Lookin'4AMERICA #2

Lookin’4America No. 2
The Museum of Flight, Boeing Field, Seattle, WA

I hope you enjoyed the side trip to McMinnville, Or, and the Evergreen Aviation Museum housing the Howard Hughes Flying Boat. Experiencing the “one and only example” of any item is always a rewarding experience. So how about seeing one of only two in all of the United States?

Let’s visit another aviation museum for that experience. Located between Tacoma and downtown Seattle, WA, at Boeing Field, is the Boeing Museum of Flight. It’s an absolutely spectacular collection of near current and vintage aircraft housed in a museum built just to display it.

One of the displays that draws many off of Interstate 5 is the British/French Concorde Supersonic Airliner that was retired from service several years ago. There are four examples of this unique airplane outside of Europe; one is found at the Smithsonian Institution’s Air and Space Museum Annex in Virginia and the other is right here at Boeing Field. A total of 20 Concordes were built.
While the “Spruce Goose” is housed inside a structure built for that purpose, the Concorde and other large aircraft are found out of doors.

You enter the surprisingly narrow cabin of the Concorde through the rear cabin door and progress up the aisle towards the cockpit. Since the cost of a seat for a transatlantic flight on this speedy bird cost more than $10,000, one might expect a bit of luxury in the accommodations. If anything, the exact opposite is true. The seats appear to be as narrow as those found on some of the budget airliners of today and their plain black leather upholstery seemed stark and unappealing. The narrow cabin of the aircraft accommodates two seats on either side of the center aisle. Coupled with the tiny windows the feeling I got was rather cramped and claustrophobic. I guess a passenger weighed the discomfort against the speed and decided it was worth it. A flight from London to New York, took less than 5 hours. Because that center aisle is constantly filled with other people touring the plane, taking a photograph is impossible.

Though the cockpit door has been removed, a plexi-glass panel prevents entry to it. The vast array of instruments, meters, dials, and levers one can see, however, is mind-boggling. After years of successful service, the Concorde was briefly removed from service following the tragic loss of one such plane and all the passengers aboard in France. The planes again resumed flying for a few years after a thorough investigation of the crash proved it to be an almost freak experience.
Next to the Concorde is the first jet-powered Air Force One—a Boeing 707, used by President’s Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. It is officially known as Special Air Missions 970 (its tail number is 86970) or Air Force One when the President is actually aboard. It replaced Eisenhower’s Super Constellation in 1959. It remained in the Presidential Fleet until 1996.

This plane is also open for viewing and affords a rare view into an environment that is usually reserved for a very select few individuals.

Mrs. Carter was the moving force behind changing the paint job on Air Force One. Notice the blue color does not cover the top of the plane at the cockpit as all other examples of this plane do. Mrs. Carter felt it was too flamboyant and showy and so it was changed.

As in the Concorde, visitors enter through the rear cabin door and proceed forward. Having just toured the Concorde I couldn’t escape the feeling that this was a much larger airplane. The feeling of spaciousness was a wonderful change from the cramped interior of the supersonic jet. Though the Boeing 707 is not a wide-bodied airplane, the interior of Air Force One feels almost as though it is because it is configured for so few people. In the interior photograph, note how the thickness of the walls and ceiling change as one enters the presidential area of the plane. The change is due to the amount of shielding and bulletproofing materials contained in them. Those with less stature—perhaps the news reporters--were not afforded such protection. This is the real deal, not a movie set. This is where those powerful people sat and made decisions that impacted our lives and those of millions of others around the world. This is just like standing in the actual oval office in the White House and the sense of history it imparts is thrilling and chilling at the same time.




A poster near the plane reads, “Visit Air Force One and ask questions like…

Was the “Watch your step” sign put up specifically for President Ford?

Is “50 Years of Cabin Pressure” a word play or a pun?

Can the President veto the “No Smoking” sign and can a 2/3 majority in Congress put it back?

Note that the graphic of the plane on this poster shows the classic paint scheme. In all of the blue and white airplanes with the words United States of America above the windows, only the presidential planes carry the blue paint over the cockpit.

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A Presidential Aircraft Aside...Other examples you can see and tour.

(The piston-powered Douglas DC-6 (Military designation C-118) used by both John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson can be seen and toured at the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona. This is the aircraft aboard which Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president in Dallas, Texas, immediately following the Kennedy assasination. Also on display here is the Lockheed Constellation used as the presidential airplane by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was known as Columbine and was never referred to as Air Force One.)

