The Rocket Scientist

When I was eleven years old  I was an avid reader of Collier’s magazine. The magazine had a lot of articles about space travel. The Allies had won WWII and captured some of the German V-2 rockets. The Americans had also captured or recruited some of their rocket scientists.  Werner von Braun was the most famous. The magazine had many color illustrations of what the rockets that would take Americans to the stars would look like. As an eleven-year-old country boy I was obsessed. I had to build a rocket.

I dug into the encyclopedia that Momma and Daddy had bought from the traveling salesman. When the bookmobile came to school I asked the librarian for all the books on rocketry.  There was very little about solid fuel rockets on the 1950 Ford pickup truck which had been converted into the bookmobile. It came very two weeks to Bradley school, which was much too infrequent for me. I had always been a voracious reader. Yes, I was one of those kids who would be reading by flashlight under the covers in my bed past bedtime. I eventually read the complete encyclopedia and held the record for the most books read in the school library when in the eighth grade, but that would happen in the future.

My big problem in rocket construction as an eleven year old rocket scientist was to find the proper fuel for my rocket. Finally, I determined that gunpowder would power the rocket. My research on primitive firearms provided a recipe for the fuel. Charcoal, saltpeter and sulfur were all that was required. By filling a coffee tin with wood chips,  putting on the lid, which had a small hole punched in it, and heating it on the kitchen stove, I could make my own charcoal. I found that dry pine wood chips made the best charcoal. I would grind it up with a mortar and pestle. But I never did get around to grinding it up, because I could not find one of the other ingredients.  The sulfur was not a problem, because I had some in the Chemcraft chemistry set I had gotten for my tenth birthday. Saltpeter, on the other hand, was a big problem. I could not find any anywhere.  As a teenager I would find out that we had potassium nitrate fertilizer on the farm that would have served me well as saltpeter.  But, not to be prevented from achieving my objective, I found another solution: modern gunpowder. Gunpowder such as found in shotgun shells. I had access to such, sort of. I had some for my own gun, a sixteen gauge Ior Johnson single shot shotgun.  Also, I knew that Daddy had some. I could borrow some of his, and he would not miss them. After all, hunting season was six months away. I managed to cut the shot shells apart with a bit of trepidation. A shotgun shell had a cap in the brass part of the shell which when struck by the firing pin of the gun ignites the gunpowder in the shell. If per chance I had caused one of the caps to fire I probably would not be writing this today. But some caution was thrown to the wind.  I had to build a rocket.

My plan was to make the fuselage of the rocket from a discarded toilet paper tube. I could not dispose of a complete roll of toilet paper for my cause. Would I be so brazen to use a complete roll of this treasured commodity for my efforts? No, I had to find a better way. So I made my own tube from poster board scavenged from an old wildlife poster I had made in the third grade. The tube was about one half the diameter of the toilet paper tube. A scrap of wood provided the material for the nose cone. My pocket knife sharp and I quickly

carved out the nose cone. Unfortunately, Mickey Spencer had stolen my Hopalong Cassidy a few years earlier.  I hoped he had cut his finger. The back of a Blue Horse tablet provided the cardboard for the rocket’s tail fins. Mom interrupted me for the noon meal.  I wolfed down the tomato sandwich and followed it with a glass of milk.  A man who had been without food in the desert would not have eaten faster. I was on a mission. The next part of the project was to fabricate the ignition system. My mind’s eye could see it clearly.  It would be an electrical system. In operation, I would count down 3...2...1...and push the button, sending my rocket skyward.  I would use nichrome wire attached between two nails and inserted into the tail of the rocket. There was an old lamp cord with a plug on it in my spare parts box that would carry electricity to the nichrome wire. The electric current would cause the nichrome wire to get hot and ignite the gunpowder.  I turned my cap around on my bicycle as I rode to this big ditch where we threw away our trash. When I was scrounging there before I had seen an old hot plate.  Hot plates used nichrome wire coils for heating elements.

On my way back to my room I picked up a scrap of wood from the wood pile in the back yard. With two nails and a hammer I had all I needed to build the rocket igniter. The igniter assembled quickly, and I was ready for the test flight.

