Pilot's Log

This past week, somebody put out a graphic combining the new Steve Trevor from the Wonder Woman movie with the current Captain America (who as we know, has the real name of Steve Rogers) with the title Steves on a Plane.

Being the airplane/comics nerd that I am, I could not let that go past.  So to Super-Team Family: The Lost Issues, I proposed the All-Steve Squadron, which includes the above and...

* from DC's War Heroes, Steve Savage the Elder, better known as Balloon Buster

* from Avon Comics of the Fifties, Steve Savage the Younger (Captain Steve Savage)

* from TV and Charlton Comics, Steve Austin (The Six Million Dollar Man)

* and from Archie Comics, Steve Stacey: Sky Detective.

I guess I need to get into Steve Stacey.  He had a very very brief career.  He only appeared in 16 PAGES in the anthology Blue Ribbon in 1941.  His series was an okay idea for a comic, but the writing and visuals didn't work so it's no surprise to me that it ended.

In the story, Steve was a flight instructor who broke up a sabotage scheme against his flight school, and as a result, he got recruited into the Civil Aviation Authority as an investigator.  In the course of his adventure, he also saved the life of a female student pilot named Joyce Barton--who appointed herself his assistant.  Together, they fought mob hitmen, air pirates, Nazi sleeper agents and the like.

There wasn't much backstory for either character.  It was alluded that Steve was previously a competitor in air races, and before that, flew for the U.S. Mail.

Superman 2 was on one of the TV networks we get this afternoon, and I have to say it hasn't aged as well as I expected.  It got me thinking about things like speed and how we perceive motion.

I'm about average size for a human being.  If I went like the Man of Steel and flew at a rate of my own body's "flight length" per second, that's only about 5 mph--or jogging speed.  Just to put this in perspective:

* A WW1 biplane fighter at combat speed travels at five times its length per second.

* A WW2 heavy bomber or transport plane at cruise speed will also be moving at about five times its length per second.  (Because of the difference in size compared to the smaller planes of WW1, this would mean double the actual speed!)

* A WW2 fighter at its combat speed would go 15 times its length per second.

* A modern fighter jet at Mach 1 would be moving 25 times its length per second.

* A NASCAR or LeMans race car at 200 miles per hour goes nearly 20 times its length per second.

We don't think of these things when we watch fantasy movies (or sci-fi space opera) because we don't want to suspend our disbelief.  When Harry Potter is on his broomstick we don't clock his progress because he's moving at the speed of plot, not 45 miles per hour.

FP