There are more than 700 aviation and space-related museums in this country. Each Monday we try to profile one of them. Eventually we’ll visit them all.
This week, we’re stopping at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, which has an exhibit of photos, videos and historic memorabilia celebrating its 75th anniversary.
According to airport history notes, the city of Phoenix purchased Sky Harbor Airport on July 16, 1935 for $100,000. That November, a dedication event took place that included speeches, an aerial circus performance and a dinner dance.
The original terminal building, hangar and tower were located on the north side of today’s airport property and at one time a chapel with a bell stood at the entrance of the airport.
Arizona didn’t require a three-day waiting period for couples wanting to get married, so the airport hoped to generate business by having an on-site wedding chapel for couples wanting to tie the knot as soon as possible.
Interested in learning more about the history of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport?
75 Years of Nonstop Service will be on exhibit until March 13, 2011 in the pre-security area of Terminal 3. You can also go online, to Sky Harbor’s History section to watch video clips and read excerpts from research done for the airport’s 50th anniversary.
This Saturday, September 25, 2010 is free Museum Day around the country.
More than 1300 museums – including a lot of aviation and space museums – will open their doors for free to anyone who shows up with a downloaded coupon from Smithsonian magazine that’s good for admission for two people to any one museum on the list.
Last year, more than 300,000 people took advantage of the Smithsonian’s free museum day offer. This year, event organizers expect a lot more people – maybe 20% more – to show up.
It’s a great opportunity to go to a museum you’ve been meaning to go to but have put off because the price tag seemed too high.
The Adler Planetarium (regular admission $27 for adults) in Chicago, where there’s a great exhibition of rare and antique telescopes including this rare circa 1660 ivory telescope from Germany
The museum has about three dozen aircraft in its collection, but I’ve chosen to highlight it this week because of history of the building that houses the museum.
During WWII, the U.S. Navy stationed a fleet of blimps along the east and west coasts. Each airship was 252 feet long and filled with 425,000 cu. feet of helium.
These “K-class” blimps had a range of 2,000 miles and could stay in the air for three days at a time, so they were ideally suited for anti-submarine patrol and for escorting ship convoys out to sea. The blimps also trailed targets for fighter-plane practice.
To store off-duty dirigibles, the Navy built 17 seven-acre blimp hangars.
They used the exact same blueprint for each building, and each clear-span wooden structure was 15-stories high, more than 1,000 feet long, and built with fire-retardant lumber.
Tillamook’s dairy land was chosen as the site for two of those hangers in part because the countryside offered mild weather and the largest flat area on the Oregon and Washington coast.
Unfortunately, Tillamook’s Hangar A burned down in 1992. (It turned out that the chemicals that make wood fire-retardant eventually leech out.) But Hangar B is still around and now shares the title of World’s Largest Clear-Span Wooden Building with the six other still-intact blimp hangars around the country.
Hangar B is now also home to the Tillamook Air Museum, which houses a flight simulator, a collection of more than 30 WW II “War Birds,” and historical films and displays about the construction of the building and the blimps that were once based here.
Blimp Hangar Bio
Length: 1,072 feet
Height: 192 feet (over 15 stories)
Width: 296 feet
Area: Over 7 acres (enough to play six football games)
Doors: 120 ft. high, 6 sections each weighing 30 tons. 220 ft. wide opening. The sections roll on railroad tracks
Catwalks: 2 catwalks, each 137 ft. above the hangar deck
Do you have have a favorite aviation or space museum? If so, let us know where it is and why you like it. Your museum pick may be featured on a future edition of Museum Monday here at StuckatTheAirport.com.
Today, Saturday, September 18th, 2010 marks the 40th anniversary of the death of rock & roll icon Jimi Hendrix, the Seattle-born songwriter and musician Rolling Stone Magazine and many others have crowned the greatest guitarist in rock history.
Hendrix died in London on September 18th, 1970 when he was just 27 years old. To mark the anniversary of his death and to honor his memory, museums in London and several cities in the United States are displaying Hendrix-related artifacts and holding special events.
Here are some of the places you can join fans in honoring Jimi Hendrix.
Through November 10th, London’s Handel House Museum (where George Frideric Handel once lived) is hosting Hendrix in Britain, an exhibition celebrating Hendrix’s life and musical legacy.
What’s the connection between Hendrix and the famed Baroque composer? The Handel House Museum has its administrative offices in the London apartment where Hendrix lived from 1968 until his death in 1970. Tickets are sold-out for tours of the former apartment, but next door the museum is displaying a wide range of Hendrix-related artifacts, many on loan from museums and collectors around the world.
The exhibit includes the custom Gibson guitar Hendrix played at the Isle of Wight Festival in August 1970, handwritten song lyrics for Stepping Stone and Love or Confusion, his British work permit and the black Westerner hat and Dandie Fashion-designed orange velvet jacket with floral print Hendrix made famous on stage and in filmed footage. The Handel House Museum is also sponsoring Hendrix-themed walking tours, concerts and panel discussions.