I decided that it would not be a good Idea to fire the rocket in my room, so I carried it outside. But that did present a problem. We lived in an old farmhouse and electrical outlets were scarce. A number of extension cords would be necessary to get electrical power to the rocket’s igniter. I had to convince Mom I needed all the extension cords we had. It so happened that at that time I was working on an electricity project for the 4-H Club. Mom always supported my 4-H projects. She believed in the organization sponsored by the U. S. Department of Agriculture for rural youth. And she brought me every extension cord in the house. It took five extension cords to get power to the launch site. I decided not to include a launch button in the electric circuitry. There was not a push button switch anywhere on the farm! I would simply plug the rocket ignition power cord into an extension cord. I would countdown, of course. You can’t launch a rocket without a countdown! The time had come.

Ten...nine...eight...seven...six...five...four...three...two...one...I plugged the igniter into the extension cord. There was smoke! There was fire! There was a scream! There was not a rocket streaking toward the heavens. I wrote in my journal that it was a marginal success. Although the rocket did not lift off it was a tremendous learning experience. And the scream? That was from my mother, who was using an electric food mixer while making a cake at launch time. The launch put a strain on the electrical circuits of the house and blew every fuse. Mom was not angry with me. She appreciated the fact that I knew where the spare fuses were  and and how to replace the blown ones. I told her the problem was due to the very old wiring in the house.  If my Daddy had been home things would have been different.

I pursued my dream of becoming a rocket scientist until high school. Much to my chagrin the study of physics without skills in algebra and higher mathematics was impossible.

The Klingon Poet

I never knew when Bob would appear in my office, but I always knew what he would say; “You’re not going to believe this…” And that day was no different.

“You’re not going to believe this, but I believe we can get another 10% production out of the extruders,” he said as he pulled the six-inch slide rule from his pocket with his right hand. Most engineers in those days carried slide rules. The left hand seemed to have a Pall Mall cigarette permanently attached.  The cigarette invariably had about one inch of ash about to drop on the carpet. I remember the brand because it was the same brand, Pall Mall, that the author, Kurt Vonnegut, said he was using to commit suicide.  

“What kind of changes will you make?” I asked.

“Just little ones, mostly temperature profiles,” he said.

“All right, go for it.  Ask the process technicians to make the necessary changes to the extruders.  Tell them I said do it,” I told him.  I knew my instructions would be carried out to the letter.

Bob was well into his sixties but a bundle of energy.  His physique would have been described by Barney Fife as “wiry” though slightly bent. Soaking wet Bob may have weighed one hundred pounds. His face was wrinkled as a raisin and was about the color of a golden raisin. Small tufts of gray hair emerged from his nose and ears. His longish brown hair was streaked with gray and combed straight back. A slightly oversized crooked nose was  above a constant smile revealing teeth stained by years of nicotine and the bright brown eyes were magnified by the horn-rimmed trifocals.  Bob seemed to radiate the curiosity of a ten-year-old boy.

Bob was one of my favorite time killers. If I let him get started with stories of the war an hour would pass quickly. But I loved his stories. The plant engineer had been a navigator on a B-17 Flying Fortress during WWII.  Bob was my eyes and ears on the production floor. He had the confidence of the rank and file. They respected his technical expertise as much as I did and he didn’t mind getting his hands dirty either. They liked that. Currently he was assisting me in the hopeful apprehension of the Klingon poet. This man was driving management nuts!

Every morning when I arrived at work the first thing I would do was check the men’s restroom. Invariably the “Klingon poet” had been there!

It had started three months previously with his first verse scribbled in one of the stalls of the men's restroom. I suppose you could call it a parody. It was like a daily journal of the factory operation presented as a Star Trek episode. Members of management were the crew. Captain Greg commanded the Starship GBL.  Greg Larson was the president of GBL Manufacturing. The writer's imaginative poetry was very entertaining to the production workers. Manufacturing  output had increased by 11%. It was indeed amazing the boost to morale the poetry had been. Prior to the scribbling of the poet, morale had been at an all time low. There were rumors of unionization and  a possible strike. But all that had gone away when the Klingon Poet started his writing.  I had to admit the stories, or rather poems, were quite amusing, but of course I had not yet appeared in any of the episodes.