At the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, SAM 27000 (tail number) is displayed in a building resembling a hanger. You may have seen it at various presidential election debates. It stands atop pedestals 25' off the floor of the building. Also displayed is a Marine One helicopter used by President Lyndon Johnson.

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A flying automobile sits to the side with one wing assembled for flight and the other folded for land travel.

In this part of the museum you can visit the non-operational control tower and watch and listen to planes arriving and leaving Boeing Field. You can also try your hand at flying a real flight simulator. Good luck.








The second building holds what is the most moving and meaningful series of displays in the collection: The Personal Courage Wing. Here are beautifully restored WWI and WWII fighter aircraft, some on their wheels on the floor and others soar, suspended from the ceiling. These are not mere display pieces, however, as each is part of a diorama depicting not

only the thrilling fear of dogfights but the life of the pilots, the mechanics, and the mission planners on the ground. Their story is told through

speakers hidden throughout the displays. You’ll feel a part of the action in the dioramas and displays. There are observation balloons, French and German airfields, a pilots’ lounge, a French farmhouse, a battlefield trench, a Quonset hut and an aircraft carrier flight deck for you to experience.

We enjoy aviation museums since many of the dramatic advances have occurred during our lifetime. The Boeing Museum of Flight is one that deserves a visit as you drive north on I-5.

Lookin'4AMERICA, No. 1 Evergreen Aviation Museum, McMinnville, Oregon

This is the first of a series describing in detail some of the places we’ve been while we’ve been out LOOKIN4AMERICA. It occurs to me that some of you may pass through some of these areas and not stop to see what is there simply because no one who has been there has taken the time to describe it.

Most people are familiar with the term “Spruce Goose” and many people actually know that it refers to an airplane built at the close of WWII by Howard Hughes, under contract with the War Department. That contract called for the building of an intercontinental bomber capable of flying at least 4,000 miles without refueling and being able to LAND ON THE WATER. Airfields on land were few and far between in the Pacific so amphibian aircraft (capable of landing on both water and land—the famous Catalina PBY a prime example) and flying boats (aircraft that could only land on water) were desired because they could land where no airfields were available; even on the high seas to rendezvous with ships of the fleet with supplies or personnel.

Martin-Mars built the largest production model of such a plane during

WWII. Five of these very large flying boats were built with two surviving today. Those two are owned by a Canadian firm, Coulsen Aerial Tankers, and are used as aerial tankers for wildfire suppression. These large planes can scoop water from a lake as they fly just skimming the surface and then deliver their 8000 gallons on a fire miles away. The photos were taken during the wildfire incidents in Southern California during the fall of 2007, as the plane was about to touch down on the waters of Lake Ellsinore.

The Mars Aerial Tankers constitute another interesting sidetrip. They can be seen all summer long--when they're not employed fighting fire--on Sproat Lake in Central Vancouver Island, British Columbia. If you're lucky, you'll get to see and hear one of the high speed warmup runs that one of the two planes makes each day. On the day we visited we were invited to go out to one of the moored airplanes and tour its interior. The flightdeck is so large that I think you could hold a senior prom there.

Because “strategic materials” were in such short supply during the War the contract also required that the airplane be built with materials not listed as “strategic”. This meant steel, aluminum; copper, rubber and other products were either not to be used at all or in very minimal quantities.

Aviation genius Howard Hughes was granted the contract to build a large flying boat made of wood. The term “Spruce Goose” is really a misnomer in that no spruce wood was used in building the plane.

Because of huge cost overruns and the ending of the WWII conflict, Congress cancelled the contract. With the plane so near completion, however, Hughes invested more millions of his own money to complete the plane.

Then, on a clear Southern California afternoon, Hughes taxied the plane out of its hanger near the Inner Harbor in Long Beach, California, and slowly taxied back and forth across the harbor. This appearance had been widely reported to be purely a taxi test and no attempt to fly the plane was to be made.

My uncle, with whom we were living at the time having recently moved to California from our home in Chicago, Illinois, gathered me up and the two of us headed to Long Beach to witness this first test of the largest airplane ever built. We found a place along the rail at the bluffs in Long Beach, along with thousands of other interested spectators.

As I recall, the plane, engines roaring, passed from left to right in front of us, returning in the opposite direction shortly. I distinctly remember the engines sounding much louder on the next pass and before our eyes the plane lifted off the water and soared through the air for a considerable distance prior to settling down onto the water again. As a boy of 8 or 9 I had no idea I had just witnessed aviation history. All I knew was that it was a really neat, really big airplane.

