Category Archives: Stories

An Artistic Search for Pluto

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How do you illustrate a non-fiction book for kids based on the former ninth planet? Some people still have some pretty strong feelings about Pluto’s demotion: protest signs, student protest speeches, public demonstrations. Cries of unfairness could be heard when news of poor Pluto’s removal from the planetary ranks occurred. It is the intention of this new children’s book to set the story straight or at least attempt to share “Pluto’s side of the story.”

I‘ve worked in the children’s book market as a freelance illustrator for several years in addition to my full-time job with the Museum’s Early Childhood program. My latest book assignment from Abrams Books for Young Readers, Pluto’s Secret: an Icy World’s Tale of Discovery, connected my job as an artist and an educator.

Pluto's Secreet

Pluto’s Secret, An Icy World’s Tale of Discovery, by Margaret A. Weitekamp and David DeVorkin. Illustrated by Diane Kidd.

In publishing, typically the illustrator and the author never meet or exchange ideas. In some cases the author might live across the state or in another country. The approved manuscript is sent to the artist from the publisher. It is then up to the artist to find the visual voice of the text. Fortunately, for this project the authors Margaret Weitekamp and David DeVorkin were my Museum colleagues. In my first sketch, for example, I used my daughter’s old high school algebra homework, which was my interpretation of a possible equation mathematician Percival Lowell might have calculated. David knew right away it was not correct and gave me a copy of an actual Lowell equation which is now in the book. I also needed to re-work my idea of a telescope, which originally looked like one from Dr. Seuss, to one that looked more like Lowell’s telescope.

Telescope

Original draft of the telescope from Pluto’s Secret.

telescope

Revised draft of the telescope, based on David DeVorkin’s comments.

When I work, I use water jars, brushes, water color pads, and tissue paper. I need good lighting and scads of paper towel, and music really helps the flow. Next I usually consider color and composition. In this case, “What color should I make Pluto? Hmmm… Purple? Blue? Meatball brown? Red is taken by Mars.” There is also a lot of activity in space. Things crash into each other, explosions and collisions happen, surfaces have been impacted by objects bumping into them.  Maybe Pluto might have a somewhat bumpy surface with a few craters. What does dirty methane gas look like? An icy world might have a few patches of surface ice. What might life in a Kuiper belt be like? No one really knows exactly, so imagination holds the paint brush.

Pluto

Color sample for Pluto’s Secret, by Diane Kidd

First I sketched out my ideas then sent them to the editor for review and critique, and to Margaret and David for review. Later the publisher sent corrections back marked in red.  The corrected sketches were re-drawn and then re-submitted  to the publisher. Once all the corrected sketches were approved, I worked on re-drawing and painting each image by hand on watercolor paper.

In the past, the procedure of mailing sketches back and forth between the publisher and artist often took weeks to complete. Today sketches can be scanned and sent out and corrections returned within a few days. Once the designer receives the corrected art, he/she can lay out the text copy with finished art work and get a pretty good idea of what the final product will look like. No more mailing tubes or runs to the copy shop in the middle of the night, or trips to the local post office trying to make a deadline.

Nevertheless, I still waited with baited breath for comments from the art editor/publisher/authors as they reviewed the final art work. Did they like it? Did I get the right look? Did they notice that smudge? For me, this is one of the hardest parts of the process, the waiting. Finally, a thumbs up. Everything was approved. It’s a go.

My hope is that young readers and adults alike will have as much fun as I did learning why Pluto is no longer considered a planet and how “he” really feels about it. And I hope you like the book as much as I liked creating the art!

Diane Kidd is manager of the National Air and Space Museum’s Early Childhood Program.

Join us this Friday, March 15, at the Museum in Washington, DC to learn more about Pluto with the authors of Pluto’s Secret. Children can participate in educational activities, and purchase a signed copy of the book.

My Cuban Missile Crisis

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cuban missile crisis

Aerial photograph taken by a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft showing a Soviet SA-2 Missile (V-75 Dvina, Guideline) surface to air missile (SAM) site in La Coloma, Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

 

Growing up in the Washington, D.C. area during the 1960s was… interesting – History would have a way of occasionally butting into an otherwise typical suburban boyhood. The memory of John F. Kennedy’s inauguration comes back to me in a Proustian sort of way through the taste of hot chocolate, which my father administered to me in an attempt to thaw me out during the bitter cold of January 20, 1961; Ask not what your country can do for you… went right over my head – I was trying to ward off frostbite.

