Category Archives: On View at the Museum

10 Cool Things You May Not Know About The Museum's Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird

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1.  Continuous, Supersonic Afterburner. Ever wonder what causes the diamond pattern in the SR-71 jet engine exhaust?  It’s due to the extra thrust provided by the afterburner which is actually supersonic, creating successive shock waves that show up as the diamond pattern.  The SR-71 engines fly continuously in afterburner, except when refueling. 

  

2. It Can Stand the Heat. Flying more than three times the speed of sound generates 316° C (600° F) temperatures on external aircraft surfaces, which are enough to melt conventional aluminum airframes. That’s why the SR-71′s external skin is made of titanium alloy, to shield the internal aluminum airframe.  But the tires, which retracted into the wings during flight, also had to keep from melting!  Aluminum was mixed in with latex when the tires were created and they are filled with nitrogen.  The tire pressure on the SR-71 was 415 psi (compared to the 32-35 psi in your automobile tires!). 

 

3. Pilots Must Suit Up.  SR-71 pilots have more in common with astronauts that you might think.  They flew so high (80,000-85,000 ft), pilots had to wear special pressure suits that were actually modified spacesuits. 

 

4. The Secret’s in the Inlets: The speed and agility of the SR-71 is largely due to the unique design of the engine inlets.  To handle the dramatic changes in air speed and pressure, air literally had to be slowed down to subsonic speeds before entering the jet engines. 

 

5. It’s Fast.  Really fast. How fast is a typical 747 aircraft moving when it lifts off the runway?  155 knots (185 miles per hour)   How fast is the average  SR-71 traveling when it lifts off the runway? 210 knots (242 miles per hour)  The SR-71 cruised at over Mach 3.  It could operate safely at a maximum speed of Mach 3.3 at an altitude more than 16 miles, or 25,908 m (85,000 ft), above the Earth.  Other aircraft can approach this speed, but only for short duration.  The only other aircraft to fly supersonic for hours at a time was the Concorde, and that couldn’t fly Mach 3.3.  The Museum’s SR-71 holds the world speed record for manned air-breathing jet aircraft. 

6. Best of the Fleet.  The Museum’s SR-71 holds six world records.  The most dramatic was its final flight to the Museum when it set a speed record on March 6, 1990. Lt. Col. Ed Yeilding and Lt. Col. Joseph Vida flew from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. in 1 hour, 4 minutes, and 20 seconds, averaging 3,418 kilometers (2,124 miles) per hour.  After landing at Washington-Dulles International Airport, the airplane was turned over to the Smithsonian. 

 

7. Flown by Museum Staff.  That’s right.  The Museum’s SR-71 was flown by Tom Alison, a former National Air and Space Museum’s Chief of Collections Management. Flying with Detachment 1 at Kadena Air Force Base, Okinawa, Alison logged more than a dozen ’972 operational sorties. 

Museum Docent Buz Carpenter was also an SR-71 pilot and instructor, though he did not fly the Museum’s aircraft.   Here Buz talks about his longest SR-71 flight on a recently declassified mission. 

 

8. It’s A Movie Star. Yes, but no autographs, sorry.  Our SR-71 was featured in the major motion picture “Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen,” as Jetfire.  The cast and crew filmed on-site at the Udvar-Hazy Center for 8 days.  No, the Decepticon emblem is not actually attached to the nose gear door of the aircraft.  We don’t think… but it can be seen in the display case located in the nearby Cold War exhibit station. 

Landing gear door cover bearing Decepticon emblem from "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen." In the movie, the Museum's SR-71 plays "Jetfire," a former Decepticon turned good Transformer. One of several items from the movie on display in a case exhibit at the Udvar-Hazy Center.

 

9. Years of Darkness.  In addition to flying secret missions in its previous life, the SR-71 was stored in a custom hangar built solely for its protection in a secured area of the Dulles Airport property after it was turned over to Smithsonian.  It remained there for over 10 years until the Museum had a display facility where it could be viewed by the public – the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. 

