Flying

For the grown-up beside a child who loves flying.

The child's own door is Flying on Spark & Anvil.

The sideline card

Three numbers to notice

The big number at the end of the runway. It is the compass direction divided by ten: 27 points about 270°, due west, and the far end of the same strip is 09.
The departure board. Times are local and a clock carries at 60, so 10:40 and 95 minutes is 12:15.
The seat number. 14C is a row and a letter: in a six-across cabin A and F are windows, C and D sit by the aisle.

On the way home, ask: “Which window seat would you pick, and what would you look for out of it?”

Ask because you are curious, and let any answer stand. Print this page for a half-page card.

Understand it

A short course for you

Numbers at the Airport4 lessons. Four short lessons on the numbers a family meets on a trip by air: adding minutes on a departure board, why each end of a runway wears a different number, how a seat map is a grid, and why the shortest route between two cities bends toward the pole.

Where it came from

A little history, and what nobody knows

The painted number

A runway is numbered by its magnetic heading, rounded to the nearest ten degrees with the last zero dropped. Magnetic north drifts, so airports sometimes repaint a runway with new numbers.

When a given runway will next need new numbers cannot be known far ahead.

Source: Runway (Wikipedia)

Your child's ladder · on Spark & Anvil

The same idea at every age

Ages 3–5How Many Tiles?
Ages 6–8Seat 14C and 1 more
Ages 9–14Runway Numbers and 2 more
Ages 15–18The Rule of Sixty and 3 more

Your child will meet this idea again at every age. The tools and courses here are the part for you.