My copy of the January 2002 issue of "Air & Space/Smithsonian," the magazine published by the Smithsonian Institution's Air & Space Museum was in today's mail delivery.

It features a lengthy "Special Report" on page 32 discussing the September 11 attacks and possible responses to prevent something like this from happening again while minimizing the inevitable disruption of travel -- but what I want to pass along is the much shorter note at the front of the magazine that I think many of the people who frequent Flyertalk will appreciate and empathize with.

No author is cited beyond "the editors".

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Not least among the grave injuries the world suffered on September 11 was the desecration of airliners. On that day, every advancement ever made in aviation -- every piece of precision engineering, every tweak in performance and safety, all the worldwide, decades-long efforts made to improve air travel -- was repudiated by the intent to destroy.

Will we ever look at airplanes in the same way again? Will those of us who always looked up when we heard an airplane overhead, just for the pleasure of watching it for a few moments, still be able to do that without flashing back on the gruesome images of that day?

Today aviation's future seems uncertain, but for comfort we need only look at its history: a hundred years of great struggle and almost incomprehensible progress. We don't believe the momentum has changed.

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[This message has been edited by greggwiggins (edited 11-26-2001).]