SR-71 outside former storage hangar at Dulles International Airport. Photo #SI92-14090 by Mark Avino, National Air and Space Museum.

 

10. The story behind the”Skunk:” The first Lockheed aircraft factory was built adjacent to an industrial plastics plant. When the wind blew just right, a horrible odor enveloped the Lockheed factory.  The story goes that one day a Lockheed engineer, Irving “Irv” Culver, was so distressed by the odor, he began to answer his phone with the phrase, “Skonk Works, inside man Culver here…,” in reference to the then popular comic strip “Li’l Abner” in which a fictitious factory brewed a smelly concoction of ground up skunks and old shoes known to readers as “Skonk Oil”. Over time the phrase caught on and the name was eventually changed to “Skunk Works” at the request of the comic strip copyright holder. The little skunk on the tail of the SR-71 is the official logo of the Lockheed secret projects factory. 

Skunk Works logo on Museum's SR-71. Photo #2005-6014 by Dane Penland, , National Air and Space Museum.

 

Learn more about the Museum’s Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.

Vicki Portway is Chair of Web & New Media and Dik Daso is a curator in the Aeronautics Division of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

Take a Look at These Cockpits

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Many visitors express the wish to see the interiors of aircraft and spacecraft on display in the Museum. But to protect these historic treasures, they must be displayed behind barriers, which makes it impossible to see inside. But there are several cockpits you can see in the Museum, a day devoted to getting up close with aircraft, some cool electronic views, and a couple of great books that give those who are curious some excellent interior views.

In the National Mall building visitors can see an authentic reproduction of an Airbus A320 “glass cockpit.” Here, you can experience a take-off and landing at Washington Reagan National Airport as if you were a commercial airline pilot. The simulator is on view in the America by Air gallery.

Airbus A320 Cockpit

In a "glass cockpit," digital electronic displays replace conventional analog instruments. This technology provides flight crews with far better instrumentation and information than ever before.

In the same exhibition are two more cockpits on view. One is the first Boeing 747-151 ever flown by Northwest Airlines. Accessible from a walkway on the second floor, you can enter the forward section and see the cockpit and its over 600 buttons, switches, and knobs. The second is a 1950s-era American Airlines Douglas DC-7 on the main floor, which offers a view of the cabin as well as the cockpit. The contrast between these two aircraft is striking!

747 Nose

This nose section is from a Northwest Airlines Boeing 747-151. First flown in 1970, this 747 was the first built for Northwest and the first 747 to open service across the Pacific. It was retired in 1999. Gift of Northwest Airlines, Inc.

At the Udvar-Hazy Center, there is a view of the nose and cockpit of the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb in combat on Hiroshima, Japan during World War II, a Cessna airplane that kids can sit in, and a space shuttle simulator.

Enola Gay

The historic Boeing B-29 Enola Gay is shown here just after being restored and re-assembled in 2003. The airplane, which received the most extensive restoration in the museum's history, is on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

Enola Gay Cockpit

Boeing's B-29 Superfortress was the most sophisticated propeller-driven bomber of World War II, and the first bomber to house its crew in pressurized compartments.

Most space capsules on display allow great up-close views inside. For instance, you can get nose-to-nose with the cockpits of three capsules in the National Mall building’s Milestones of Flight gallery: Apollo 11, Mercury Friendship 7, and Gemini IV. In Apollo to the Moon is a full-size simulator of the Apollo lunar module cockpit where you can experience the minute-by-minute thrill of landing on the Moon.

Lunar Module Cockpit

The control panels and triangular windows inside Lunar Module 2

Another chance to see cockpits is at the annual Become a Pilot Family Day and Aviation Display at the Udvar-Hazy Center, held this year on June 19. Over 50 aircraft fly in for the occasion, and you can walk right up to view, and sometimes sit in, the cockpits.

Several cockpits that can’t be viewed in person are available on the Museum’s web site in Quick Time Virtual Reality format. These include the Concorde and the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Check them out here. And next time you’re at the Udvar-Hazy Center, look for the computer kiosks throughout the Center that offer 360 degree views of many airplane interiors and cockpits.

