Monthly Archives: June 2009

What We’re Working On In the Restoration Shop (Part One)

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The high-priority project these days is the Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight gallery update, and several of the aircraft planned for the gallery are at the Garber Facility for cleaning, repairs, and preparation for hanging.  Let’s take a quick look:


Patty Wagstaff’s Extra 260 being prepared for shipment.  The team was careful to avoid resetting the “G” meter, which came to us with the needles pegged at +10 / -6 Gs.  The aircraft will be inverted for transportation, assembly, and hanging on the second floor of the museum, a tricky endeavor to say the least.  Here, Matt Nazzaro test-fits one of the brackets used in this operation.


The Extra 260 will be displayed inverted and in a 15 degree bank, as one might expect for this agile airshow star.  At first, the team planned to hang it from the landing gear at points near the tires, but some damage that weakened one gear leg (visible near the top of the leg) made them reconsider.  One of the new hanging points, manufactured on the premises, can be seen just below the damaged spot.

My project, the Curtiss R3C-2 seaplane racer from 1925.  The fuselage has already been cleaned and draped with a dust cover in the background.  We’ve enjoyed admiring those beautiful gold wings, with radiators (for engine coolant) covering much of their surfaces.  Ailerons and one elevator, currently being recovered with cotton fabric, are in the foreground.

This pretty Piper J-2 Cub has been hanging at the FAA Headquarters building on loan for the past few years.


The wings look good in this picture, but restoration specialist John Shatz finds some trouble . . .

The aluminum trailing edge and wing root rib have been crumpled, cut, and just generally beaten up from some past impact.  There’s some corrosion advancing in there too.  The mouse nest has already been removed.

Anne McCombs is a restoration specialist in the Collections Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

Shooting the Beach

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May 6th, 1944 – one month to the day before D-Day – German troops scatter for safety as Lt. Albert Lanker of the 31st Photo Reconnaissance Squadron flies fast and very low over the beach in “Outlaw”, his F-5 Lightning (a variant of the Lockheed P-38 fighter). Lanker’s job was to photograph the beach obstructions on the Normandy coast for the planners of the massive invasion; it was only his third mission.

Jobs of this sort were called “dicing” missions, because the pilot, flying low (and unarmed) was dicing with death every time he flew. On this mission, Lanker was fired on, without effect, by one intrepid German with a rifle. He ended his run by clearing a cliff by a cool six feet, and flew home with his precious snapshots  – “… Won our presidential citation by this picture,” a squadron member later wrote beneath the photo, mounted in its scrapbook.

Prominent in the photograph are hochpfählen – “high stakes” tipped with explosive mines designed to destroy landing craft and amphibious vehicles.

The photograph and scrapbook come from the Museum Archives Division’s 31st Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron (Smith) Collection, 1943-1945. A painting of Lt. Lanker’s flight appears in the book Combat in the Sky, by Philip Handleman.

Allan Janus is a museum specialist in the Archives Division of the National Air and Space Museum.


Restoration of the Starship Enterprise

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The original studio model of the Starship Enterprise used in the television series “Star Trek” came to the Smithsonian Institution thirty-five years ago, donated by Paramount Studios in 1974.

When the television show ended in 1969, the starship had been crated and stored at the studios.  Over time, heat, cold, humidity and other elements had taken a toll on the structure, the wiring and other internal components as well as the exterior paint scheme.  Before it could be put on exhibit, extensive restoration was required.

The hull and one nacelle of the Starship Enterprise as it was received by the National Air and Space Museum from Paramount studios on March 1, 1974.

The first Smithsonian restoration took place shortly after the starship was received and was completed by July 29, 1974.  This restoration was coordinated with Matt Jeffries, one of the original designers of the starship, and Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek.

The Starship Enterprise during its first Smithsonian restoration. SI Neg # 74-3977

A second restoration was done ten years later, between August  8, and September 11, 1984.  And a third restoration was carried out in the Winter of 1991.

The Starship Enterprise during its third Smithsonian restoration, December, 1991. Frank H. Winter, Photographer

In addition to these restoration and conservation efforts, on June 22, 1999, the starship underwent X-Ray analysis at QC Laboratories, Inc., in Aberdeen, Maryland.

The Starship Enterprise undergoing X-Ray analysis at QC Laboratories, Inc. Frank H. Winter, Photographer.

X-ray , detail.

X-ray photograph, detail.

In the 35 years that the National Air and Space Museum has held it, the Starship Enterprise has gone through in-depth conservation and restoration, making it one of the more extensively preserved and studied objects in the Museum’s collection.  It is currently on display in the lower level of the National Air and Space Museum Store, where every year it is seen by millions of people from all over the world.

Gregory K. H. Bryant is Museum Registrar in the Office of the Registrar at the Smithsonian, National Air and Space Museum.

Selecting the Astroland Star

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A Smithsonian Institution curator whom I greatly admire once said that collecting objects for a museum is a bit like standing next to a river with a bucket.  The curator’s task is to gather examples that explain what is important about something (in this analogy, a river), but the curator can only take what fits in the bucket.  How do you capture the essence of something large and complex with a sample that is small enough to be preserved and displayed?

This was the task I faced when I received an e-mail from Carol Albert, the co-owner of the Astroland amusement park, a space-themed park founded in Coney Island in 1962 at the height of U.S. excitement about the first American human spaceflights.  Because the park was closing, Albert wanted to preserve Astroland’s history.  Her initial offer, however, to donate the park’s original 74-foot-long rocket ride proved to be entirely too large.  So, in January 2009, I made a trip to Coney Island with Carol, scouting for a (more-bucket-sized) example.

The Astro tower, an observation ride and a notable part of Astroland’s skyline, was far too large.  I took photographs of its signs but kept looking.  The lighted top of a ticketbooth with handpainted signs captured the efforts of the many people who made Astroland work but I wondered about how the Museum would display a four-sided piece.  The lighted sign at the Surf Avenue entrance offered real possibilities.  But the entire sign stretched over 40-feet wide.  What about one part, perhaps one of the spinning lighted stars?

One of the Astroland entranceway stars was the solution. The web address added to the bottom of the 1960s-era star illustrated Astroland in both the 1960s and the 2000s.  This “small” piece, an 8-foot by 7-and-a-half-foot lighted star, illustrates the space theme.  And, at the same time, the star presents a sample of Astroland’s bright lights and excitement.  The thousands of people who had passed under the sign to take part in the park’s rides and games would recognize it.

So, in one 8-foot-high segment of a lighted sign, have I captured the essence of Astroland?  (Do I have a river in my bucket?)  Yes and no.  No single piece can capture fully the many stories that make up Astroland’s importance.  But the Astroland star symbolizes the space craze of the early 1960s and represents an important part of the history of Coney Island amusement parks.

It arrives at the Smithsonian this Thursday.

Margaret Weitekamp is a curator in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum.