OT: Smithsonian

So I made a trip to the Air and Space Museum last weekend...

First of all, my excuses:
I was there chaperoning a very unrelated field trip so my time was not really my own...
I had less than an hour to do the entire museum!
The lighting in the displays was "atmospheric", which translates to "crappy" in photographic terms...
Since we walked the entire mall and a couple of museums in a handful of hours, I did not have my nice SLR camera, only a cheap point and click and a phone and a camcorder...

Having said that, I tries to get some footage that would be of interest to modellers, skinners and lovers of general aircraft antiquery:


Not being a big fan of the new forum photo system, here's a link to all the pictures I took, without any adulteration. (Most of them are pretty bad as I was looking at them later...)

Please enjoy as much as you can!
RR

Rick, enough of the apologies Sir! The contents are clear and much appreciated. As my grandfather would say, and it still applies today..."It's worse where there is none!"

Many thanks for sharing.

Thanks Robert! I always look at stuff like that and go "if only I had my good camera!" Or " if only I had access to the dimmer switch! " Or "if only I could get past these darned rope..." ALARM! ALARM ! PLEASE STEP AWAY FROM THE EXHIBIT!!! well, yeah...

Thanks for the walkthrough Rick, very enjoyable. I specially liked the Bleriot XI, amazing the guys had the guts to fly over the sea or the Alps with that.

Man, can you imagine getting stuck in the museum overnight! Oh to warp those wings just once!

Thanks for posting the vid, Rick. Too bad you couldn’t get in the cockpit of that SPAD and show us how constrained the view is.

I have to admit that the thought did cross my mi.... ALARM! ALARM ! PLEASE STEP AWAY FROM THE EXHIBIT!!!!!

D'oh!

Twice in one day! You're going to get yourself banned.

'Oh to warp those wings just once!'

Those 'wing warpers' were brutal! The 'bumpy' air would tend to snatch the stick out of your hand. It was painful flying those things!

So far I have built a Bleriot XI and a Fokker E-III as RC models. Both had wing warping roll control!

Rick,
Nice vid. I hope you get to stay longer next time!

Thanks, MFair, me too! I definitely did the 'Air' almost to the exclusion of the 'and Space'! And even with that, I still didn't set foot in the Pacific room, but I caught a glimpse of a Hellcat or Wildcat or something on the way by, though

Also, if you go here, you can find more information on each of the planes... For example, the SPAD was flown by Raymond Brooks and a few others and accounted for six enemy aircraft before being sent off to the states...