SR-71

The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird in a storage hangar at Dulles International Airport before transport to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

SR-71 Cockpit

The Blackbird's cockpit was a tight fit for the crew, who wore bulky pressure suits during each mission.

Finally, you can look at an incredible array of striking cockpit photos in two books written and photographed by Museum staffers. In the Cockpit: Inside 50 History-Making Aircraft, and In the Cockpit II: Inside History-Making Aircraft of World War II, provide close-up access to the instrument panels and controls of aircraft in the Museum’s impressive collection. Both books are available at the smithsonianstore.com, in person at the Museum Stores, or by calling 202-357-1387 to have one mailed.  Maybe if you buy one for your Dad for Father’s Day he would let you read it!

Kathleen Hanser is a writer-editor in the National Air and Space Museum’s Office of Communications.

Sending a Nobel Prize to Orbit

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Nobel Prize

Replica of John Mather's Nobel Prize for Physics

The notation in the Museum’s artifact database is simple: “On loan.”  But this artifact is a replica Nobel Prize.  And its loan involves two government agencies, a crushed storage building, and a flight to the International Space Station.

Let’s start at the beginning – literally.  As in the Big Bang.  In 2006, John Mather of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics jointly with George F. Smoot of the University of California at Berkeley “for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic background radiation.”  That is, using the COBE (COsmic Background Explorer) satellite, Mather and Smoot discovered “the basic form of the cosmic microwave background radiation as well as its small variations”—work that confirms the theory of the Big Bang.  The National Air and Space Museum displays a replica of the COBE satellite in the “Explore the Universe” exhibit in the National Mall Building.

COBE

Close up of front end of COBE showing entrances for FIRAS (left) and DIRBE (right.)

The Nobel Prize, a series of yearly international awards endowed by Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel, consists of a monetary prize, a diploma, and a gold medal.  But Laureates have the opportunity to have bronze replica medals minted for their private use.  Mather requested three.

And thus, the Museum received into its collection a Nobel Prize medal.  On October 3, 2007, during a reception and invited talk sponsored by NASA at the National Air and Space Museum, Mather presented Museum director General Jack Dailey with a bronze replica of the award’s medal.  Mather gave another copy to NASA.

In 2010, NASA astronaut Piers Sellers contacted Mather about flying a copy of his Nobel Prize aboard STS-132, a mission aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, destined for the International Space Station in May.  Astronauts often collaborate to assemble the significant objects that fly aboard each space mission.  Mather was delighted.  But, he quickly discovered that the medals he had given to NASA had been encased in thick plastic for display.  Removing the coating risked damaging the medals.  Flying the coated medals risked off-gassing (that smell that almost all plastics emit), which could be harmful in a spacecraft’s sealed environment.  Only the Museum’s medal remained in its original state.  So Mather contacted the Museum.

The timing stunk.  Just the week prior was the historic early February snow storm that paralyzed Washington, DC for a full week.  The heavy snow damaged a critical storage and processing building at the Paul E. Garber facility in Suitland, Maryland.  Every object that came in or out of the Museum usually passed through that building.  The entire loan program was shut down, frozen, blocked.  The staff was working overtime in rescue mode.

Fortunately, the Mather Nobel Prize replica was at the National Mall Building.  And, notwithstanding the pressures they were facing, the Museum’s loan staff were willing to do all of the work (and paperwork) necessary to prepare an object for loan in only 24 hours, without cutting corners.  Within days, Museum staff had hand-delivered the replica Nobel Prize to NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC.

Surprisingly, tracking the transit of a Nobel Prize is not very different than tracking any other package.  Because time was short, NASA shipped Mather’s Nobel to the Johnson Spaceflight Center in Houston, Texas via FedEx.  Entering the tracking number in the website, one could “watch” the Nobel make its way to the astronaut office.

Atlantis

Space shuttle Atlantis lifts off from Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to begin the STS-132 mission to the International Space Station.

