A History Of Flight

How many hours can you walk around with no seating in sight??  Turns out it was a lot longer than any of us imagined.  Our first stop was at March Field Museum where we were met with this statue celebrating man's best friend.

Our docent was a very nice gentleman who had LOTS of stories.  I know because we listened to so many I lost count as we went around the small museum on our six hour tour.  Truthfully, it was only three hours, but that's a pretty long time to be regaled with stories while standing on feet that are screaming bloody murder.  Remember, we are a rather ancient group!!

Obviously I was a little more interested in the pretty patterns on the wall.  

You'll find a little bit of everything here, starting with World War I and II from Eddie Rickenbacker to Chuck Yeager.  Don't forget to throw in the space shuttles ... it's all here.

This is a piece of canvas used to cover some of the first planes flown.  I can appreciate the visual image of kicking ass.  

There is an entire wall dedicated to wooden propellers which were attached to all manner of flying things.  More interesting to me were all the pits and dents on the metal tip covers.

This is an original wing from a 1920 plane.  It's made of wood.  The pieces are very delicate and don't look like they could stand the stress of flying.  This frame would be covered with some of the above fabric.

Look close at a small portion of that wing and you will see teeny tiny screws and nails used to hold it together.  How in the world did these things not just fall apart??

The star of the indoor museum was this jet.  I'm sure you want to know what it is, but honestly, by the time we got to this point, all I wanted was a chair.  I forgot to take a picture of the name tag.  It's big and it's black, although not the one you are thinking of.  It's smaller than that!

Planes are even hanging from the ceiling.

There's a small section on commercial airlines, including uniforms and airplane models.  What you see here is actually a reflection of the model, which is the one closest to me.  

From there we went into the space shuttle area where this real jet engine sits, along with a picture of it taking off.  They even have some of the monitoring stations from Houston Texas, where you can actually sit and relax, while listening to ten more stories.  

In case you were wondering, that strange thing people saw in the sky a few days ago was a space shuttle test run by a commercial company.  The interesting part is the first thrusters were actually flown safely back to the earth (instead of burning up or crashing somewhere) so they can be used again.

It was a full two hours before we got to the outside displays.  We women instantly spotted the four picnic tables in the shade, where we parked for the duration of the visit.  Although we were supposed to ride the tram, it was busy elsewhere.  The guys walked another 30 minutes around the field.

Here for your enjoyment is a picture of the same type of jet used in Top gun.  Maybe an F-14?

It really is an interesting place to visit, with so much to see I couldn't show it all here.  Wear your most comfortable shoes, bring lunch and water and pray you don't get our docent.  Just kidding.  He was really very knowledgeable.  

From there we went to lunch in a big shopping center, where I found a cake and cookie decorating store from heaven.  I never knew they existed.  We had a quick sandwich at subway, raced through the store and headed off to the next museum ... the Heritage Home.  Pictures tomorrow!