In the fall of 1962, I was eleven – my chief concerns were building models, wangling visits downtown to see my favorite museum, and trying to figure out how to get to see Dr. No and Lawrence of Arabia, both of which opened around that time. I don’t recall when I became aware of the doings in Cuba – that the Soviet Union had shipped missiles there that threatened our survival, and that President Kennedy had ordered a strict naval blockade, and that war was right around the corner. If my parents were worried – and they must have been – they hid it very well, or more likely I was just oblivious. My friends and I at Kensington Junior High had heard that some fathers had disappeared – had been secretly sent to what would later be called Undisclosed Locations. But my dad rather disappointingly stayed put, and the one kid I knew who said his father, who worked for the Government Printing Office, had vanished, was widely suspected of lying.

What I mainly remember of the Cuban Missile Crisis was a map published in either the Washington Post or Star. It showed the Washington area with concentric circles radiating out from the White House, illustrating what sort of effects an H-bomb detonation would have – something similar to this, I think. It showed that the downtown area would essentially be vaporized, and lethal blast effects could be expected all the way out to Chevy Chase Circle on the border of D.C. and Maryland. My friends and I discussed the map endlessly. We, out in the leafy Maryland suburbs, could expect a fair amount of blast, but our sturdy brick ramblers could probably take it, we thought – bad luck on any dads caught downtown, though. But the fallout was worrisome. We could expect, the map warned us, a fair amount of gamma radiation out our way. None of our families had fallout shelters, even though they were conveniently offered for sale at a nearby used car lot. I believe our gang decided that we would just hunker down in our basements and hope for the best. One of the guys pointed out that although the map did show the H-bomb detonating neatly over the White House, the Soviets were quite capable of missing the target – Ground Zero might turn out to be nearby Wheaton Plaza, instead. In which case, all of our careful calculations, and ourselves – were toast…

So my friends and I assumed that we were all going to die, but I don’t recall that we were terribly concerned by the thought. At the height of the crisis, our school had a nuclear attack drill – no duck and cover for us; we were all sent home so we could be blown up with our families. As my buddies and I walked home, our main topic was - was it to be bombers, or missiles? Strolling down Kensington Parkway, we looked up at the clear blue autumn sky, and watched for contrails.

Allan Janus in a museum specialist in the National Air and Space Museum’s Archives Division.

Watch a video of Dino Brugioni, former senior official of the information branch of the National Photographic Interpretation Center tell of the Cuban Missile crisis in Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside (Photographic) Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis, recorded on Friday, October 19 in the Airbus IMAX Theater, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA.

Hollywood’s Representation of Naval Aviation: Frank W. “Spig” Wead and John Ford’s “The Wings of Eagles” (1957)

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Introduction

During the recently completed centennial of naval aviation (2011), there were many and varied tributes to the factual history of naval aviation. Nevertheless, we cannot forget that public perception of the armed forces is also a strong historical consideration. In Sailing on the Silver Screen: Hollywood and the U.S. Navy, Lawrence Suid has observed that “for most of the past ninety years the American film industry and the U.S. Navy have worked together to their mutual benefit. Hollywood used the Navy to obtain—at little or no cost—personnel, equipment, and locations for movies filled with adventure, romance, and drama. In turn, the Navy obtained—at little or no cost—a positive public image that boosted both its recruiting efforts and its relations with Congress.” This is especially true if we consider how the careers of two pioneers of Hollywood and the U.S. Navy—director John Ford and screenwriter Frank W. “Spig” Wead became intertwined during the Golden Era of filmmaking and how Ford paid tribute to his friend and colleague in The Wings of Eagles (1957).

 

Frank Wead

Frank W. “Spig”’ Wead was a pioneer naval aviator who became a notable Hollywood screenwriter. His many credits include films about the U.S Navy or naval aviation.

Wead’s Early Naval Career

Wead was born on October 24, 1885, in Peoria, Illinois. He entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1912 at the age of sixteen and graduated in 1916. He spent time during WWI doing mine work in the North Sea, after which he qualified as a naval aviator. In 1923 he led the Navy team that competed in the Schneider Trophy Race at Cowes, Isle of Wight. Two of his teammates—Lt. David Rittenhouse and Lt. Rutledge Irvine—placed first and second in the race. Wead continued as a naval aviator, setting naval aircraft records for speed, endurance, and distance and eventually working for the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics.