The completion of the complex loan delivery came with glad tidings and good humor.  When he received the package, Piers Sellers e-mailed the Museum, “Hello everyone.  I have received the Nobel Prize. (I always wanted to say that.) I will hand it over to NASA pronto.  Best, P.”

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

A Crash Made Famous on TV

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May 10 may ring a bell for fans of the 1970s television show The Six Million Dollar Man.  On that day in 1967, a NASA research aircraft, the wingless M2-F2 lifting body, crashed in the California desert. A film clip of the crash opened the popular weekly show about the gravely injured fictional pilot, Steve Austin, played by Lee Majors.  Thanks to bionic implants, he survived as a cyborg with superhuman strength, speed, and vision, to crusade against injustice.

View TV series intro on YouTube.

The M2-F2 research craft looked more like a boat than an aircraft. NASA was experimenting with wingless flight for a more controlled, more heat-resistant reentry from space. A lifting body derives lift from the shape of the fuselage, rounded on the bottom and flatter on top. Instead of wings, it has vertical stabilizer fins to control its attitude.

The aluminum M2-F2 had an XLR-11 rocket engine. It was carried aloft under the wing of a B-52 bomber to 13,716 m (45,000 ft) altitude. The engine then ignited to carry the craft to 18,288-21,336 m (60,000-70,000 ft) for a gliding descent to a landing. These flights demonstrated that a pilot could fly a wingless vehicle back from space to land like an airplane.

M2-F2

M2-F2 After the Crash in 1967

There was only one serious accident in 12 years of lifting body flights. On its 16th test flight both the M2-F2 and pilot Bruce Peterson were nearly destroyed as the craft flew out of control and then plowed into the ground at 250 miles per hour, tumbling over and over before coming to rest. Peterson had several surgeries but no bionic implants to repair his facial injuries, fractured skull, and loss of one eye. This accident inspired a novel, made-for-television movies, and the weekly prime-time television program.

M2-F3 Lifting Body

M2-F3 Lifting Body, Hanging in Space Hall at the National Air and Space Museum

The M2-F2 was rebuilt as the M2-F3 with a large third vertical stabilizer between the fins. It flew 27 successful test flights in 1970-1972, many of them the same profile as planned for the space shuttle.  This lifting body research helped to demonstrate that landing without power was safe and thus landing engines were not needed on the shuttle.  The M2-F3 (the resurrected M2-F2) hangs in Space Hall in the National Air and Space Museum.

Valerie Neal is in her 20th year as the Shuttle-era human spaceflight curator in the National Air and Space Museum’s Space History Division.

Following the Hindenburg

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Hindenburg Poster

Hindenburg poster by Jupp Wiertz

The superlatives tend to pile up pretty quickly when it comes to the rigid airship Hindenburg, the pride of the Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei line. It was the longest aircraft of any type at 245 meters (803 feet). Its 16 gas cells held up to 200,000 cubic meters (7,062,900 cubic feet) of hydrogen gas. Four 1050 hp Daimler-Benz DB 602 diesel motors sped the mighty airship along at speeds up to 135km/h (85 mph) with a maximum range of 14,000km (8,700 miles). Up to 70 passengers traveled in unrivaled luxury, served by a crew of from 40 to 72; gourmet meals (although the final meal served on board was a bit sketchy); comfortable (though small) cabins with running water; and a smoking lounge, where one could enjoy a Hindenburg Cocktail or two. And, of course, the famous Blüthner aluminum piano, covered in pigskin, for the passengers’ pleasure. Think of that, the next time you’re stuffed into a tiny airline seat and stuck on a runway for a couple of hours.

