Flying through the air in a machine transfixed imaginations; many dreamt of it before it could ever be made a reality. Such longings, such desires and undeniable wishes on a mass scale suggest a collective dream. 

In cultural terms, flight has had a metaphorical role symbolizing on the one hand self-fulfillment, transcendence, an escape velocity from everyday restrictions (common punishment when adolescents’ misbehavior is for them to be ‘grounded’, to be confided to the domestic space), and on the other the anxiety of the fall. The history of the aeroplane is a continuing narrative of both freedom and fear.  For some, the role of aircraft in military exploits, the commonplace nature of mass plane travel and its repercussions on the environment have made the idea of liberation as remote as the utopian ideals first associated with aviation. 

Perhaps the aeroplane faces us with our own contradictions. Our urges have been made technologically concrete, by a literal machine for dreams – a flying dream machine. Dreams, of course, are never simply benign and collective fantasies are still coalesceing around flying in this period of mass individualization.