Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jon-Sanders/212333 Jon Sanders

    2:21 — HI MOMMY!!!

  • http://berrywing.com berrywing

    No better description of “Unbridled Joy”. Great video!

  • waetherman

    This inspires me to get my pilot license.

  • http://twitter.com/bobledrew Bob LeDrew

    When I turned 30, I was given a ride in a Boeing Stearman as a birthday gift. Still remember it vividly. I feel the way she feels at 1:08 every time I am in a plane and we lift off. Whatever bad things we do, we humans with our big ol’ brains are pretty amazing to be able to figure out how to make ourselves fly, and to give one of our fellow creatures that kind of experience. Marvelous. 

  • kallikanzaros

    Oh jeez… this is going to be my designated Unicorn Chaser from now on

  • http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

    Well there’s a complex new recipe of reactions… goosebumps, laughing, and a lump in my throat, all at the same time, just from watching.

    Imagine hers.

  • quesarah

    That smile at liftoff – holding her arms out the open windows to fly.  Lovely, pure joy. Birth of a pilot?

  • http://doran.pacifist.net/ Doran

    After a morning spent reading news about crappy people doing crappy things, I needed this. That joyous smile on her face will surely get me through the day.

  • legsmalone

     My dad’s friend took me up in a similar plane when I was 6. Pretty much the same experience, but I got to fly us in a circle as it was dual control. Awesome.

  • kartwaffles

    Although that plane looked yellow like a Cub, I noticed a “Champ” logo on the motor cowling in a few shots. It might be this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeronca_Champion

    Either way, that was the coolest plane ride I’ve seen in a long time.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=name&id=1118134806 Doc_S

      Definitely the Aeronca. The Cub has exposed cylinder heads through the cowling. Both are great little planes, though, and very similar otherwise.

      • hugh crawford

        It sure looks like a Citabria to me. A neighbor used to take me up all the time with the door off to go check up on what was happening in the middle of corn fields and the like. At least that’s what we told my mom. Great camera planes, and I can remember flying low enough to smell the different crops.

      • nettdata

         Super Cubs have enclosed heads.

      • http://profiles.google.com/westcarleton Ray Perkins

        Used to own one of these. And the door has been removed, not just opened. I’ve flown with the door off, and it was a real rush.This was mine: http://i.imgur.com/C2otc.jpg

    • nettdata

       It’s a 46 Champ.  Even says so in the video comments by the submitter.

  • Marya

    I’m not a troll,
    I swear,
    I swear I am not a hater and a troll,
    But I can’t help but think of all the brave face put on by the children who had to sleep in the car last night, because their mommie was evicted, they had no splendid grampa, and they had no other place to go. 

    Didn’t anybody, aside from myself, think of the 45%?

    • http://twitter.com/NelC NelC

      We can’t think of the whatever-percent all the time, still less during every happy moment. That way lies depression and madness. Believe me, I know. Just be happy for a little girl for a moment. Then get back to your charity work with a will.

      Tldr: Yes, you are trolling.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=name&id=1118134806 Doc_S

      So, no one on the planet can have a good time until all injustice, inequity, and hardship are eliminated? You must be a real hit at parties.

    • chaopoiesis

      The bad things never end, the good things make it worthwhile: if you can always think of both, at the same time, without getting stuck on one or the other, you’ll be a better person.

    • Antinous / Moderator

      Yes.  Yes, you are a troll.

    • miasm

      I’m sure I’m not being rude, but it’s just your attitude,
      It’s tearing me apart, It’s ruining everything

      I swore, I swore I would be true, and honey, so did you.
      So why were you holding her hand? Is that the way we stand?
      Were you lying all the time? Was it just a game to you?
      But I’m in so deep. You know I’m such a fool for you.

      You got me wrapped around your finger, ah, ha, ha.
      Do you have to let it linger? Do you have to, do you have to,
      Do you have to let it linger?

  • knoxblox

    Such a joy sometimes to realize how lucky we are to be born in this day and age…the miracle of sustained flight, advanced medicine (fighting asthma, acid reflux, poor vision, amputations/burns/scarring, etc.), deep sea/space exploration, and most of all, the internet.

    Seriously wish they could get the time travel thing solved so I could go back and give Ovid the opportunity to experience what flight was really like.

    • Mark Dow

      I always think I’d like to be sitting next to HD Thoreau on his first flight.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1023295591 Carl Pietrantonio

    You guys made me cry with this one. Good work!

  • Loafer

    I feel like that every time I get on a plane and I’m 37 :)

  • http://johnstonsigns.blogspot.com/ dejoh

    Great smile.  She should remember it for a lifetime.

  • igpajo

    Now that was a wonderful thing!

  • ohio

    I just turned forty six and this video took me back forty years to my father taking me up in his J-3 with both doors wide open. Thank you.

  • jtegnell

    Too bad we have that irritating music drowning out the child’s reactions.