Hindenburg Baggage Label

American Airlines-Hindenburg baggage label

It’s a shame, though, that the Hindenburg is remembered today primarily for its tragic final flight.  On May 6, 1937, it arrived at its American terminus, the Lakehurst Naval Air Station, at the end of the first flight of the 1937 season. Vented hydrogen ignited (although there are many other theories), and the mighty airship crashed and burned. There were 36 passengers and 61 crew on board; 13 passengers and 22 crew died, as did one member of the ground crew. But it wasn’t history’s worst airship disaster; the US Navy’s USS Akron lost 73 of its crew of 76 when it crashed off the New Jersey coast on April 4, 1933. What we remember, though, are the horrifying photographs of the Hindenburg engulfed in flames, and the breathless narration of the disaster by Herb Morrison, a reporter for the Chicago radio station WLS. But there are happier stories concerning the Hindenburg.

Hindenburg Ticket

Garland Fulton’s ticket for the October 9, 1936 “Millionaires’ Flight”

On October 9, 1936, the Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei and the Standard Oil Company invited a party of influential businessmen, politicians, and military men aboard the Hindenburg for a ten-hour flight over the fall foliage of New England. Dubbed “The Millionaires’ Flight,” its passengers included heavy hitters like Juan Trippe of Pan American and the ace Eddie Rickenbacker, who headed Eastern Airlines at the time. Also among the passengers was Commander Garland Fulton, U.S. Navy, chief of the Lighter than Air Section of the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics. That’s his ticket for the flight, shown above, preserved among his papers, which are held by the Museum’s Archives Division. As the VIPs enjoyed a superb luncheon, far below on the ground in the wilds of Connecticut, a little girl was about to have the experience of a lifetime. The little girl, who grew up to become an author and opera translator and a dear friend, was Anne “Cookie” Chotzinoff Grossman. Here’s her account, as published in Robert Hedin’s The Zeppelin Reader:

In September or October of 1936, I was six years old, at school in Ridgefield, Connecticut, in those days a small, exceedingly rural town. I was a shy little girl, always trailing behind my 10-year-old brother Blair. One day we were outside during the lunch recess, when a shadow crossed the schoolyard. We all looked up; something huge was floating by. Blair said excitedly, “Hey, that’s the Hindenburg! Let’s follow it!” I hadn’t the faintest idea what he was talking about or what a Hindenburg was, but whenever Blair said “follow”, I followed; so I ran behind him and his friends, trying hard to keep up. We ran across fields and brooks and over stone walls, trying to keep the airship in sight. Blair finally admitted defeat – the Hindenburg was faster than we were – and we made our way back to the school, very late and very dirty, to face angry teachers. I don’t remember what Blair’s punishment was, but I was made to stand at the blackboard and write “I will not follow the Hindenburg” 100 times.

That’s the way I prefer to remember the airship Hindenburg: sailing through a crisp autumn day over New England, with a gang of school kids in hot pursuit…

Hindenburg Model

Model of the Hindenburg on display in the National Mall Building.

There are Hindenburg artifacts to see at the Museum. For instance, the  stupendous model of the airship (shown above), used in the 1975 Universal film The Hindenburg starring George C. Scott and Anne Bancroft, which hovers over the entrance to the store in the National Mall Building.

The Bucker Bu-133C Jungmeister

The Bucker Bu-133C Jungmeister at the Udvar-Hazy Center

We even have an actual Hindenburg passenger on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center – the Museum’s Bücker Bü-133C Jungmeister was shipped to the United States in August 1936 on the Hindenburg by its owner, the Romanian aerobatic pilot Alexandru Papană for the Cleveland Air Races.

Hindenburg cup and saucer

Photograph by Dane Penland

Also at the Udvar-Hazy Center, in the Lighter than Air exhibit case, is a fragment of one of Hindenburg’s aluminum girders, a ladder, a fragment of the airship’s doped fabric, and, shown above, a cup and a saucer, possibly used on the Millionaires’ Flight, survivors of the Hindenburg’s final flight, but smudged by the smoke and flames that signaled the end of passenger airship travel.

Film of the Hindenburg in flight, and the destruction of the airship at Lakehurst, May 6, 1937. National Air and Space Museum Archives Division film VB 01246.

Allan Janus is a museum specialist in the Museum’s Archives Division.