It was uncanny how the poet would write about little known facts. The workers were fascinated by the ongoing galactic soap opera and the romantic adventures of Captain Greg and communications officer Glynis. Glynis Harrison was Greg's secretary. She was by far the most attractive woman at the plant. On the production floor tales of her sexual exploits as a high school cheerleader were legendary. Captain Greg had no knowledge of this since he came from a different galaxy (New England), but the poet knew a lot more. He wrote about the clandestine meetings between Captain Greg and Glynis. It was a number of weeks before Greg found out about the writing on the wall.  When he did he stormed into my office demanding that I find the culprit. I therefore enlisted Bob.  

“The poet found a new subject; Billy Duncan's new office assistant,"  Bob said. Billy Duncan was in charge of purchasing for the company.  I had been told that he considered himself God’s gift to women.  But I had no verification for this speculation.

"So he has a new assistant.  I signed the transfer to move that girl from production to administration.   What does that have to do with  the poet?"  I asked.

"Well, the poet said that the first mate of Star Fleet GBL Procurement Command had retrieved a new assistant from the galaxy Mammary Maximus," Bob said matter-of-factly.

"Mammary what?" I asked, hoping Bob would remember he had some place else to be.

Bob snickered and said, "Kinda reminds me of the Parisian cabarets after the war.”  

“Parisian cabarets?”

"Yeah, you know after the war they got English girls to dance in the French cabarets. They were much bigger than the French girls up top," he added with what I perceived as a leer and what could have been considered lewd hand gestures.

"I guess I forgot that. We'll talk later, Bob. I need to check the specs on the new product back at the testing lab."

On my way to the lab I stopped by the men’s rest room. Sure enough Joe, the company handyman, was busy painting in one of the stalls. “How’s it going, Joe?”I asked.

“It’s going okay, Boss,”he said continuing to paint. Joe called all management  “Boss”. Then he added, “I think dat poet fella is left handed. My sister write like dat an’ she left handed.”

I could see the writing that he had not painted over and it had a left slant to it.

“He keep dis up, we gonna hafta  git mo’ paint!” he said.

“Don’t worry about that, Joe. Max will get you some more when you need it,” I said in parting.

I dropped into the employees canteen area to buy a cup of coffee. Before I could drop my quarter into the vending machine someone beat me to it.

"What's going on in the front office?" Jake asked while putting the coin into the machine.  Jake Witherspoon was my warehouse supervisor. He was in his late twenties, about five feet six inches tall, muscular with dark brown hair and a rattail. It was not unusual for Jake to appear for work on Mondays with multiple bruises from a weekend martial arts tournament.

“What do you mean?” I asked as I pushed the extra cream button on the coffee vending machine.

“ We know that Billy’s getting a new assistant, Maxine Ledbetter,” he said and added with a grin, “Yeah, Billy really knows how to pick ‘em!”

“What else did you hear?”

“Nowadays all you have to do around here to find out anything is read the restroom wall.  I thought you could give me an update before I had to read it on the wall.”

“You know who the poet is, don’t you? Come on, you can tell me.  We’ve known each other a long time!” I insisted.

I lifted the sliding door on the vending machine and retrieved my coffee.  Jake raised his hands over his head and backed away with a smile.

“I dunno, “ he said with a smile spreading over his smooth shaven face. “And if I did, I dunno if I’d tell ya!  It’s just too much fun to read it!”

As I was leaving the canteen I saw two of our younger employees in the corner listening to a small radio. They were listening to rap music. In passing it occurred to me that rap music had rhyming verse. I could not help but wonder if these young fellas could write in rhyme too.  One of them was holding a cigarette in his left hand!

After going by the lab and seeing the results of the new polyester product on the Instron machine, I was back in my office. Hoping to hear nothing else about the “Klingon Poet” the rest of the day.

I called Max Fooshe in our maintenance department.  “Good morning, Max!  How was the weekend? Did Johnny play well Friday night?”

My portly, balding, fiftyish maintenance manager answered, “You betcha! If he keeps playing like this I believe he will get a scholarship. I’d be good it he could go to Minnesota, but I don’t think they look at anybody this far south.”

“I wish I could have seen that game, but we had to go to the wife’s family for the weekend. You know how that is.”

“Well, you gotta do what you gotta do.  By the way, Joe is up painting that wall in the men’s room again. You were probably going to mention that, weren’t you” he asked.

“Yes I was. I saw him painting when I was going to the lab.  You don’t know who’s doing this, do you?  Greg is about to have my head!”

