Museum Monday

Museum Monday: Looking for Lindbergh

August 30, 2010Harriet BaskasAirplanes, aviation, Aviation history, Exhibits, Museum Monday, MuseumsCharles Lindbergh, Missour History Museum, National Air and Space Museum

There are more than 700 aviation and space-related museums in this country.

Each Monday we profile one of them. Eventually we’ll hit them all.

This week: Looking for Lindbergh

Aviator and explorer Charles Lindbergh died on August 26th back in 1974, so it’s as good a time as any to take a look at some of the museums around the country that display items relating to Lucky Lindy.

First stop: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., which displays Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis airplane in the Milestones of Flight Gallery.

(Photo by Eric Long/NASM, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution)

Next stop: The Missouri History Museum, which has an ongoing exhibition dedicated to Charles Lindbergh’s life. The exhibit includes some of the medals and gifts that Lindbergh loaned to the Missouri Historical Society for ten days back in 1927, shortly after the famed aviator completed the first solo, transatlantic flight.

Crocheted, stuffed airplane made for Charles Lindbergh

“The Missouri Historical Society exhibited the items on top of the archaeological cases in an attempt to display the items as quickly as possible. The exhibition opened on June 25, 1927, and a local newspaper estimated that 116,000 people viewed the Lindbergh items during the first four days of the exhibition. The exhibition’s popularity led to Lindbergh agreeing to extend the loan of the collection; five years later, Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, donated the extensive collection to the Missouri Historical Society.”

There are plenty of other museums around the country that display a community’s link to Lindbergh, but for today our final stop will be the Stanley King Collection of rare Charles Lindbergh commemorative memorabilia at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center down the road from Washington Dulles International Airport.

(Photo by Eric Long/NASM, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution)

Do you have a favorite aviation or space-related museum you’d like others to know about? If you do, please write a note about it below and it may be featured on a future edition of Museum Monday here on StuckatTheAirport.com

Museum Monday: Kansas Aviation Museum

August 23, 2010Harriet BaskasAir Travel, Airplanes, Airports, Aviation history, Baggage, Exhibits, History, Museum Monday, MuseumsKansas Aviation Museum, Wichita

There are close to 700 aviation/space-related museums in the country.

Each Monday on StuckatTheAirport.com we profile one of them.

Eventually we’ll hit them all.

Today: The Kansas Aviation Museum in Wichita, Kansas

The museum is near the McConnell Air Force Base and is housed in the art deco-style building that served as Wichita’s municipal airport during the 1930s and 40s. Among the museum’s collection of about 40 airplanes is this Beech Starship,

and a B-52 bomber, a refueling tanker, and this 1927 Laird Swallow, which crashed in 1929, was put into storage for decades and then restored by museum volunteers.

Another charmer? The Pretty Praire Special III, designed and built by Marion Unruh. According the museum website, this is the third in a series of airplanes named after Unruh’s hometown of Pretty Prairie, Kansas. Unruh designed the plane in 1951 but it wasn’t completed until 1957.

“It rolled, looped and could snap with the best acrobatic planes of the day.”

In addition to the airplane collection, the Kansas Aviation Museum has a wide variety of airplane engines on display and offers opportunities for volunteers to help with airplane restoration projects.

Do you have a favorite aviation-related museum you’d like others to know about? Tell us why you like it and it may be featured on a future edition of Museum Monday here at StuckatTheAirport.com.

Museum Monday: Elvis’s airplanes at Graceland

August 15, 2010Harriet BaskasAirplanes, Aviation history, Celebrities, Exhibits, History, Layover, Museum Monday, MuseumsElvis Presley, Graceland

There are more than 700 aviation and space museums around the country. Each Monday we profile one of them. Eventually we’ll hit them all.

Today, to mark the anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death on August 16^th, 1977, we’ll make a stop at Graceland, where two of Elvis’s jets are on display.

This Lockheed JetStar was dubbed Hound Dog II:

Hound Dog II, Elvis Presley's Lockheed JetStar

(Photo courtesy jbcurio, via Flickr).

According to this article, Elvis purchased this Lockheed JetStar in September, 1975 for $899,702, while waiting for his other plane, the Lisa Marie (below), a Convair 880 Jet previously owned by Delta Airlines, to arrive.

At Graceland, visitors sit in a mock 1970’s-era airline terminal to see a short film about Elvis and his airplanes and are then allowed to tour the JetStar and the Lisa Marie, which was also known as Hound Dog I or Flying Graceland.

Elvis Presley's airplane, Lisa Marie, on display at Graceland

Elvis Presley's airplane - the Lisa Marie - at Graceland

(Photo courtesy rgblasson via Flickr

Sadly, I haven’t had the pleasure of visiting Graceland. Yet. But when I do, I’ll make a beeline for the airplanes. First stop, the Lisa Marie. According to this article, the airplane has a seating area, conference room, library and plush bedroom with an executive bathroom equipped with gold washbasin and faucets.

Have you seen Elvis’s airplanes at Graceland? Share details of your visit below.

