Museum of Flight

Student: Talin

Date: Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Topic: Visit to the Museum of Flight, Seattle Washington

My wife and I recently visited the Museum of Flight in Seattle Washington. The museum’s history started when an all volunteer group formed the Pacific Northwest Aviation Historical Foundation in 1965. The group formed to restore a 1929 Boeing 80a-1 that was rotting in an Alaskan landfill. This plane can be seen today in the Museum’s Great Gallery. The plane can be seen in the background of this picture behind the Lockheed M-21 Blackbird.



The group opened their first exhibits to the public in 1968 at a 10,000 square foot space they rented at the Seattle Center. At the same time they were making plans for the site where the museum is now housed. In 1983 they opened the Red Barn to the public. This building was built in 1909 and was the original construction building of the Boeing Company. In 1987 they opened the T. A. Wilson Great Gallery.

In 1992 they opened the Challenger Learning Center which allowed students to participate in a NASA style control room situation and simulate space missions. Another milestone was achieved when the Blackbird arrived in 1994. Then, in 1996, a Boeing VC-137B was delivered which served as Air Force One for Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The museum also received the only Concorde on the West Coast which is parked near Air Force One, and a prototype 737 and 747. These are across the street from the main museum in the Museum’s Airpark outdoor display gallery.

The museum houses many wonderful examples of man’s history of flight. In the entryway and lobby is the Keith W. McCaw Dream of Flight. Below is one of the magnificent models housed in this area.

One of my favorite planes in the exhibit is in the Personal Courage Wing World War I Gallery. Below you see a picture of a Caproni CA 20 from Italy. This magnificent airplane is virtually un-restored and shows the wear and tear it received since its manufacture in 1914.


There are many more examples of WWI technology in this gallery including a Sopwith Triplane, a Fokker Dr.I Triplane, Nieuports, a SPAD XIII and many others. We then moved onto the Personal Courage Wing’s World War II Gallery. Below are some of the airplanes we viewed there.

This hall shows us such planes as the Spitfire, the Warhawk, the P38 Lightning, the Corsair, and of course my favorite, the North American P-51 Mustang. The exhibit is full of airplanes and both galleries in this wing house period structures, such as a farmhouse and Quonset Hut, that show information about the airplanes and the period.

Our final stop for airplanes took place when we entered the Great Gallery. This gallery houses over 40 airplanes from the Gossamer Albatross to a Douglas DC-3 weighing over 9 tons! The gallery feels like aviation Disneyland with almost too much to look at.

The Gossamer Albatross

Stearman Biplane

Douglas A-4 Skyhawk II (Blue Angel)

In this exhibit you can also ride on a flight simulator, sit in the cockpit of an airplane, and kids can ride in a Blue Angels simulator. This gallery also has the entrance to the space exhibit where we will venture next. The Space Exhibit is housed in the Bill and Moya Lear Side Gallery. Here one can learn about Space Exploration from the early rockets, and the launch of Russia’s Sputnik satellite, all the way up to the Space Shuttle, Space Station, Mars exploration and other current events.

There are many hands on exhibits and multimedia streams showing how these mockups and artifacts were actually put to use. One can also view moon rocks and learn their secrets. Below are some of the exhibits in this wing.

This is a picture of the lunar Rover designed by Boeing. This one was one of the engineering mockups that were created. The rover had computer guided navigation, and a portable television screen.

This picture shows the inside of the Apollo mission Command Module. The Apollo missions included a number of un-crewed missions and 11 missions with crew. The objective of the missions was to land a man on the moon.

This is a picture of a mockup of a Mars rover. The rovers have been quite successful in telling us much about Mars and the makeup of the red planet. The current rover mission is underway and is testing soil samples for traces of water and the building blocks of life. More information on this project can be found at Space.com at http://www.space.com/marsrover/

The Museum of Flight is a wonderful place to learn, explore, and be amazed. There is information and activities for all ages and it is certainly a national treasure.

Talin

Book Review

The Four Agreements, By Don Miguel Ruiz

This book is a book of Toltec wisdom written by a man who was trained in these ways by his mother, and a teacher in the Mexican desert. He at first shunned the practice but then came back to it after a near death experience.

The book challenges us to look at everything we know and believe and to examine those belief structures. We are all made up of our life experiences and the things that we have been taught. Examining these can help us to achieve a better understanding of ourselves.

The first of the four agreements is to be impeccable with your word. This agreement is comprised of many facets. It goes beyond the mere traditional definition of mere honesty and pushes into everything we do. He states that this agreement, alone, would be enough to deliver heaven on earth if we follow it closely enough.

He challenges us to realize the power of the words spoken with our mouth. He tells the story of a little girl, whose mother has had a very hard day. The mother comes home with a headache and is very distracted. The little girl is having a fabulous day, she is singing and dancing and carrying on. She gets louder and louder singing and expressing her joy. Her mother finally tells her to quit and that she has an ugly voice. The little girl never sings again.

This takes us beyond honesty and integrity and really exposes the power of our spoken word in bright light. The little girl suffers so much loss through this because she never gets to express herself through a medium that she found so natural. As she progresses through life she is constantly refusing this expression and possibly not even remembering why. She simply feels the pain and represses her urge.

The mother, on the other hand, may not remember what she did either. But she is robbed of a most precious gift as well, that of hearing the most beautiful sound from a person that she loves more than life itself. Not only that, but these words spoken in passion and haste, crushed something in her daughter. Something not easy to repair.

We must do what we say. We must hold to our promises. We must not lie. Ever. We must watch what we say. This is the toughest of the four agreements and the most liberating. It is through our word, and our words, that we are known.

The second agreement is not to take anything personally. For instance, if someone tells you that you are fat, or stupid, this has nothing to do with you. It has to do with them. Many times we belittle those around us, even those we love, to make ourselves feel better. Don’t take it personally. Don’t take it at all. Conversely, if someone tells you that you are smart, beautiful, or wonderful, it is still not about you. You know you are those things and don’t need others to ratify that for you. Besides, they may be telling you that to make themselves feel worse, to engage you in their pity party. Or they may be trying to lift you up by spouting these things.

The third agreement is to never make assumptions. We create a lot of problems just by assuming that someone feels a certain way about us, or is mad at us, or thinks of us a certain way. We should never make these assumptions because they simply may not be true. In making them we start to believe in them and deal with them as if they are reality. We start to poison our thinking and our reactions to these people with things that may not even be factual.

Another area that we make assumptions is by giving in to our own agreements that we have made with ourselves. We assume that we cannot succeed, that we cannot do this thing or that. We will never know until we try. Many of us have these destructive and limiting agreements with ourselves. I could never understand calculus. I could never climb Mt. Everest. I could never be a good parent, etc., etc. By placing these limitations upon ourselves we miss out on so much.

The fourth agreement is to always do our best. For anything we have agreed to do, work, projects, clubs, marriage, parenting, everything, we need to put forth our best effort at all times. One thing that liberates in this concept is the realization of the reality that our best will vary at times. We may wake up in the morning ready to go and deliver a great effort on a project. At other times, we may be sick, or tired, and unable to deliver our most impressive, but we still give the best we can.

If we continually are unable to deliver we need to assess the circumstances and see what the block is. Are we too overcommitted? Are there other factors involved? Using the first agreement we can adjust and be honest with ourselves and the others involved.

This book has had a profound impact on me. It has challenged me to question and examine the agreements I have made with myself. My only frustration with it is that it offers little to guide one on this path. It offers tantalizing secret but does not go into depth or detail. I am sure that is somewhat because the work and details need to come from within.

Talin