On the first flight I took, at the age of 3 or 4, I can vividly recall a sense of wonder. In my childhood mind, the world below had somehow been transformed in a magical kind of way that was then beyond my comprehension. I recall thinking that what I was seeing – from my window seat in a British Airways BAC1-11 on a short flight to the Channel Island of Jersey – was some sort of model or toy town that we were flying over, particularly as the vehicles on the roads below looked miniature in size. How many…