I am back in the skies this week. This time I am flying to my youngest grandson’s first birthday party. My older grandson will be there too! It is such a privilege that cross-country flights are so accessible. My wife and I can live on opposite sides of a continent from our family and still see them several times a year. We are the lucky few in human history that have this opportunity. We can do this because of our aviation industry.

A WWII RELATED AEROSPACE POST TO COMMEMORATE D-DAY: 81 YEARS AGO TODAY

I have a homework assignment for you, the next time you board a commercial aircraft: Tap your fingernails on the aircraft skin. Look at how thick it is as you enter the door.

If I could borrow Bill & Ted’s excellent time machine, I would love to go back to 1910 and bring the Wright brothers to 2025 for a four-hour cross-country flight. So many things about the jet age would blow their minds. (I can stream Apple TV+ in my seat at 35K feet!). However, I think they would be very disappointed at the inefficiency of our aircraft boarding process. Orville would ask me to explain this: “In just six decades after we flew at Kitty Hawk, you designed a passenger aircraft that could cross an ocean faster than the speed of sound. Why, in 12 decades after Kitty Hawk, haven’t you figured out how to load 200 passengers in less than 20 minutes?”

The attached image is from live video from the tail camera in the JAL A350-1000 that flew me from Tokyo to Dallas today. Look at the sun reflecting off the fuselage. The clouds below. It’s gorgeous.

I am an aircraft control systems engineer. I was part the Moog design team that developed the primary and secondary control system for this A350. Yes, I am so confident about our work, and the work of the Airbus team that created this incredible aircraft, that I would bet my life on it. Everyday, and twice on Sunday.

Sometimes great loss leads to great opportunity.

Lockheed Martin was awarded the F-35 program on October 21st, 2001. I’ll never forget that day. I was not on the winning side. I was at Boeing. I was devastated. It’s hard to lose a fighter jet program like that.

The USAF NGAD competition that was awarded today was similar in many ways to the Joint Strike Fighter competition. Many years of design and development leading to a fly off of multiple test aircraft. Along the way, there were many obstacles and many victories for both teams. A lot of sacrifice on the part of the engineers and their families. Many late nights, weekends, and holidays, in the office, the lab, or the flight line.

Like tens of thousands of people across the aerospace community, I am flying to London this weekend to attend the Farnborough International Airshow. Like all of you, I woke Friday to the CrowdStrike news and wondered how long it would take for me to get to London.

"Todd, do you still fly on Boeing aircraft?" It’s a question people ask me. My answer is “Yes” without hesitation. I wrote this article to explain why. Just to make the point, I am writing this while sitting next to the exit door, at 35,000 feet, on a 737. I shot the photo from my seat in 13A - yes row 13.