Air Museum Update

Today’s Pima Air & Space Museum tours were interesting.  I had a group of 14-15 schoolkids for the first tour, kids who mostly appeared to be around ten to eleven years old.  There were three adults with them, so at least they were chaperoned.  Nice kids, but easily distracted.  The number one question of the morning was “Where did you get your laser pointer?”  The number two question was “Can I have it?”  For my second tour, the one where I cover two hangars filled with WWII aircraft, I had three adult New Zealanders, people my own age.  It was interesting to swap notes with them on the WWII stories we all grew up with.  The American experience was similar to the Kiwi experience, but we remember different battles and campaigns.

Volunteering at the air museum continues to be rewarding, and I’m learning more and more as I go along.  I’m really happy I decided to get off my ass and do this.  What did I learn this morning?  This fascinating tidbit stands out: Professor Samuel Pierpont Langley launching stuffed birds from a merry-go-round in 1885.  Now there’s an image that’s going to stay with me.

Although Langley’s attempt to be the first to fly was a failure, for many years the Smithsonian credited him with being first, much to the chagrin of the Wright Brothers.  Of course Langley had an in with the Smithsonian … he had been the Smithsonian’s secretary, after all.

The air museum’s F-15 Eagle finally has some company: it’s now sitting next to an F-4C Phantom and a Wild Weasel version of the F-105 Thunderchief.  Sometime between last Wednesday and today they must have towed the new aircraft over, and that’s one of the things I like about volunteering one day a week: there’s almost always something new.

An F-15 crew chief contacted me after I blogged about the museum’s F-15, offering to work with me on the presentation I’ll be giving to museum staff and volunteers this winter.  He very kindly tracked down the assignment history of the museum’s Eagle: it was originally assigned to the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing at Langley AFB in Virginia (a base named after the very Professor Langley who once chucked stuffed ducks into the air from a spinning merry-go-round).   In May of 1982 it was reassigned to the 405th Tactical Training Wing at Luke AFB in Arizona, so it was a Luke bird, but long after I trained there.  In July, 1984, it went to the 325th Tactical Training Wing at Tyndall AFB in Florida.  It’s been at the air museum since April of 1993.  I had pretty much ruled out the possibility that I ever flew this particular aircraft; now I know for sure.

I’m grilling dinner on the gas Weber tonight: flank steak, potatoes, corn on the cob.  Donna’s making a salad.  We have a Woody Allen movie from Netflix, Match Point, and if there’s nothing on TV (is there ever anything on TV in the summer?), that’s what we’ll watch.