlier that day, when were were introduced, I had politely asked to see her license and instructor rating -- something I had never thought to ask any of the men who taught me.The request expressed what I thought was the natural curiosity of a student pilot.

The world of paleontology is abuzz with news of the discovery of fossil skeletons of a primitive bird that antedates Archaeopteryx by 75 million years. Found in the 225-million-year-old Dockum Foundation in Texas, Protoayis texensis is described as more birdlike than Archaeopteryx and suggests that birds were flying around for ages before the famous ''first bird'' was discovered in 1861, shortly after publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859. It implies that Archaeopteryx was not an early bird form but really a throw-back to its reptilian ancestors.

An estimated 11 million Americans will take to the skies this Thanksgiving week and very, very few of them will end up scattered over cornfields.Wait, let me put that better:Statistics show that your chances of dying in a plane crash are 1 in 4.6 million, while your chances of dying in a car crash are 1 in 125.So don't worry about dying in a plane crash.You probably won't even make it to the airport.But given that you are much more likely to die on the highways than in the air, how come so many people are afraid of flying?

Go fly a kite! This time, that's not a put-down.The Friends of St. John's are sponsoring the Great Kite Fly this weekend as a way to help the community get to know "that liberal arts school" where students study for oral debates and don't get grades.If there's sunshine and a breeze over College Creek that's not too strong Saturday, expect to see hundreds of visitors trampling the greens at St. John's College, sending up their favorite flying devices."It's so that more people will come to St. John's and see the great things going on there," said Esther Slaff, chairwoman of the event.

With a cast of 50 hailing from 14 countries, Cirque du Soleil's Varekai isn't merely an acrobatic extravaganza, it could serve as a model of international understanding. After all, juggling and balancing acts are often the core of diplomacy. Unfortunately, these feats are well beyond the skill sets of most diplomats. But if they could learn by watching, they'd quickly realize there's nothing "mere" about the acrobatics on display under the blue-and-yellow tent that Cirque du Soleil has pitched at Harbor Point.

Allen Ault swooshed a multicolored stunt kite back and forth against a blue sky while Paul Hines stood about 100 yards away holding a black baseball cap in his outstretched hand. Using his thumbs, Ault made the bat-shaped kite twirl and swirl in the gusts above Rockfield Park in Bel Air. Slowly, he lowered the tip of the kite into his friend's cap. Then, with a quick jerk, the kite soared upward again. "My kites just need the touch of the master," Ault said with a chuckle. "They know when I am on the other end of the string."

Allen Ault swooshed a multicolored stunt kite back and forth against a blue sky while Paul Hines stood about 100 yards away holding a black baseball cap in his outstretched hand. Using his thumbs, Ault made the bat-shaped kite twirl and swirl in the gusts above Rockfield Park in Bel Air. Slowly, he lowered the tip of the kite into his friend's cap. Then, with a quick jerk, the kite soared upward again. "My kites just need the touch of the master," Ault said with a chuckle. "They know when I am on the other end of the string."

Blanche D. Carrie Hutchinson, whose aviation adventures as a member of "The Flying Hutchinsons -- America's First Flying Family" during the 1920s and 1930s brought them worldwide fame, died Oct. 24 of complications of heart disease at Flagler Hospital in St. Augustine, Fla.The former Ruxton resident was 93 and had lived in Ponte Vedra, Fla., since 1990. Mrs. Hutchinson and her husband, George R. Hutchinson, and two daughters, Kathryn and Janet, made headlines in 1931 when they flew to every state capital in the union proving that flying was safe, reliable transportation .The next year the family crashed in eastern Greenland while attempting to cross the Atlantic in a two-engine Sikorsky amphibian plane.

Keith Ericksen Flight instructor American Pilot Services, Westminster Salary --$30,000 Age --31 Years on the job --Six How he got started --"I was always intrigued by aviation. When other kids were running around playing baseball, I was in my room building airplane models." He took his first flight while still in high school. He then went on to get his associate's degree from Carroll Community College but would spend any free time at Carroll County Regional Airport, taking as many lessons as he could afford.