“Sorry, can’t help you. Some of the writing is kind of funny though”.  I could hear him smiling.

“Later, Max,” I said, as I hung up the phone.

Back in my office I closed my door and asked Janet, my secretary, to hold my calls and to tell everyone I was not to be disturbed.  What was I gonna do? I simply had to find the Klingon poet and take appropriate action. But I had to admit that the verses were amusing, and production was improving daily. I used the rest of the day to compile some reports for our corporate guests arriving the next day.  Our little operation would be getting a lot of attention at the corporate offices in New York. Maybe tomorrow I would catch the culprit.  But, it was not to be.

The next day a new verse appeared in the usual place:

“Captain Greg went out to see

If sweet Glynis was now free,

For a ride with Captain Greg

Maybe a word for Lady Peg!

And may galactic laughter embrace the universe!”

Lady Peg referred to Greg’s wife, Peggy!

I had to get that verse off the bathroom wall before Greg either saw it or heard about it. I made a quick call to Max, and he assured me that Joe would paint the wall as soon as he reported to work. I walked through the production floor. It really looked good. The Italian extruders looked like new machines, although they were over five years old. The employees were all dressed in white coveralls and wore yellow hard hats. Some of the women had opted to choose their coveralls about two sizes too small. Greg really knew how to put on a show when company was coming. The visitors from the corporate offices in New York would be there in the afternoon.  I continued my walk to the Quality Control Department for another check on our new polyester product  testing before returning to my office.

The phone rang as soon as I replaced the receiver in the cradle of my phone. I dreaded picking it up...I knew who it was!

“Get in here right now!” Greg bellowed from the phone.

I didn’t answer. I replaced the phone’s receiver and hurriedly walked toward Greg’s office. My mind was quickly going over a story to tell the boss why I had not apprehended the Klingon poet. The last time Greg had spoken to me about the poet, he had implied that my future with the company may well depend on whether I caught this literary villain or not. Greg’s secretary, Glynis, nodded her head toward his office door and with that sideways smile of hers said, “He’s waiting for you”.  The smile turned into a smirk.

His office was the biggest at the plant. There was a small sofa and two wing chairs in dark leather. Greg sat in a high-backed leather chair behind a large mahogany desk. Behind him was an ornate credenza and a huge oil painting of some Napoleonic battle. Although Greg was over six feet tall he had his desk and chair on a raised platform. Greg felt it was important to look down on subordinates.

He looked up from some papers on his desk and straightened them with manicured hands as I entered. The ice blue eyes beneath shaggy gray eyebrows peered over the gold rimmed glasses. As usual he was impeccably dressed; dark blue suit, white shirt, and striped tie. His monogrammed cuffs were visible at his wrists, along with a Rolex on his left wrist. The silver hair above his wide forehead was carefully styled.

“Sit,” he ordered, “we have business to take care of!”

“Yessir,” I said, as I perched on the edge of one of the wing chairs. Greg could become almost violent at times. He would yell at us during staff meetings and sometimes pound his desk with his fists. Then he would frequently turn off his hearing aids so as not to hear our responses!

“As you know we have visitors from corporate offices in New York due this afternoon. Before they get here we have to take care of a few things,” he said in his clipped Northeastern voice. Although he had been in the South many years his New England accent returned when he was excited.

“I’m listening.” I hoped he did not see me cringing.

“Everyone is very pleased with our increased production. I think you’ve done a great job, but…”

“Here it comes,” I thought, the hammer is about to drop.

“...you’ve really done too well. We now have too much inventory! So… I want you to reduce our labor force by three people. Just go by Human Resources and get the three least senior employees from Larry.  I’ve called him already.  He’ll have the names ready for you.  The usual severance pay, et cetera, et cetera. I want it done by the time our guests get here,” and in the words of Jean-Luc Picard he added, “Make it so!”

His attention returned to the papers on his desk, and I quickly followed the boss's orders to the letter. We would be ready for our visitors that afternoon. All went well, and at dinner with our corporate superiors that evening, Greg and I basked in the accolades of the New Yorkers.

The next day I came into work early, although I was somewhat groggy. As usual I checked the men’s room first. To my surprise there was no poetry on the walls. It was over. And we never learned who the Klingon Poet was.

