Bonnie told you that I would tell you about our
airplane-related museum visits. In two
days we visited the National Museum of the US Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air
Force Base and the Huffman Prairie Flying Field Interpretive Center that
described the Wright Brothers work and the Wright Brothers Memorial. In doing that we traced the earliest serious
attempts to actually fly a heavier-than-air machine to hypersonic, almost
out-of-the-atmosphere flight. Mind boggling,
yup. Yes, the Air Force Museum included
ballistic missiles and space travel, but that’s not really “flight.”
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| The Early "Flying" Machine |
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| Wright Memorial |
The Wright Brothers started with a dream very early in the
twentieth century, then a compulsion, to create a flying machine. What shape should the wings be? Well, watch the birds; how do they create
lift with their wings? Oh well, that
didn’t work! We can’t flap that way. If we create a glider that seems to work, a but,
how can we add power, yeah, some kind of engine to create forward
propulsion? Yes, an engine, but what
shape should the “propeller” be? OK,
we’re making progress, but how can we control the direction the machine turns,
or even goes higher or lower?
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| National US Air Force Museum |
Move from those basic questions to a world at war (what
became known as World War I). How can
we, should we, use these flying machines to further the war effort? At first the War Department thought flying
machines were mere toys, but quickly move through mere observation missions to
actually dropping bombs from biplanes to the 1940s, war in Europe AGAIN, and
DAMN the Japanese just bombed Pearl Harbor.
Companies that had been making automobiles abruptly retooled to make
military airplanes (and military trucks and tanks and big and small weapons and
c-rations, and ...) and were finding ways to make airplanes fly faster, higher,
farther and carry much heavier loads.
That’s the stuff that was on display at the National US Air Force
Museum. In their section on the Cold War
period, there was even an EC-121, “Warning Star” (a military adaptation of the Lockeed
Super Constellation) the radar plane used by some of my Air Force colleagues. That’s a lot of airplane history for two
days.
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| 1911 Metallurgique |
Bonnie also told you that I would comment on our visits to a
couple car museums. First we visited the
Auburn-Duesenberg-Cord Museum in Fort Wayne.Never heard of any of these cars?
Yup, they were great cars in their day.
Ancient history? Not really, but
they were fabulous cars; mostly custom made hand-assembled for the wealthy. Here’s a picture of one of the sports cars of
its day; sporty enuf? These were exquisite cars, highly polished
for museum display. Serious credit to
the folks who lovingly restored these cars.
In a few cases, the museum displayed pictures of the derelict cars
before they were restored – ugh, rust buckets! |
| 1904 Studebaker Model C |
We also visited the Studebaker museum. The early Studebakers were horse carts with
small electric engines. WAY ahead of
their time? Well maybe, but with the
battery technology of the late 19th century, electric cars could
only go very short distances before needing a recharge. Hmm, we’re still working on that. So, on to gasoline power. The big difference was that the Studebaker
family tried to make cars that the average customer might be able to
afford. Sadly, they failed to adapt as
others moved to less expensive vehicles created on efficient assembly lines. We’ll have information on the Ford museum in
a couple months.
Since we’ve been traveling in a motorhome, we thought it
appropriate to visit a Motorhome Museum and three motorhome factories. First we toured the Fleetwood RV assembly
plant. They provided an excellent tour
on their factory floor giving us an up-close picture of how they make RVs. Since this was our first RV assembly plant
tour, we didn’t know what to expect, but we were impressed with the amount of
hands-on assembly work involved. Yes,
much is automated, but still a lot of the work is hands-on assembly. As expected, they wouldn’t allow pictures
during the tour. Apparently they don’t
want us to steel the ideas being integrated into their new models. Fleetwood has transitioned to a larger line
of RVs, thirty-five or longer. While
they probably wanted us to buy a new RV, I bought a new latch for our screen
door. It works great. Sorry, no pictures
During a break in the Fleetwood tour, one of our fellow
tourists told us about a small RV manufacturer not far away, Phoenix Cruiser
RVs. Since we had talked about moving to
a smaller RV, this tour made sense.
These folks have a small, custom assembly operation. They focus on “downsizing” producing twenty
to twenty-seven foot long RVs, staying as versatile as possible within the
smaller size. Could be just my impression,
but it seemed that these folks were much more focused on quality control than
their larger counterparts.
As we traveled toward Minnesota, we stopped, well detoured,
to the Winnebego Assemby plant in Northern Iowa. Since they are the largest RV manufacturer
they gave the least impressive tour – emphasis on the fabrics to be used, but
little emphasis on the strength or durability of the materials that comprise
the walls and roof of the RV. Yes, they
produce a wide variety of RVs and we were impressed with some of their models.
Since we hadn’t had enough of motorhomes, we visited the
RV/MH Hall of Fame Museum. Their
displays ranged from boxes of camping supplies mounted on the beds of the
earliest pickup trucks to the 1960s vintage trailers to some custom (for
celebrities) motorhomes.
There’s no way to summarize this description of ways that we
have found or invented to get around.
Probably the most impressive was the description of the problems and
successes in creating machines that could actually fly. Somehow I managed to put myself into their
shoes, working to solve the problem; thinking, “there has to be a way to make
this %#@&*ed thing fly.” Wow!
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