 

Wead’s Hollywood Career

In 1927, an unexpected turn of events changed Wead’s life forever. After he took a fall in his house in Coronado, California, he was seriously injured, having fractured the fifth cervical vertebra in his neck and doing irreparable damage to his spinal cord. After surgery and more than two painful years of recuperation, he progressed to being able to sit up, and, with the aid of steel braces, to walk. Wead decided that he needed another activity to recuperate fully, so he tried his hand at writing. In time he collaborated on a script for The Flying Fleet (1929), the first Hollywood film about contemporary military flying, with Byron Morgan, a former naval aviator who had become a screenwriter for MGM (Metro Goldwyn Mayer). The Flying Fleet was also the first in a long list of films credited to Wead that were about the U.S. Navy or naval aviation. Wead also wrote screenplays about civil aviation, including one for Air Mail (1932), a film directed by John Ford, and Ceiling Zero (1936), a film directed by Howard Hawks that was based on a play Wead had written that appeared off-Broadway in 1935. He again worked with Ford on They Were Expendable (1945), based on the true story of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 3, commanded by Medal of Honor winner John D. Bulkeley during the evacuation of the Philippines early in WWII. This film is considered one of the best war films ever made..

 

Wead’s World War II Service

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Wead had gotten permission to reenter the Navy through the good graces of an old friend, Admiral John Towers. His first assignment was as an assistant to Captain Ralph Davison, chief of the Plans Division of the Bureau of Aeronautics. Later, Wead trained air combat intelligence officers at Quonset Point, Rhode Island. From October 1943 to June 1944, he was a planning officer on the staff of the Commander Air Pacific in Hawaii. In this capacity, he helped develop plans for Makin, Tarawa, Eniwetok, and Kwajelein. All these operations led up to the battle for the Marianas Islands.

Wead was also credited with developing the idea of escort carriers (the so-called “Jeep Carriers”), which were employed to provide logistical support for the main carrier forces. During the Marianas air assaults, he was invited onboard the U.S.S. Yorktown by Admiral J. J. Clark as an observer. He was involved in actual combat during the Marianas battle when Japanese aircraft attacked the ship. Despite his disabilities, Wead showed courage and was an inspiration to the crew. After the Marianas, Wead decided to retire from the Navy and return to screenwriting. For his service during WWII, Wead was awarded the Legion of Merit. He died on November 15, 1947 at the age of 52

The Wings of Eagles (1957)

The idea for The Wings of Eagles came about as a way of honoring Wead, but John Ford, the film’s intended director was somewhat reluctant to undertake the project. He and Wead had been close friends. According to Ford’s biographer, Joseph McBride, Ford is reported to have said “I didn’t want to do the picture, because Spig was a great pal of mine. But I didn’t want anyone else to do it.”

That Ford would become involved in a film honoring Wead and the U.S. Navy should come as no surprise. Ford himself became a naval officer quite late in his life. In 1934 he had enlisted in the U.S. Navy Reserve and was commissioned as a Lt. Commander. In 1939 Ford began to organize the Naval Volunteer Photographic Unit, which eventually became known as the Naval Photographic Organization, to document naval combat activities. In September 1941 Ford was appointed chief of the Field Photographic Branch, which was part of the Office of Strategic Services, headed by William J. Donovan. In that capacity Ford was at the Battle of Midway, which he filmed and whose footage he turned into an Academy Award-winning documentary of the same name in 1942.

Two unsuccessful attempts were made to produce a film about Wead. Finally, Kenneth MacKenna, a story director at MGM, and John Dale Price, Wead’s old friend, now a retired admiral, who eventually became technical advisor for the film, collaborated on a script. After nearly eight months of work, MacKenna submitted the script to the Pentagon for approval, and the Navy’s Office of Information agreed to cooperate, despite some opposition on the grounds that the script contained historical errors.

While the film, which starred John Wayne as Wead, and Maureen O’Hara as his wife “Min,” portrays naval aviation history in a favorable light, it cannot be considered entirely historically accurate, confirming the Navy’s reservations. In addition to historical inaccuracies, some of the Navy’s objections were based on the portrayal of alcohol abuse in the film. Evidently, the drinking scenes that had to do with Maureen O’Hara’s character had to be cut because Wead’s children protested. Nevertheless, the film provides more than subtle hints that alcohol played a significant part in Wead’s life and in the life of his wife, and that it may have been responsible for their inability to reconcile the demands of military life with the demands of family.

 

co-stars of The Wings of Eagles

The co-stars of "The Wings of Eagles," John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara are pictured. The film, a tribute to the naval aviation and Hollywood screenwriting career of Frank “Spig” Wead, was directed by John Ford in 1957.