And please let us know if you have a nomination for an aviation or space museum you’d like to see featured on a future edition of Museum Monday here at StuckatTheAirport.com.

A favorite: Elvis and Nixon

Museum Monday: 1940 Air Terminal Museum, Houston Hobby Airport

August 9, 2010Harriet BaskasAir Travel, Airplanes, Airports, Art, aviation, Aviation history, Exhibits, History, Museum Monday, Museums1940 Air Terminal Museum, Houston Hobby Airport, William P. Hobby Airport

There are close to 700 aviation and space museums in this country. Each Monday, we take a look at one of them. Stick around. Eventually we’ll visit them all!

This week: The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport.

Vintage view of Houston Hobby Airport terminal

Greetings from Houston Hobby Airport

Housed in the airport’s original art deco air terminal,the museum is dedicated to showcasing the city’s aviation history.

In addition to this classic, restored terminal building, the museum has historic aircraft on display in the restored 1928 Carter Field Airmail Hangar.

1928 Carter Field Airmail Hangar

The 1940 Air Terminal Museum recently raffled off an airplane and is now accepting entries for a “Flying Times” art exhibition featuring artwork and objects relating to Commercial aviation, General Aviation, or Space.

Not sure if you want to enter? Consider this: cash prizes will be awarded for the best work (1^st prize: $500, 2^nd Prize: $250, 3^rd prize: $100) and for the work that best depicts the terminal building ($50 prize.) Cash prizes will also be awarded in several other categories. The deadline for entries is September 1, 2010 and the show will run from September 17 through October 31, 2010. Look here for entry forms and more information about the 1940 Air Terminal Museum’s art contest. And good luck!

Houston Hobby Airport - Opening Day

Do you have a favorite aviation or space museum? If so, nominate it here and it may be featured on a future edition of Museum Monday here at StuckatTheAirport.com.

Museum Monday: 1928 biplane inside Ottawa International Airport

August 1, 2010Harriet BaskasAir Travel, Airplanes, Airports, aviation, Aviation history, Exhibits, Layover, Museum Monday, Museumsairport layover, Aviation Museums, Ottaway International Airport, Vintage Wings Canada, YOW

There are close to 700 aviation and space museums in the country. Each Monday, we explore one of them.

De Havilland Tiger Moth from Vintage Wings Canada

This week we have the story of a fun partnership between Canada’s Ottawa International Airport (YOW) and Vintage Wings of Canada, a local organization that acquires, restores, maintains and flies classic and significant aircraft, with an emphasis on Canadian airplanes.

You can see photos of the all of the museum’s aircraft on its website. To see the planes in person, though, you’ll have to be part of a scheduled group tour or show up at one of the organization’s special summer events.

But as this article (with video) in the Ottawa Sun describes, for a while at least, air passengers will be able to see one of the museum’s treasures in the baggage claim area at Ottawa International Airport.

Last week museum volunteers flew a 1928 WACO Taperwing biplane to the Ottawa Airport, disassembled the plane enough to get it into the terminal, and then put the plane back together in the baggage claim area.

The biplane plane was recently featured in the film, “Amelia,” starring Hilary Swank and is scheduled to be at the YOW airport until mid-September. Volunteers from Vintage Wings will be on-site to tell passengers about the history of the airplane.

1928 WACO Taperwing inside Ottowa Airport

Volunteers reassemble the 1928 WACO Taperwing inside YOW airport

Do you have a favorite aviation museum you’d like others to know about?

Leave a comment here and we’ll try to add the nominated sites to the Museum Monday schedule.

Museum Monday: National Museum of the U.S. Air Force

July 26, 2010Harriet BaskasAir Travel, Airplanes, Exhibits, Free Stuff, History, Museum Monday, Museumsfree museums, National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, USAF Museum

There are close to 700 aviation and space museums around the country.

Each Monday here at StuckatTheAirport.com, we feature one of them.

This week: The National Museum of the US Air Force.

This museum has a lot of fans and I took a lot of heat for leaving it out of a recent msnbc.com column – Aviation Museums that Soar – that only had room to mention six aviation and space museums around the country.

So here we go:

Northrop B-2 Spirit at the National Museum of the U. S. Air Force

With 17 acres of indoor exhibition space and more than 400 aerospace vehicles in its collection, the USAF Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, OH, is the largest military aviation museum in the world.

In addition to an IMAX theater, and more than a half dozen huge galleries filled with one-of-a-kind aircraft and aerospace vehicles, the museum has personal artifacts, photographs, documents and exhibits that help tell the Air Force story.

Air Power Gallery National Museum of the US AIR FORCE

The Air Power Gallery at the National Museum of the US Air Force

If you plan to visit, you might have to pick just a few galleries to see. And choosing won’t be easy.

In the Early Years Gallery, the aircraft, exhibits and artifacts start with the Wright brothers and continue through World War I and the beginning of World War II.

Reproduction 1909 Wright Flyer at National Museum of the US Air Force

In the 140-foot tall, silo-like Missile and Space Gallery you’ll find a collection of missiles that can be viewed from the ground level or from a platform that runs around the inside of the gallery. There’s also the Apollo 15 Command Module, Mercury and Gemini capsules, rocket engines, satellites and balloon gondolas.

