DAY 5 - Detail & Scale Series II
Friday, October 26, 2007
The sun finally came out and stayed out today. I returned to the National Museum of Naval Aviation today essentially to pick up where I left off on Tuesday and this time got the red carpet treatment (not that they didn't treat me well on Tuesday). In addition to being given a personal tour of the aircraft restoration hangar and flightline display aircraft, I was taken up in a "cherry picker" to get a really close look (and take video and measurements) of the Cessna O-1 Bird Dog!
Click on any image to enlarge.
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The museum's aircraft restoration hangar is a short walk from the back of the museum. It is off limits to most visitors.
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I was given the "10-dollar tour" (though I would've gladly paid 20) by Les Schyder, Volunteer Head, Restoration Division. Here, he holds a piece of sheet metal with parts cut out from it by the precision hydro-sandblasting machine on the right.
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Got lamps?
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Admiral Nimitz's PB2Y Coronado flying boat; the one he flew into Tokyo Bay for the September 1945 surrender ceremonies. It will be the centerpiece of the museum's expansion... and they plan to suspend it from the ceiling!
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Marine One (converted Sikorsky S-3 Sea King) helicopter reportedly used by Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon.
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And speaking of presidential aircraft, here's the Lockheed S-3 Viking used to take "W" out to the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) so he could stand in front of that "Mission Accomplished" banner back in 2003.
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This is the actual Lockheed C-130F Hercules which launched as well as landed (!) several times aboard the USS Forrestal (CV-59) during tests back in 1963, the largest and heaviest airplane to do so on a carrier. As a museum tour guide put it: Could it be done? Yes! Was it a good idea? No!
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Another Lockheed record-setter: the P2V Neptune "Truculent Turtle" which set a world record for distance without refueling during a flight of 11,235 miles from Perth, Australia to Columbus, Ohio in 1946.
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This Grumman F-14D Tomcat on display out in the back of the main museum building is the very last F-14 to trap (make an arrested landing) aboard a carrier before the entire Navy inventory of Tomcats was decommissioned.
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In the museum parking lot is this Soviet surface-to-air guided missile (designated SA-2 Guideline by NATO) along with its transporter-launcher which proved a deadly menace to our pilots especially in Vietnam.
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Also in the parking lot is this boilerplate (full-scale mockup used for vehicle tests) Apollo spacecraft. An actual Apollo spacecraft used to carry an all-Navy crew to our first space station, Skylab, is on display inside the museum.
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