Evidently it was not practical for Ford to portray Wead’s contributions as a screenwriter to positive depictions of naval aviation in prewar films like Dive Bomber (released in August 1941 before the attack on Pearl Harbor). Instead, he relied heavily on a part-fiction, part-fact portrayal of Wead’s military contributions during the interwar years and in WWII. In fact, Wead’s achievements in WWII are much more factually presented in the film than those that take place during the interwar years. Ford’s message is strong: Wead was not only a staunch defender of naval aviation, but a doer, in spite of his debilitating handicap. Moreover, it is important to realize that The Wings of Eagles is significant also for what it says about American values as seen through the lives and ordeals of military men. The Wings of Eagles, like some of Ford’s other films, displays familiar Fordian themes: the sense of community among American naval men: in this case, naval aviators; naval service as a reflection of national identity; an intermingling of historical fact with historical fancy.

 

Dive Bomber

Errol Flynn (center), the star of "Dive Bomber," a 1941 film written by Frank W. “Spig Wead, poses in a pressure suit with members of the cast and film crew.

Nevertheless, the film may be interpreted on other levels. Dan Ford, Ford’s grandson, contends that the film is a veiled autobiography of his grandfather. Both Wead and Ford were restless and disposed to lives of action. Because they were both disabled, they were attracted to vicarious adventures. Both were involved in moviemaking as a substitute for military careers. Both served in WWII but as observers rather than as combatants. Both neglected their families to focus exclusively on their careers. Both preferred masculine companionship to that of women.

As a result, The Wings of Eagles may be seen as two films. One contains the mythologizing biography of “Spig” Wead and extols naval aviation and American values of patriotism, courage and perseverance. The other, a more personal one, critiques the institution—the U.S. Navy— that would create an atmosphere which is potentially dangerous to family life.

Dominick A. Pisano is a curator in the Aeronautics Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

 

The Santa Claus Express, Then and Now

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Santa Claus

NASM 7A45388; Courtesy of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company Records, the University of Akron, University Libraries, Archival Services.

 

In 1925, Mr. S. Claus was looking for a modern alternative to his old-fashioned reindeer-powered sleigh. Having once shown an interest in lighter-than-air flight in the form of hot-air balloons, Santa was favorably inclined when Goodyear came up with a solution — toy delivery via airship, in this case, Pilgrim I, renamed the Santa Claus Express for the occasion. In the photograph shown here, Pilgrim’s pilot Carl Wollam holds the gondola door for Santa (as portrayed by Goodyear employee Jack Yolton). Curiously, they seem to be unconcerned about the effect of drag from the presents festooning the gondola, but as Pilgrim’s top speed was only about 40 MPH, it probably didn’t make much of a difference. Here are some more photographs of Goodyear’s Santa Claus Express, 1925-1927, from the University of Akron’s library. By the way, the Pilgrim gondola is on display at the Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia — we might consider loaning it out to qualified Jolly Old Elves around this time of year…

 

santa

Photograph by Edward E. Ogden. Courtesy of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company

The Santa Claus Express was re-instituted by Goodyear last year to support the Marine Corps Reserve’s Toys for Tots program. Santa, portrayed in the photo shown above by Spirit of Goodyear mechanic Ron Heaps, and Spirit pilot Gerald Hissem re-enact the original Santa Claus Express photograph.

The staff and volunteers of the National Air and Space Museum hope that all of our readers, visitors and friends have a fine holiday season; and that whatever method of aerial transport Santa chooses, that you’ll get a visit from him on Christmas Eve.

 

Allan Janus is a museum specialist in the National Air and Space Museum’s Archives Division

 

 

The Rutan Voyager

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Twenty-five years ago, the staff of the National Air and Space Museum held its collective breath for nine days as a seemingly fragile, flying fuel tank made its way across oceans and continents in an attempt to become the first aircraft to fly around the world non-stop and unrefueled. The odd-looking bird had departed Edwards Air Force Base, California, on the morning of December 14, 1986, and the rest of the world was following as continuous sightings and updates flowed to the media, the Museum, and to the flight’s headquarters in Mojave, California. Everyone wondered if you really could fly around the world on one tank of gas?

 

Voyager

"Voyager" departing the coast of California on Dec. 14, 1986, soon to leave behind Burt Rutan in the Duchess chase plane.

