Aviator goggles 1920s–1930s metal, glass, fur, fabric, elastic. Courtesy of San Diego Air & Space Museum
Early airplanes had open cockpits and aviators needed special equipment and protective gear in order to do their jobs.
Examples of some of those items are now on exhibit at the San Francisco International Airport. Flight Gear: Pilot Equipment from the Open-Cockpit Era features more than forty examples of flight suits, jackets, helmets, goggles and other accessories dating from the 1910s to the 1940s. Also on exhibit are period photographs, advertising, and catalog illustrations featuring the artifacts displayed.
A. G. Spalding & Bros. "Aviators' Equipment" catalogue one-piece flying suits illustration 1930 ink on paper SFO Museum
Flight Gear: Pilot Equipment from the Open-Cockpit Era is on view through August 1, 2012 in the San Francisco Airport Commission Aviation Library and Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum in the International Terminal Departures Level adjacent to the Boarding Area ‘A’ entrance. Admission is free. Hours: 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sunday through Friday.
“A marriage proposal in the rotunda at the F and G concourses. The guy got down on one knee right in the middle of traffic. The couple told us (Travelers assistance) that they had meet in the MSP Airport and that is where he wanted to propose. She said yes…..”
“I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, but moved up here in the early 70’s when I was in college. I recall at that time that the Lindbergh Terminal had pay toilets. $.10 to use a stall! …”
“I remember when they filmed Airport there- mom & dad brought me to the airport to watch them film the scene where Van Heflin buys the insurance at the little insurance kiosk, which was located in the upper level where the shops are all located now (If I recall correctly). Can’t watch the movie without recognizing ‘my’ airport.”
MSP has also posted some photos from its archive. My favorite is this one of the Beatles arriving at the airport in 1965.
And, if you read through the list of 50 ‘fun facts’ about MSP’s Terminal 1 – Lindbergh, you’ll learn that there was once both a drugstore and a children’s nursery in the Ticketing Lobby, that the first baggage carousels were installed in 1970 and that the pay toilets weren’t removed until the mid-1970s.
In a previous post, I told you about some of the offbeat museums I included in my Bizarre Museums slide-show for Bing Travel.
That list included Leila’s Hair Museum in Independence, Mo., the Museum of Bad Art in Dedham, Ma., and the Plumbing Museum in Watertown, Ma. The Cockroach Hall of Fame, in Plano, Tx. was also on that list. It’s where more than two dozen costumed and preserved award-winning cockroaches are on display, including the bejeweled, piano-playing Liberoachi.
Liberoachi plays on forever at the Cockroach Hall of Fame
Here are few more unusual museums from the story:
If this museum could talk, it would slur its words.
In Bardstown, Ky., the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History traces American whiskey history back to the 1700s with displays of liquor memorabilia ranging from moonshine stills and antique bottles to Abraham Lincoln’s liquor license and the hatchet used by temperance crusader Carrie Nation.
Vacuum or Lamp? Both!
They suck — and that’s why several dozen antique, vintage and just plain wacky suction-producing cleaning devices are displayed at the Vacuum Museum inside Stark’s Vacuums in Portland, Ore. Some of the most unusual models offered time-saving conveniences. Our favorites: vacuum cleaners that double as hair dryers, neck vibrators, lamps or footstools, for those quick clean-ups in the den.
Giant shoes: not just for clowns
Compact and coin-operated, the Giant Shoe Museum displays about 20 giant shoes dating from the 1890s to the 1950s. A feature of Old Seattle Paperworks in the Pike Place Market in Seattle, the oversized footwear includes The Colossus, a 5-foot-long black leather wingtip from the 1920s, and a shoe worn by Robert Wadlow, once the world’s tallest man.
Want to see more unusual museums? See the Museum Monday post here on StuckatTheAirport.com and check out the full story with 14 Bizarre Museums – on Bing Travel.
If you’re in Los Angeles anytime soon, make your way over to the Autry National Center to see Skydreamers, a truly wonderful exhibition of photographs from the collection of Stephen White that documents the history of flight. I put together a History of Flight slide show with some of the images from the show for msnbc.com; here’s a short preview.
As in this 1871 photo of a balloon ascending over Ferndale, CA, some of the earliest attempts to conquer space were in free floating hot-air balloons. Next came heavier than air machines and, ultimately, rocket ships that can elude gravity and soar into space. Lucky for us photographers and artists were often on hand to document and imagine these journeys.
