Freaky Flyers

We recently visited the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona. With over three hundred aircraft on display it is one of the largest aircraft museums in the world.  Exhibited are the fastest, SR-71, and some of the slowest, Scheibe, but I have decided to show some of the most unique, weird, freaky, or ugly.

The small yellow biplane was constructed to capture the title of "The World's Smallest Airplane".  The Starr Bumble has a wingspan of 6'-6" and is powered by a 85 horsepower engine.

The North American F-107 which never went into production has a unique design with the air intake over the cockpit because the Air force wanted a plane single engine attack plane with a bomb bay as opposed to bombs on pylons outside the fuselage. However, the F-107 design was not adopted. The Air force chose the Republic F-105. 

The aircraft pictured third from the left on the to row is a cargo plane designed and built by Budd, the BR-1 Conestoga.  Budd is well known a a manufacturer of subway cars.  The same technology is used in the manufacture of this aircraft.  Stainless steel is welded together as opposed the the normal technology of riveted aluminum.  The government was concerned about a shortage of aluminum and was investigating an alternatives.  Only a few of the planes were built and they saw service as commercial cargo carriers.

Lastly is the C-119.  These were produced in great quantities but I have chosen to feature this one because of the jet engine attached to the top of the fuselage  for additional lifting power. The C-119 was featured in both versions of the film "Flight of the Phoenix". This had the Pratt and Whitney "corn cob" engines.

On the next row we find this small airliner with pusher engines and a canard wing up front. The Beechcraft Starship, although very innovative with  pusher design and pressurized cabin, was a commercial failure.

Next is the Fairey Gannet.  A quit unusual appearing aircraft.  The bulges for electronic warfare equipment don't give it many points for beauty.  It's powered by a turbo-prop engine with contra-rotating propellers.  This aircraft is usually recognized as the most unattractive airplane ever built.   Simply put...it's ugly!

No one can dispute less than pleasing appearance of the Aero Spaceline 377-SG Guppy.  Built to carry out sized equipment it has spawned other oddly shaped aircraft to carry unusual payloads.

Lastly, is the Bell P-63 Kingcobra.  It is an up scaled P-39. Although it is sleek and attractive I've included it because of it's unique engine placement.  The 12 cylinder Allison is mounted behind the pilot.  Also note the cannon barrel protruding through the propeller hub.

View all the aircraft and more at the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest - The Last in the Series

We watched this final chapter in the trilogy of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movies last evening. It was a fitting conclusion to the story of an abused and used Swedish girl. Like the first film, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, it was violent and sexually explicit. But neither the violence nor sex is gratuitous. The film does have a certain "Swedishness" about it. I can't actually define "Swedishness" but having recently watched several Swedish films there is a similarity. This film has more characters than the previous films and it is more difficult to separate the "good guys" from the "bad guys" and I sometimes find it difficult to follow the action while reading the subtitles. I know the first in this series is being remade in America. But I don't believe it can be made better.  The Swedish films have good stories with good acting and are very well made films.

If you like thrillers with action and a Swedish flavor you can't go wrong with: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's nest.

New Things for the Road

As usual we try something different on the road and this trip to Phoenix was no different. Most notably were our new carry-on bags from Rick Steves.  They're made of tough nylon and have compression straps to let you insure that the bag meets the dimension regulations for carry-on baggage. The bags have a number of convenient zippered pockets.  There are two carrying handles for easy carrying and hidden back straps to configure the bag as a backpack.  Carrying it as a backpack is great for carrying the bag over greater distances and it frees up both hands.

Our contracts had run out on our cell phones so we opted to replace them with "smartphones".  The LG Vortex phones aren't  the top of the line but serve our needs well. We have Internet access via wireless or Wifi which makes it easy to communicate by voice or text.  Posting to our Facebook and blogs is easy also.  The camera takes good pictures and video and the GPS feature makes it easy to find your way in unfamiliar territory.  It certainly directed us to a Safeway to buy the ingredients for banana pudding.  There are thousands of applications available and I'm sure we'll find others to meet our needs.  And, incidentally, the sound quality is good too.