Following that one brief flight the “Spruce Goose” was retired to a specially built hanger along one of the sloughs near the harbor where it was lifted out of the water on a cradle and bathed in a climate controlled atmosphere.

I had one more personal experience with the “Goose” when I was in the Navy and the ship in which I served was stationed at the Naval Station in Long Beach. I frequently drove past the hanger where the “Goose” was stored and one could barely see the windows of the cockpit through some windows on the front of the hanger.

Years later, following the tragic end to the life of Howard Hughes, the “Goose” was sold to a group of private citizens who erected a huge geodesic dome structure near the Queen Mary luxury liner in Long Beach Harbor. They installed the “Goose” inside and sold tickets for visitors to walk around the plane and see it.
Finally, having been less than a huge financial success, the group sold the building and the plane. The plane was purchased by Evergreen Aviation of Oregon, which pledged to build an appropriate permanent home for the orphaned plane. The “Goose” made its trek north in pieces lashed to sea-going barges and languished in a storage area of the airport in McMinnville, Oregon, while the near building was completed.

Finally, the enormous structure was completed and the “Goose” was once again available for all to see. McMinnville is just a short pleasant ride from Salem, Oregon.

The plane rests comfortably as the centerpiece of a wonderful aviation museum containing many other planes. Many of them are arranged around and under the Hughes Flying Boat and provide a scale by which to measure the amazing dimensions of this plane. Docents give lectures governing the plane revealing little details few if any people have ever heard before. For example, did you know the tail threatened to simply fall off during that short flight? There were technicians in the tail standing on stepladders when the flight was made and they had made adjustments in some of the control cables, which were held together by clamping pliers. Before being permanently mothballed in its Long Beach Hanger, large “staples” were added on the fuselage near the tail to strengthen the structure. The fact that Hughes had this type of work done indicates that he actually intended to fly it again. Alas, it was never to be. The gigantic airplane built almost exclusively of wood—the only one ever—was simply to fade into the background of aviation history until resurrected in the 1970’s.

The specifications of the plane are as follows:

Performance specifications are projected.
General characteristics
Crew: 3
Length: 218 ft 8 in (66.65 m)
Wingspan: 319 ft 11 in (97.54 m)
Height: 79 ft 4 in (24.18 m)
Fuselage height: 30 ft (9.1 m)
Loaded weight: 400,000 lb (180,000 kg)
Powerplant: 8× Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major radial engines, 3,000 hp (2,240 kW) each
Propellers: 8 x four-bladed Hamilton Standard, diameter 17 ft 2 in (5.23 m) each
Performance
Cruise speed: 220 mph (353.98 km/h)
Range: 3,000 mi (4,800 km)
Service ceiling 20,900 ft (6,370 m)
Projected endurance (cruise): 20.9 hrs

The wingspan runs 19' wider than a football field! That tail stands 8 stories high! Seeing it, even in the crowded environment of the museum is a WOW! experience.

Firefighters with extinguishers were stationed at each of the eight engines inside the wings because the engineers truly believed the engines could set the wings on fire.

One of the more interesting pairings finds a Douglas Aircraft DC-3 (also known as the C-47 in its military garb as seen in the photo above) displayed beneath the wing of the “Goose”. Its shiny silver rudder can be seen near the center of this panoramic photo.


Furthering my attempt to provide perspective, the pontoons hanging from the wings are as large as our first Sea Ray cabin cruiser and the tail of this giant soars 8 stories above the floor of the museum. Below is a photo of a display showing silhouettes of the “Goose” overlaid on that of a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet. Note that the 747 are slightly longer but that of the flying boat dwarfs its wingspan.


In the collection of the Museum are both warbirds and civilian aircraft of note. An original Piper Cub Cadet hangs off the port wingtip of the “Goose”.

Many, if not most of the planes are in flying condition. There are examples of everything from the very first jet-powered planes to an SR-71 “Blackbird” spyplane that sits beneath the starboard wing.

The entire display, understandably crowded, is worth seeing if, for no other reason, to simply be awed by the sheer size of the “Goose”. Visitors are allowed inside the fuselage but the flight deck is off limits. The view of the interior is amazing. The catwalk to the tail seems to stretch for a city block. The wooden structure is also clearly visible.

So, rather than race through the entire State of Oregon on Interstate 5 or remain completely on the coast, a detour to McMinnville to visit the Evergreen Aviation Air Museum is well worth the trip. You may even see a 747 that has been converted to an aerial tanker for use on wildfires. The DC-10 currently in use is large but the 747 are bigger and holds more retardant. At this writing I do not believe it has been certified by the Department of the Interior for actual fire deployment yet.