The infamous fuzz and feedback-filled version of the Star Spangled Banner Jimi Hendrix played during his set at the 1969 Woodstock Festival is considered one of the greatest guitar performances ever. Hendrix images, audio and video clips are featured year-round at the Woodstock-focused Museum of Bethel Woods in Bethel, NY. But on Saturday, September 18th museum spokesperson Shannon McSweeney-LeMay says Hendrix will be honored with “a simple wreath at the monument that marks the original Woodstock festival field” so that guests have a place to honor his memory.
Photo by Doug Lenier, courtesyBethel Woods Center for the Arts
Jimi Hendrix claimed Black, Mexican and a bit of Cherokee heritage, so he’s included in an exhibition running through January 2, 2011 at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. Hendrix-related artifacts included in Up Where We belong: Native Musicians in Popular Culture range from a leather necklace and a leather pouch to a colorful, full-length, patchwork leather coat on display for the first time.
In Cleveland, Ohio, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (which inducted the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1992) has a permanent Jimi Hendrix exhibit featuring more than 50 artifacts. On display are guitars, concert posters, photographs, handbills, drawings and a couch from Hendrix’s childhood home.
Among the articles of Hendrix’s clothing on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is the outfit he wore at the Love and Peace Festival in Germany for what turned out to be his final concert performance on September 6, 1970.
Here’s a short video from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum about Hendrix and this particular outfit.
In Hendrix’s hometown of Seattle, the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum (EMP) also has a permanent Hendrix gallery. Items from the museum’s extensive Hendrix collection are cycled in and out, but right now visitors can see the white Fender Stratocaster Hendrix played at Woodstock, guitar shards from the Monterey Pop Festival and the Saville Theater, Hendrix’s diary, his address book and other artifacts.
Courtesy EMP – Hendrix’s handwritten lyrics to Black Gold
To mark the 40th anniversary of Hendrix’s death, the EMP is also displaying the handwritten lyrics for Black Gold (one of the songs the musician was working on before he died), black and white photos from his funeral, including a shot of Miles Davis, and several other items.
And as they do year-round, on the 40th anniversary of the Hendrix’s death, you can be sure many fans will make a special visit to Greenwood Memorial Park in Renton, Washington. There, a tasteful but hard-to-miss, memorial marks Jimi Hendrix’s gravesite.
With the help of Twitter-buddy Isaac Alexander, I spent a good chunk of this Labor Day weekend putting together a list of aerospace museums to keep track of and, perhaps, to feature on Museum Mondays here at StuckatTheAirport.com.
The process took quite a bit longer than it might have because I kept clicking on links at these museum websites and, well, you know how that goes… a half hour later I’d get back to the task at hand.
So for Museum Monday this week, I’ll just share a few of the links that caught my eye.
Named in honor of four-time astronaut Thomas P. Stafford, a post on this museum’s site sent me to a Gizmodo posting of a half-dozen awe-inspiring time lapse videos from space.
Here’s one:
And I can’t even remember now which museum site sent me to this video about jobs in aviation – circa 1947 – but I had to stop and watch the entire thing.
Have you visited a great aviation or space-related museum lately? Share your favorite here and it may be featured on a future edition of Museum Monday.
On the first weekend of every month more than 100 museums, zoos and attractions around the country offer free admission to anyone with a Bank of America card as part of the Museums on Us program.
Visiting one of the participating venues is a great way to stretch a weekend entertainment budget and a good excuse to get acquainted with the work of a new artist or get reacquainted with a favorite animal at your local zoo.
In Plane View: Abstractions of Flight features 56 large-format photographs by Carolyn Russo showcasing the elegance and beauty of airplane design. For example, this photo shows grooves in the exhaust cone of the North American X-15.
Can’t make it to Kansas? When the exhibit leaves the Wichita Art Museum, it will travel to the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia and then, in January 2011, to the Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences in Peoria, Illinois.
You might also take advantage of the Museums on Us program to get free admission to the Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan (Saturday only), where the 15 planes in the Heroes of the Sky exhibit includes this 1926 Fokker Trimotor used by Richard Byrd in his attempt to be the first to reach the North Pole by plane.
According to the museum notes:
Because Edsel Ford funded Byrd’s trip to the Arctic, the plane was named for his daughter, Josephine. Tony Fokker, the manufacturer, wanted to be sure no one mistook the plane for a Ford, so he painted the giant “FOKKER” on the wings and fuselage. There’s no heater in this plane, so temperatures inside the cabin could have easily reached -50° F while flying through the Arctic sky.
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
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.
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 16th, 1977, we’ll make a stop at Graceland, where two of Elvis’s jets are on display.
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 - the Lisa Marie - at Graceland
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.
