Your column touched on an interesting theme for a future column -- manufacturer aesthetics -- or what makes the Boeing "look." I first came across this notion years ago, when friends at Grumman told me that one reason the company hated the F-111 was that it did not have the Grumman "look." This look had been sustained from the F3F biplane fighter, through the WWII Wildcats and Hellcats, the Panther and Couger jet fighters, and the Intruder bomber, all the way up to the F-14.

The F-111, designed with (and mostly by) General Dynamics was clearly not a Grumman plane.

The Douglas airliners, from the DC-3 through the jet powered DC-8, also had a certain company look. Even without seeing the three tail fins, no one would mistake a Constellation for a DC-6. Once the Boeing planes got into the jet era (the first major Boeing airliners were derived from the B-17 and B-29 airframes and don't really count), they seem to have adopted a Boeing look as well.

This airplane came on line, I believe, during the Nixon years. The first one I saw had it's nose right up to the glassed waiting room at the Indianapolis airport. My first reaction, looking right at its nose, was "Why, that's John Mitchell." I can't get past that impression; go take another look at it straight on and up close.

Nyal Williams

(Glider Guy)

Another very interesting essay about air travel from Patrick Smith. The 747 has always seemed to be an awesome machine from the runway, although I did not expect to see such fine "airplane pornogaphy" shots celebrating its beauty. Also, I never thought I'd find a column about such a seemingly banal subject this interesting until I joined Salon and started reading Smith's essays. I'd gladly take a bunch more of his well-written insights into something ordinary over Paglia's amature musicology.