The Missile and Space Gallery at the USAF Museum

And in the Presidential Gallery, for which there are special entry requirements, you’ll see the airplane that served as Air Force One the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as well as airplanes used by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

President John F. Kennedy disembarking Air Force One

There’s more – lots more – so before you visit be sure to poke around the National Museum of the US Air Force Museum website.

SPAD XIII at National Museum of the United States Air Force

The USAF Museum is open daily. Admission is free.

A great time to visit might be during Labor Day weekend (Sept 3-5, 2010) when the museum hosts the Giant Scale Radio-Controlled Model Aircraft Air Show with model jets, helicopters and warbirds doing acrobatics in the sky.

Do you have a favorite aviation or space museum? If so, leave a comment below and we may feature your suggestion in a future Museum Monday on StuckatTheAirport.com.

Museum Monday: Gallery of Flight at Milwaukee General Mitchell Int’l Airport

July 12, 2010Harriet BaskasAirplanes, Aviation history, Free Stuff, History, Museum Monday, MuseumsAviation Museums, Milwaukee - General Mitchell International Airport, Mitchell Gallery of Flight

If you like flying, chances are you like airplanes. And if you like airplanes, chances are you like visiting aviation museums once in a while.

Lucky for you there are more than 600 aviation and space-related museums around the country. Each Monday, StuckatTheAirport.com visits one of them.

This week, it’s the Mitchell Gallery of Flight inside Milwaukee General Mitchell International Airport.

(Hamilton Metalplane display, courtesy Mitchell Gallery of Flight)

Like the airport, the museum is named in honor of General Billy Mitchell, who is regarded as the Father of the U.S. Air Force.

Mitchell is profiled in the People section of the museum, along with Wisconsin-born fighter ace Dick Bong and other aviators with Wisconsin links, including Charles Lindbergh, who visited the Milwaukee airport in 1927. Two exhibit cases display artifacts and photos about Captain James Lovell, who is best known for his four Gemini and Apollo spaceflights.

In the Aircraft & Airships section of the museum, you’ll see antique propellers, aviation-related artifacts and loads of models, including a 22-foot, 1/36^th scale model of the Graf Zeppelin II (a sister to the Hindenberg) and models of military jets, WWII aircraft and airplanes of all eras.

(Photo by Prateek Bahadur, via Flickr Creative Commons)

Best of all, the museum is located pre-security at Milwaukee General Mitchell International Airport and admission is free.

For information about hours and exhibits, see the Mitchell Gallery of Flight website.

(Photo by Prateek Bahadur, via Flickr Creative Commons)

Do you have a favorite aviation/space museum? Please feel free to nominate it for a future edition of Museum Monday.

Museum Monday: New England Air Museum

June 28, 2010Harriet BaskasAirplanes, aviation, Aviation history, Exhibits, Museum Monday, Museumsaviation, Bradley International Airport, New England Air Museum

I’ve been getting a lot of guff from aviation museum fans upset that I didn’t include their favorite museum in my recent msnbc.com column – Aviation and space museums that soar.

I was asking for it. There are close to 600 aviation and space museums in the country. And with room in the column for just six “top” places, I was sure to disappoint many readers. But now that I’ve read the comments and learned about the cool stuff at so many other aviation-related museums, I’ve decided to add Museum Monday to the line-up here at StuckatTheAirport.com.

To kick things off, I’ve chosen the New England Air Museum at Bradley International Airport in Windsor, CT.

Bradley is the airport where about 300 Virgin Atlantic passengers recently spent more than four hours stuck on an airplane when their Newark-bound flight was diverted and I’m sure they would have been much happier if they’d been hanging around this museum instead.

The New England Air Museum is the largest aviation museum in New England and has more than 125 aircraft and a huge collection of engines, instruments, aircraft parts, uniforms and personal memorabilia.

A few highlights in the collection include:

The last remaining four-engine American flying boat, the Sikorsky VS-44A, which was donated to the museum by actress Maureen O’Hara and restored to its original condition;

A B-29 Bomber;

The Bunce-Curtiss Pusher (1912), the oldest surviving Connecticut-built airplane;

And a Kaman K-225 helicopter, the oldest surviving Kaman-built aircraft.

In addition to the artifacts and aircraft on display, the museum has Open Cockpit days, a flight simulator, special events and theme weeks throughout the summer. For example, the week of July 5^th is Discover Blimps and Balloons Week.

There’s also a speaker program: this past weekend Sergei N. Khrushchev, the son of Nikita Khrushchev (Prime Minister of the Soviet Union from 1957-1964) gave a lecture about the Cuban Missile Crisis, as viewed from the Kremlin.

Have a favorite aviation or space museum you’d like to see featured on Museum Monday?

Please nominate it in the comments section below. If you have photos to share, all the better!

(New England Air Museum aircraft photos used in this post courtesy Cliff1066 via Flickr Creative Commons. He’s got dozens of other great photos from the museum on his Photostream as well. )