We try to get the most "bang for our buck" when visiting attractions while traveling.  One thing we have found is that many cities via their tourism organizations publish discount booklets or pamphlets.  The way this usually works is that you buy the booklet for a set fee and it includes such things as reduced admission tickets or "buy one, get one free" offers. The more attractions you attend, the more money you save.  In Tucson, our discount booklet paid for itself after the second attraction we visited. It's about being thrifty and getting maximum value for your travel dollar.

3,2,1,Launch


 Yesterday,we were fortunate enough to visit the Titan Missile Museum in Arizona.  This stands as a historic site commemorating the "cold war".  The cold war occurred when weapons of mass destruction of the nuclear varieties were developed by the USA and USSR.  Since a launch of a Intercontinental Ballistic Missile with nuclear warhead by either would result in the total destruction of humanity as we know it a stalemate was reached. In order to comply with the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty in 1984 all weapons of mass destruction were destroyed. The Titan II site in Arizona is the only missile site of it's kind in the world.

The museum is easily accessible off I-17 in southern Arizona.  The entryway and ticketing area has good and very informative displays about nuclear arms proliferation and a timeline of events.  On display is hardware used by the Strategic Air Command in the missile site operation.  There is a full size mock-up of a warhead as well.  There are some good videos as well including one from a Star Trek TNG episode that was filmed here

You are only allowed to visit the site as a part of a guided tour group with the maximum group size of 25. After a brief introduction lecture and video the tour begins. Hard hats must be worn by all those over five feet ten inches in height. I donned my hard hat and was on my way.

Tours are run on a strict schedule.  There is a militaristic air about the location and people. our first stop was a look at the fuel station for the missile and the rocket engines.  We then looked down on the rocket, missile, all one hundred and ten feet of it inside the silo. We were told how the silo and missile were configured so the Russian surveillance satellites could determine that the missile was harmless. To comply with the treaty all missiles had to be destroyed. Holes were cut in the side of the missile and it was laid on it's side for a number of days so the satellites could get a good view.

We descended underground. Fifty-five steps down. The lower level was visible through the expanded metal steps. Once below we entered the command area through steel-reinforced concrete blast doors weighing three tons each. Naturally everything is painted that pale green that someone once told me was picked by psychiatrists as a soothing color.  Once in the control room we were given an explanation of all the electronics of missile control and operating procedures.  A prominent sign is this area read "NO LONE ZONE". This meant that you were not allowed in the area alone. After our lecture we participated in a mock launch of the missile.  By some quirk of fate I was the launch commander turning the key to launch the missile which carried the equivalent explosive force of a freight train loaded with TNT reaching from Arizona to Kentucky, over one thousand miles!  It was quite a kick to play missile commander which in reality would have been an Air Force major or captain. Two officers and two enlisted men manned the site.  We entered a long tubular  passageway of about ten feet in diameter for our walk to the missile.  Upon reaching it we could view the missile through huge windows on the silo wall constructed for this purpose.  It was then time to go back up to ground level.  They gave us more information about the site and the tour was over.  Of course, we had to exit through the gift shop.

The volunteers do a great job here. Our visit was very interesting and informative.  And we got great exercise!

More information is available at the Museum website.

Prehistoric Ruins in AZ

Near Sedona Arizona we visited ruins of the cliff-dwelling native Americans of this area. This is in the "red rock" part of the state. Access is via dirt roads which are very rough but passable although at some points out Ford Focus did drag on the rocky road. I was fun to drive on the hard packed roads with minimum traction. The two locations had different archaeological artifacts to offer. One was primarily pictographs.The park service employee gave and interesting lecture about the pictographs and what they told us about ancient people. Some could have been considered pornographic by some modern standards.

The other ruin was a dwelling, one of those large buildings, multi-family housing. It was constructed of rock with mud mortar. We were our own guides at this site. Some of the walls are shown in the photograph.