Here are a few more pictures of some of the other planes in the collection:

A WWII Navy divebomber.

A German WWII Messerschmidt ME-109 fighter/bomber

Feeling better. The weather's better too

After my last post--admittedly sort of a downer (Hey, I was sick!), I thought I'd better let the other shoe drop.



Yes, I've now just about fully recovered but it wasn't fun. The malady swept the entire family with Laurie having the same respiratory problems I experienced and Kevin relapsing into what sounds like a terrible case of the flue with fever, chills, and sweats. Even Judy came down with what seemed to be a more normal cold without all of the dramatic trimmings the rest of us experienced. I'm glad to say it sounds like we're all on the mend but it was a heck of a price to pay for a family reunion.



The physician I saw said he sees many grandparents just after the holidays who have been in close proximity to their extended families only to become very ill. It's a gift that just keeps on giving.



As if to celebrate our recovery, the weather here on the Desert has improved dramatically also. Daytime temperatures have risen into the 70's and we've resumed our daily dips in the hot mineral pools. Ahhhh, it's wonderful.



We visited the Family Motor Coach Assoc. rally in Indio where we purchased a kit to coat the rubber roof on our motorhome with a silicone product guaranteed for many years. $$$$$. There is a young man here in the RV resort who does a fine job cleaning and polishing and I think we can probably hire him to clean our roof and apply this stuff. It goes on with a paint roller in a very thick coat. We haven't had any leaks yet but we're concerned enough about the possibility that we felt this was necessary.



In running about we've also resumed geocaching locating a few more recently. The one cache was called "The General Store" and when we removed the rocks to find it in its hiding place the reason for the name was right there--a tin container that once held some Hershey product with printing on it that reads, "General Store". Another was called "R2D2" and amounted to just a 35mm film container with a log rolled up inside for signing. We return home to log our finds on the internet at http://www.geocaching.com/ and check on the activities of both of our geocaching kids. Fun stuff.



The world famous "Canadian Brass" is performing in concert early next month and we plan to attend. They have the most wonderful sound. It should be really enjoyable.



We've also sort of spearheaded a trip to the Albuquerque Hot Air Balloon Fiesta in 2008. We've developed a group of 4 couples total who will attend. The last time we went to the fiesta we went with a Monaco Coach rally. This time we'll do it on our own. $85 a night for dry camping (no utilities of any kind), including admission to the event. We'll spend three full days at the fiesta filling our eyes with the wonderful sights and our tummies with delicious Sopapillas. The timing for this event is early October 2008.

I posed for a portrait today

I had my picture taken today at a classy facility in Rancho Mirage. It is named after a former President of the United States. Locally it is simply known as the Eisenhower while its official title is the Eisenhower Medical Center. Their radiology departments are renown and I was privileged to take advantage of one of them.

While home for the holidays I somehow contracted one of the worst colds I’ve ever had. I assumed that a trip to a lower altitude with a drier atmosphere would help alleviate the shortness of breath and tremendous congestion I was experiencing at home. I was wrong.

In the past several days the condition has undergone several mutations; one of which had me believing I had all but recovered. I’ve been often accused of being a misguided optimist. Well, instead of being cured it suddenly got worse. I decided I needed some medical attention this morning and we drove over to the Eisenhower Urgent Care Center in Indian Wells. The doctor listened to me breathing, got out his stethascope and listened more and said, “We need a chest X-Ray right now. I “ It’s an old joke and he didn’t laugh. Unfortunately, their X-Ray technician had called in sick today so we had to go to the center at the hospital itself to get it done.

After returning to the Urgent Care Center the doctor looked at the X-Ray and said, “I see no pneumonia.” What you have is a severe bronchial infection and we’ll get you started on some anti-biotics.”

Well, I wish I hadn’t had to go to the Urgent Care Center but it was my first experience with such a facility. I left with a very favorable impression of this specialized medical facility. With the exception of their X-Ray tech being sick, I was seen quickly, the staff was friendly and considerate, and the facility was spotless. Their doctors have no desire to become your primary physician. They keep minimal records on your visit. Even the digital X-Rays which had been put on a CD were given to me for my viewing pleasure. I delayed seeking help for several days because I didn’t want to endure the whole hospital emergency room scene.

Living away from our primary medical doctors creates some complications. Simply having medical insurance isn’t really enough if you need help. To whom do you go to get it. The urgent care facilities fill that gap. If the doctor today had felt there was a need for more intensive examination, he would have referred me to someone at the hospital.