Deflection

It was overcast and raining today with the high of 72 degrees.  

This morning I went to the National Air Force Museum and it has grown since I was there about thirty years ago.  The have added at least one building that now holds planes that have been used by the US Presidents.  I walked through the Boeing KC 135 or B 707 that flew President JF Kennedy body back from Texas to Washington DC.  It also flow Nixon to China.  It is an interesting walk through.  To get on the plane, you had to walk through a gate that was as wide as the walk through the plane, but heavy set people cannot make this walk through the plan.  I found this to be interesting in a federal building, restricting people that could see a portion of the plane.

As for me, I got to see up close for the first time: B-2 bomber, worth $2 billion; B-1, YF-23, the fighter that did not make the F-22 cut, and F-22 Rapture. I was surprised with the size of the F-16, YF-23, F-22, and how small the F-16 is compared to these other two plane. As I was walking through the building, I was wondering the size of a fuel field, the number of tanks, it would take to fill with all of the fuel that these planes have burnt in flight. I think it is an engineering thing.

The big surprise for me was when I was leaving the museum, and I am sure that no one else has pick up this item for years. The street that I was leave on was Bong. This street is named after Richard Bong from Poplar, Wisconsin. He was a P-38 pilot during World War II in the Pacific theater of war. But, he made a huge impact contribution to the war, by being the ace of aces. To date, he has shot down more enemy air craft than any other pilot. Tragically, after he returned to the mainland, they had him flying as a test pilot and he was killed in a crash shortly after his return. But, as I went through the building today, there was so many other people with big contributions to the Air Force, like William Mitchell, Jimmy Doolittle, and Robin Olds. It is a wonder that Richard Bong was even in sight for naming the street.

Since I was had been in the museum before, I kind of rushed through through it so that I could spend the afternoon at the Wright Brothers Museum. (Not easy to rush through a museum of that size, with my Air Force background.). The Wright Brothers museum is in the middle of Carillon Historic Park. From what I could see, this park was built with good for thought of the city, since park was dedicated in 1942, in the middle of World War II. The building that the Wright Flyer is in was completed in 1950, just two years after Orville past away, but it stated that Orville was involve with the design of the building. The plane is in a pit so that people can walk around and view the plan for all angles, without touching the plane. I found that the way that they warped the wings to be interesting. They got the idea from a square cardboard tube. But, to flight, the wing warping had to be the most difficult detail to design for flight. They could see the bird correcting their flight with their wings, but how to do it with a plane was another story. Today, thanks to Curtiss, the wing warping was replaced by flaps. I found the cross section of the wing to be interesting, since it seems like it would have been difficult to find the equilibrium in the wing to be difficult to determine. But they would have used there wind tunnel to determine the equilibrium.

Last night, after I sent out my Journal Entry, I received a replay back from Konrad Radke, married to my dads first cousin Louse, stating that I should contact their daughter Elizabeth. So, I called her this morning before I left for the museum. Elizabeth and I have know each other for years. So, after I completed my tour of the Carillon Park, I went to see Elizabeth and her husband. We visited for over an hour and was able to get caught up on all of the Helle news. It was fun. I am glad that Konrad replied to me email.

This is getting to be a fun trip, since I feel that I am raelly going to see many of my cousins. To me, this is what retirement is about. Visiting with family. Tomorrow I am with cousins Adajune and Phyllis.

Roger