In his now classic aviation book, Birdflight as the basis for aviation, published in 1889, Otto Lilienthal outlined his theories on flying based on his study of bird wing structure and the aerodynamics of bird flight. He built and famously experimented with a series of 18 bird-inspired gliders and served as an inspiration for Wright Brothers, who studied his gliding techniques.
Stunt pilot Art Smith became well known for aerobatic flying and for using flares to do skywriting at night, a talent he exhibited on the closing night of San Francisco’s Pan Pacific International Exposition in 1915. Smith later went on to work for the US post office as one the first air mail pilots.
Famed aviator Charles Lindbergh stands in front of his airplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, shortly after completing the first solo, non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean in May, 1927. The plane is now in Washington, D.C. at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.
In 1934, the Griffith Park Observatory was getting ready to open in Los Angeles. This photograph shows the artist, Roger Haywood, sculpting a section of an exact replica of the moon, reduced to 38 feet.
I’ll post more photos from the Skydreamers exhibition tomorrow, but if you want to start planning a trip to Los Angeles to see the full show, you have until September 4, 2011 to see it at the Autry National Center.
It’s Museum Monday here at StuckatTheAirport.com and this week we’re taking another look at some of the photos and outfits in the Style in the Aisle exhibit at Seattle’s Museum of Flight.
Three Stewardess near Jet Engine; possibly PanAm (from the Archives of the Museum of Flight; Copyright The Museum of Flight Collection.)
A United Airlines Stewardess with food service in the Galley, circa late 1940’s early 1950’s. Copyright The Museum of Flight Collection
“Fashion designer, Oleg Cassini created a futuristic look for the flight attendants of Air West during the carrier’s brief existence prior to its purchase by Howard Hughes. The basic uniform consisted of a textured polyester dress and a jacket with an unconventional side-buttoning configuration. The pieces came in a selection of bright, solid colors inspired by the natural colors found at Air West’s destinations, including fern green, Pacific blue and canyon red.” Copyright Delta Airlines.
It’s Souvenir Sunday, the day StuckatTheAirport.com celebrates the fun, inexpensive items you can find in airport shops.
This week our souvenirs come from the souvenir shop at the Astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka Space Center, which is located right next to the charming, open-air terminals at Kona International Airport.
The center is part museum/part education center and is dedicated to the memory of Ellison Onizuka, who was Hawaii’s first astronaut and one of the crewmembers who perished aboard the Challenger Mission on January 28, 1986.
The Onizuka Space Center is jam-packed with hands-on activities that explain space and space concepts as well as a wide variety of displays that include a piece of a moon rock, an Apollo 13 space suit and memorabilia that includes the freeze-dried macadamia nuts and Kona coffee NASA developed for Ellison Onizuka so that the Hawaiian astronaut would feel at home in space.
The museum is just a 30-second walk from the main part of Kona International Airport and is a much better way for you and your kids to spend your time than sitting out in the sun in airport’s post-security area.
Even if you don’t want to explore the space center’s exhibits, consider stopping in to check out the gift shop. It’s has a carefully selected assortment of space-related books, games and space-related souvenirs.
That’s where I picked up these cool, inexpensive and easy-to-carry fashion accessories: glow-in-the dark, Space Shaped Rubber Bands.
If you find a great souvenir while you’re stuck at the airport, please snap a photo and send it along.
The favorite souvenirs here at StuckatTheAirport.com are inexpensive (around $10), “of” the city or region and ideally, a bit offbeat. And if your souvenir is featured on Souvenir Sunday, you’ll receive a special airport or airline-related souvenir.
The collection of winning cars on display in the museum is quite thrilling and as part of this year’s centennial celebration of the Indianapolis 500, fans are being asked to help choose the greatest 33 drivers of the race’s first 100 years.
While in town, I also got schooled on mead – which is wine made from honey – during a fun tasting with Brett Canaday who, with his wife Tia Agnew, operates New Day Meadery, Indiana’s first and only meadery. (If you go, be sure to taste the mead made from blueberries)
And, of course, I spent a few hours poking around Indianapolis International Airport in search of souvenirs to share with you on Souvenir Sunday, a day that celebrates the fun, inexpensive and local items for sale at airports.
IND doesn’t disappoint.
After I tore myself away from Just Pop In, a store that sells popcorn with unusual flavors,
I found some fun Indy 500 race souvenirs
Do you shop for fun stuff when you’re stuck at the airport? If you find something that’s inexpensive (around $10), “of” the city or region and, ideally, a bit offbeat, please snap a photo and send it along.
If your souvenir is featured on Souvenir Sunday here at StuckatTheAirport.com, I’ll send you a special airport souvenir.