  ________________________________

This is basically a true story. I was the assistant to the president of the company. All the names have been changed of course. Certain liberties were also taken with descriptions.

Perhaps the Best Little Christmas Ever

When I was a boy of eight we had a very special Christmas at school. I attended a very small three room schoolhouse in rural South Carolina.  Like children everywhere we got excited about Christmas. Every year, on the last day of school before Christmas vacation, we would decorate a Christmas tree and sing carols to celebrate the Christmas season. Each of us would bring something to put on the Christmas tree.

One afternoon on the  day before we decorated the tree my sister and I got off the school bus near twilight at the farm where we lived. After doing our chores we had supper of salmon patties with grits and milk gravy.  It was one of my favorite meals. We, Sissy and I, asked Mama about some Christmas decorations for our tree at school. Mama said, “I don’t think we have anything you can use. But I will look.”

A few minutes later she returned and said, “I’m sorry children, but we don’t have anything for your Christmas tree at school. It has been a very bad year for the farm, and Christmas will be  small this year.”

“But, Mama, what are we going to do?” I lamented.

“Maybe Grandma can help you! Tony there’s a full moon tonight. You can take a flashlight and walk to her house if you want. And you take care of your sister, you hear?”

It was beginning to get very cold as we walked down the red dirt road to Grandma’s house. It was about a mile away. The moon was full and very bright. Wisps of feathery clouds hid some of the millions of stars in the sky.

Soon we were at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Their dog, Black Boy, met us barking with his tail wagging.  I patted him on the head, and his tail wagged faster.  

Grandma hugged us as usual, and we went inside. Grandpa was sitting by the fire in his rocker dozing. I could smell a batch of fresh baked cookies. It made me  almost forget why we were there.

“Grandma,” I said, “Mama said maybe you could help us.”

“We need something to put on the Christmas tree at school,” Sissy said.

“Course I will help you, child! We’ll find something”.

Grandma left the room, and I could hear her looking for something in their bedroom. Soon she came back.

“I thought about what we could make.  I couldn’t find nothing. But, I think we can make something” Grandma said.

“I like to make things!” Sissy said.

Grandma sat in her chair, and Sissy and I gathered around. She pulled a piece of shiny Christmas wrapping paper from her apron.

“A long time ago an old gypsy woman showed me how to make a star out of paper. This paper will make a real pretty one if I can remember how to do it,” Grandma said as she began to fold the pretty paper. She folded the paper several times. When she was finally satisfied with the way it looked she reached into her apron and pulled out a pair of scissors. With a quick snip she cut the paper.

Slowly she unfolded the paper and like magic a beautiful five-pointed star appeared. It sparkled in the firelight.

“Oh, it’s so beautiful, Grandma, just like the star of Bethlehem!” Sissy said, “The star over the baby Jesus in the manger.”

“It is pretty, but we need to get back home before Mama starts to worry about us,”I said, “but could we get a cookie before we leave?”

We had milk and cookies before we left. They were very good, 0the way Grandma’s cookies always were. Sugar cookies, yum..

It was much colder on the walk home. Normally, I would have told Sissy a scary story to scare her, but I didn’t. Maybe I had the Christmas spirit. When we got to our house we saw the first snowflake of winter.  I could tell it was going to be a very good Christmas.

The next day was a special day at school. There would be no reading, writing or arithmetic that day. It was the day before Christmas vacation. Our teacher, Miss Kate Johnson, let the older boys use the school axe to chop down a beautiful cedar tree. They drug it inside the schoolhouse and stood it up for us to decorate. Mrs. Scott, the cook, popped lots of popcorn which we made into garlands to hang on the tree. Some of us boys ate some of the popcorn although we weren’t supposed to. The younger kids made colored chains to put on the tree, too. There were painted pine cones, which the older kids put on the tree, along with some colorful lights. The flashing lights were very pretty. We had almost finished decorating the tree when Miss Johnson asked, “Does anyone have anything for the top of the tree?”

“I do! I do!” screamed little Judy Wideman, jumping up and down. Judy always seemed to want attention.

“Look what I’ve got!” yelled Billy Walker. Billy thought he always had to be first.

“Okay, okay! We’ll vote to see whose ornament we will put on top of the tree. All for Judy’s raise your hand!” said Miss Johnson.

