{"id":6869,"date":"2011-07-20T18:12:39","date_gmt":"2011-07-21T01:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=6869"},"modified":"2011-08-16T11:58:57","modified_gmt":"2011-08-16T18:58:57","slug":"more-atmospherics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=6869","title":{"rendered":"Air Museum Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Today’s Pima Air & Space Museum<\/a> tours were interesting.\u00a0 I had a group of 14-15 schoolkids for the first tour, kids who mostly appeared to be around ten to eleven years old.\u00a0 There were three adults with them, so at least they were chaperoned.\u00a0 Nice kids, but easily distracted.\u00a0 The number one question of the morning was “Where did you get your laser pointer?”\u00a0 The number two question was “Can I have it?”\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It was interesting to swap notes with them on the WWII stories we all grew up with.\u00a0 The American experience was similar to the Kiwi experience, but we remember different battles and campaigns.<\/p>\n

Volunteering at the air museum continues to be rewarding, and I’m learning more and more as I go along.\u00a0 I’m really happy I decided to get off my ass and do this.\u00a0 What did I learn this morning?\u00a0 This fascinating tidbit stands out: Professor Samuel Pierpont Langley launching stuffed birds from a merry-go-round<\/a> in 1885.\u00a0 Now there’s an image that’s going to stay with me.<\/p>\n

Although Langley’s attempt to be the first to fly was a failure<\/a>, for many years the Smithsonian credited him with being first, much to the chagrin of the Wright Brothers<\/a>.\u00a0 Of course Langley had an in with the Smithsonian … he had been the Smithsonian’s secretary, after all.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Eagle, Phantom, Thud<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An F-15 crew chief contacted me after I blogged about the museum’s F-15<\/a>, offering to work with me on the presentation I’ll be giving to museum staff and volunteers this winter.\u00a0 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). \u00a0 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.\u00a0 In July, 1984, it went to the 325th Tactical Training Wing at Tyndall AFB in Florida.\u00a0 It’s been at the air museum since April of 1993.\u00a0 I had pretty much ruled out the possibility that I ever flew this particular aircraft; now I know for sure.<\/p>\n

I’m grilling dinner on the gas Weber tonight: flank steak, potatoes, corn on the cob.\u00a0 Donna’s making a salad.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s Pima Air & Space Museum tours were interesting.\u00a0 I had a group of 14-15 schoolkids for the first tour, kids who mostly appeared to be around ten to eleven years old.\u00a0 There were three adults with them, so at least they were chaperoned.\u00a0 Nice kids, but easily distracted.\u00a0 The number one question of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,64,14,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flying","category-history","category-military","category-personal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6869"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7202,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6869\/revisions\/7202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}