Although she didn’t really mean to, Alice – of Alice on Wonderland fame – ended up going on one of the wildest travel adventures ever “documented.”
Want to see the original notes of her journey? The British Library happens to have the first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, as well Galileo’s letters, Leonardo Da Vinci’s notebooks, manuscript scores from classical composers such as Handel, Purcell, Mozart and Schubert, and lots more.
Can’t just pop over to London to take a look-see? The next best thing might just be the British Library’s new smartphone app (iPad, iPhone, Android) which lets you page through more than 100 of the library’s treasures, including Jane Austen’s teenage writings, maps, scientific papers, an original Magna Carta 1215 and audio clips from historical figures such as Nelson Mandela.
The app isn’t free; it costs $3.99 for iPhone, iTouch and Android ($5.99 for the iPad), but there’s an introductory offer of $1.99 ($3.99 for the iPad) through January 24, 2011.
Not sure it’s worth 2 bucks? Here’s a really lovely video that includes a sampling of what you’ll get to see on the app.
I’ve downloaded the program, but haven’t had much time to play around with it. When I do, I hope I’ll find photos and more information the world’s smallest atlas and some of the other teeny tiny books in the British Library’s collection.
You have stuff to do. Deadlines. Work someone will pay you for if you just, you know, do it.
So you pour a cup of coffee and sit down at the computer.
But then, dang, the Internet happens.
Here’s a bit of what got me distracted today.
Air New Zealand posted time-lapse video footage of its first new domestic A320 being built and painted with all black livery.
The paint job has something to do with the All Blacks rugby team, so of course I had to visit that site and then the Small Blacks site as well.
As long as I was visiting the Air New Zealand site, I had to check in on what that wild and crazy furry creature, Rico, was up to. I found this reel of bloopers.
A quick check of email and Twitter sent me off in new directions.
Florida’s Dali Museum was opening in its snazzy new building in St. Petersburg, FL. And as someone who first came upon that museum collection, by accident, when it shared space with a factory in Cleveland, Ohio, I of course had to visit.
While there, I came across this clip of Salvador Dali as a guest on the old TV show, What’s My Line?
Then, of course, it was time to check email and Twitter and catch up on my RSS feed.
And then I really got tangled up in the web. A comment on the museum blog post mentioned Anita, “the spider from Skylab.” I didn’t know about Anita so had to follow that thread.
It turns out that Anita and a companion spider, Arabella, were part of an experiment flown on Skylab, a space station launched in May 1973.
According the Smithsonian website:
Scientists and students interested in the growth, development, behavior, and adaptation of organisms in weightlessness provided a variety of biology experiments for flight in the orbital research laboratory. A common Cross spider, “Anita” participated in a web formation experiment suggested by a high school student. The experiment was carried out on the Skylab 3 mission, which lasted 59 days from July 28-September 25, 1973. Astronauts Alan Bean, Jack Lousma, and Owen Garriott carried out the scientific research in space, reported the results, and returned this specimen at the end of their mission. NASA then sent Anita, a companion spider “Arabella,” and the experiment equipment to the Museum.
Tampa International Airport is one those airports with an extensive, eclectic and very valuable, collection of permanent public art.
Some of my favorite pieces in the collection include the 22 tapestries in the baggage claim area made by 20 women from Phumalanga, Swaziland in Africa.
(Photo courtesy Tampa Airport)
And the seven WPA-era murals by George Snow Hill depicting the history of flight.
These murals are especially incredible to see because they were ignored for years and almost destroyed.
From the airport’s website:
In the late 1930’s, local artist George Snow Hill was commissioned to create these murals to adorn the walls of Tampa’s newly built Peter O. Knight Airport. Hill artistically interpreted the history of flight through the contributions made by Icarus and Daedalus, Archimedes, The Montgolfier Brothers, Otto Lilienthal, Tony Jannus, The Wright Brothers, and a triptych, capturing the first scheduled airline flight in history.
The murals were removed from the walls of the Peter O. Knight Airport upon demolition in 1965, and restored by George Snow Hill himself. In 1971, they were relocated to the new terminal building, where only the triptych and the Wright Brothers mural hung in the airport’s executive suite. The others were rolled and placed in storage, untouched for years.
You can read more about the Tampa airport’s art collection here, but be sure to scroll down to the notes about a brand new temporary exhibit featuring blown glass vessels and sculptures by Owen Pach, on display in the airport’s renovated art gallery.
“Fiery Passion – The Beauty of Glass”will be on display through March 2011.
For more information about Owen Pach, see this website.