Judy’s ornament was selected. It was a beautiful angel she said her grandmother had bought on a trip to New York City. Judy climbed the ladder that the teacher put beside the tree to place the angel on top of the tree. As she was about to set the angel on the tree it slipped from her hands.   It made a big crash, and tiny pieces of angel went everywhere. Judy cried, but after Miss Johnson hugged her and spoke softly to her she seemwd to be alright. Then Billy got to climb the ladder to place his ornament on top of the tree.  “This is a special Christmas star my father bought in Chicago. It flashes on and off. Watch when I plug it in!” Billy said. But when he plugged it in there was a FLASH of bright light, a loud BANG, and a puff of SMOKE. The lights on the tree went out too. Some of the girls screamed.  The room was dark. There was no light except for what came through the windows from outside. Billy looked angry and said something must have been wrong with the tree’s lights!

Miss Johnson said, “What are we going to do now, children?”

I said, “My little sister has something.”

“What do you have, Sissy?” the teacher wanted to know.

Sissy, who was very shy, said haltingly in a low voice while looking at the floor “It’s just a paper star my grandma made…  It’s not fancy and expensive like Judy’s and Billy’s ornaments.”

“Let’s see it!” Miss Johnson said

Sissy slowly brought the little paper star from behind her back for everyone to see.  Miss Johnson said, “ I think that is exactly what we need. Tony can you place it on the top of our tree?”

“Yes ma’am,” I said as I grabbed the star and climbed quickly to the top of the tree. I used a short piece of thread to tie the star to the tree. As soon as I released the star a curious thing happened. All the lights on the tree came back on with a bright flash.

Miss Johnson and the children said, “O-o-o-o…”  Then, “Wow!” And then they clapped and cheered!  I  remembered what Sissy said the first time she saw it. It was like the star of Bethlehem!  The star over the baby Jesus! What a Christmas present it was! For all of us!

We sang and danced around that tree ‘til time to go home.  I think it was about the best Christmas ever!

                *******************

As many of you know I frequently do the children’s sermon at SPC. The following is one of those sermons which, as usual, is in the form of a story. This is a story of fiction but is very reminiscent of my childhood. I did attend a rural three-room school house and I lived on a farm in rural South Carolina.

Our Visit to RAF Museum, London Sept. 2016

We went to the Royal Air Force Museum today. Claudette and I had to change Underground trains once  to get there. A bit of the ride was above the ground. I think I have a fixation on the lady that makes all the announcements on the train. I think she would like me too. I particularly like the way she says, “Mind the gap.” It was a long half mile from the station to the museum. I don’t like the way the British build sidewalks. They slope toward the curb.

After we entered through the gate we saw some airplanes and a missile on a missile launcher. But, when I spied a Supermarine Spitfire and a Hawker Hurricane on pylons, I knew we were in the right place. Those planes were stalwarts of WWII and the battle of Britain. It was good to compare these two aircraft side by side. I have had difficulty determining the differences between the two, but the shape of the wings is the most discernible difference.

Once inside we bought our tickets. I spoke with the lady at the desk who had difficulty understanding me, and her heavy middle Eastern accent required careful listening on my part. It seems that most of the people in service or clerical jobs in London speak English as a second language. There was a Spitfire painted silver mounted on the wall, which I believe was a reproduction. We entered the display area by climbing some stairs to a balcony overlooking the Milestones of Flight display.

This display is perhaps the creme de la creme of the museum’s displays.There were over a dozen aircraft on display. A reproduction of the first plane to fly across the English Channel hung in a prominent place near the balcony where we stood.  Right beside it was the modern Eurofighter built by a consortium of European countries. We took a stairway down to the exhibit floor. The first thing nearest the stairway was a full scale mock-up of an F-35.  Flown by many NATO nations, it’s the most advanced plane represented. We walked toward one of my favorite aircraft. “Look, Claudette, it’s a Mosquito!” I exclaimed.

“I didn’t know they had them in England, “ she answered.

“Not the insect, the plane. It’s made of plywood, you know!”

“A wooden plane? Built of plywood like our garage storage shelves?”” said she in disbelief.

”Well, sort of, it’s of laminated wood construction. They hired piano  and cabinet makers to build them.”

“Why?” she wanted to know.

“I don’t know, but I would guess it was because metal was in short supply,” I answered.

“Okay.”