As it turned out, you needed 17 tanks of fuel all in one vehicle from start to finish.  Voyager, the ultimate homebuilt, was the brainchild of unconventional designer Burt Rutan and two record-setting pilots, his brother Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager.  Six years from initial conception on a napkin, as the story goes, to completion of the flight two days before Christmas in 1986, this trio successfully proved that lots of hard work and a little bit of luck could still make dreams come true.  Of course they didn’t do it alone.  A dedicated team of volunteers supported every aspect of the endeavor, but it was Dick Rutan and Yeager who beat the bushes for donations from the general public and corporate sponsors (they never did get a big-time sponsor) and built and tested the aircraft themselves. In the end, their dramatic quest created a public following that rivaled the flight-tracking of Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

All of a sudden Museum curators were being asked who else had flown around the world, how and when were the flights accomplished, and was this really the last aviation milestone?  We knew the answers to the first two questions: in 1924, Army Air Corps crews flew two Douglas World Cruisers biplanes on the first round the world flight, a six-month marathon around oceans and through the arctic snow and tropical jungles — one of the airplanes, the Chicago, is in the Museum’s Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight Gallery.  Then in 1957, three USAF B-52B bomber crews made the first non-stop flights around the world aided by aerial refueling.  No one seriously considered it possible to accomplish the flight without some sort of refueling, until Burt Rutan did.

The sheer audacity of assuming it could be done had to wait for dramatic changes in aircraft construction material and an out-of-the-box thinker. Weight, the ever-present penalty for aircraft, was the ultimate problem to be conquered.  How could you squeeze in enough fuel to fly nearly 25,000 miles and yet keep the aircraft light enough to even take off? Carbon fiber was the answer, making the aircraft half the weight of conventional aluminum construction, but as strong as steel.  Burt Rutan’s design certainly turned heads with its forward canard and graceful wings connecting two out-rigger booms, all of which contained 7011.5 pounds of fuel.  Every effort was made to keep the aircraft light, and thankfully Yeager weighed only 95 pounds. The two pilots were crammed into a phone booth-sized barebones cockpit and they would be there for nine days.  That alone earns gasps when people first see the aircraft but add the fact that, unbeknownst to the public, the pilots had not been getting along very well and you have a truly incredible feat.

 

Dick and Jeanna

Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager in Voyager’s cramped cockpit

The Rutans and Yeager made it clear they expected success and they wanted to see the aircraft hanging at the Smithsonian.  The Museum adopted a wait and see attitude; given the long delays in the program and the dangers and pitfalls of the proposed flight, would this ever really happen?

Ultimately, determination and perseverance prevailed as Voyager and its crew endured the loss of its winglets on and just after  takeoff, a typhoon, thunderstorms that flipped the craft to a 90-degree bank, fuel starvation in one engine, and severe physiological and psychological stress.

The Museum followed the nine-day trip in the Air Transportation gallery but there were still questions — was it really one of the last great records of aviation?  By the time Rutan and Yeager landed back at Edwards AFB at 8:05am PST on December 23, 1986, it was clear that history had been made.  Not only were they the first to fly non-stop non-refueled around the world, they also set eight absolute or world class records.  Winning aviation’s prestigious Collier Trophy settled the discussion. While the press lavished praise couched in holiday cheer, the Museum began planning for a new addition to its collection.

In the summer of 1987, Voyager was dismantled for its trip by trailer from California to the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration and Storage Facility in Suitland, Maryland.  While Voyager received accolades at the Experimental Aircraft Association Convention in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, structural engineer and curator Howard Wolko calculated how to get this huge aircraft into the building.  After a midnight wide-load ride from the Garber Facility to the west terrace of the Museum in Washington, DC, our team of specialists moved the center section onto dollies.

Then the carefully laid plans came to a halt. Just inside the west doors a replica aircraft carrier deck which held our Grumman Hellcat protruded a little too far, and it was clear that Voyager would not pass.  In the wee hours of the morning, a solution was found: elevate and tilt the center section with a hydraulic lift, inching it over and past the offending carrier deck.  After barely sliding by the Air Transportation gallery, the center section was rolled into the South Lobby at dawn.  Thankfully the assembly of the wings, empennage, and engines was routine and our able but tired staff suspended Voyager using scissor lifts and winches in time for our 10:00 a.m. opening.  The near catastrophic loss of the winglets on takeoff proved fortunate for us by reducing the wingspan by two feet and allowing the aircraft to fit snugly into the South Lobby. On the first anniversary of the flight, Burt and Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager reached their final goal of seeing Voyager suspended in the south lobby of the National Air and Space Museum.

Dorothy Cochrane is a curator in the Aeronautics Division of the National Air and Space Museum