“Do you see that silver plane right behind it?”

“Yes, it’s pretty.”

“Yep, some say the P-51 Mustang was the most beautiful fighter plane of WWII,” I said adding, “ It has the same engine as the Mosquito.”

“I don’t understand. It has American markings on it rather than the British bullseye?”  she asked.

“I’m glad you asked that. You see, the British asked the Americans to design them a fighter plane, and the Mustang was what North American Aviation came up with. At first it did not perform well with an Allison engine, but when the engine was replaced with the Rolls Roycè Merlin engine the performance improved dramatically.”

“I guess that is where the Mustang car got its name,” she said.

“Not really. Aviation aficionados would have you believe that, but the horse was the impetus for the name.”

We were wandering around the historic aircraft when Claudette said, “Hey, we’ve seen one of those before!”

“We sure have; at the Beaufort  Marine Corps Air Station.  During one of the air shows we saw a demonstration in which it was flying ground support for marines on the ground. Did you know that the Hawker Harrier first made vertical take-off and landing practical?”

“Okay…” she said sounding rather disinterested. Sometimes she just doesn’t share my interest  in airplanes.  I cannot fathom why.

The aircraft behind us represented perhaps the greatest technological advancement of the Second World War. It was the Messerschmitt Me-262, the Swallow.  It was the first jet aircraft used in combat. It was over 100 mph faster than any Allied fighter plane.

“The Me-262 was the fastest thing in the sky in 1944,”  I told Claudette.  “The two Juno jet engines pushed it to over 500 mph.”

“Haven’t we seen one of these before?” she asked.

“Yes, several.  There is even one in the U.S. Naval Aviation Museum that has a back seat. I thought it was built as a trainer but most likely as a bomber. The back seat would have been for the bombardier.  Hitler wanted the bulk of the planes used as bombers, although they were  better suited for fighter aircraft. After the war many features of this plane were incorporated into modern jet aircraft. Interestingly enough the turbojet engine was patented by an Englishman, Frank Whittle,”  I added.

“If the British invented the jet aircraft engine, why were the Germans so successful in building a jet powered fighter plane?”

“There are a couple of reasons for that. One reason is that although Whittle invented the jet engine in 1930, the Air Ministry did not support the development of his invention. On the other hand, when Hans von Obain built his jet engine in Germany years after Whittle, he received full government support for its development. The British did build a jet fighter, but very near the end of the war. There it is, the Gloster Meteor.”

We saw several more interesting aircraft in the Milestones of Flight exhibit, even a rare Hawker Typhoon. The Napier H-engined fighter was the only one left in existence

We ventured into another hanger by way of a fabric covered walkway.  It was like a tunnel. The first thing you see in the hanger known as the Bomber Room is a huge Avro Lancaster  bomber.  Also included in the collection is the B-24 Liberator, the B-17 Flying Fortress, and the B-25 Mitchell.  There is a huge Avro Vulcan I remembered from a James Bond movie. There were other bombers as well as ancillary equipment.  There were also some WWII fighter planes as. German Bf-109s and a FW-190 were on display. The 190 was the dual cockpit version, which I had not seen before.  There was also a Heinkel-163 which was an early German jet plane.

“I like that sign!” Claudette announced.

“What sign?”

“That one,” she said pointing, “It says Echo, Apha, Tango--EAT!”

“We sat in the shadow of the a giant flying machine of  wars past and enjoyed a cup of tea. Scones and strawberry jam made the rest break complete.

I had a bit of fun with some kids as I was sitting in an open cockpit. I was telling them to watch the rear control surfaces as I operated the stick and rudder pedals. At one point I pushed the stick forward and announced that I was diving toward earth. I abruptly slammed my hands into the dash with a loud bang. The boys jumped with surprise as I announced that I had crashed.

There is a special building for the Battle of Britain. Aircraft, including some which had crashed, as well as displays depicting bombed out buildings were there. Naturally, there were V-1 and V-2  German missiles on display. It was quite moving. There I was able to walk through a giant Short

Sunderland flying boat. The restoration area was accessible, also.  There I saw, among other things, a German twin engine bomber under restoration.

We were at the museum over four hours, and I enjoyed every minute walking rather briskly through the various buildings.  Soon it was time to get back to our apartment in Kensington to get ready for dinner.