Airplane & History Links

Air museums:

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

I regret that I never toured this museum with my father. He probably had a personal connection to almost everything in it.

Royal Air Force Museum

National Museum of the USAF

National Naval Aviation Museum

Strategic Air and Space Museum

Vintage Aero Flying Museum

A bit northeast of Denver, this is the home of the Lafayette Foundation. It has several flying scale reproductions of classic aircraft, and is the largest collection of WWI aviation material in the world. It is even named in the Smithsonian as a reference source. You may find some of my designs at their gift shop.

Spirit of Flight Museum

I like how it describes the way one might acquire the spirit of flight: "An airplane model given to you by a Grandparent, a WWII movie on a Saturday afternoon, your first airplane flight, a relative who flew in the military..." You may find some of my designs at their gift shop.

Other airplane links:

Doolittle Raiders

The official site of the Doolittle Raiders. Also see Doolittle Raid Remembered about the men of the Doolittle Raid. Nine are still alive as of November 28, 2008. The story fascinates me so much I put together a scene of the B-25s taking off the USS Hornet.

History of Boulton Paul and Boulton Paul Aircraft Heritage Project and Boulton Paul Association

This is the company my father began working for as an apprentice during WWII. He started working on the assembly line of the Defiant Mkii. One of the contacts, Cyril Plimmer, remembers working with my father and very kindly sent me a whole lot of information about my father's early career that I never got from my father.

ChuckYeager.com

Dick Frost was one of my father's bosses, and one of the men who hired my father into the United States.

Holcomb's Aerodrome

A bunch of pictures of airplanes from my favorite eras of flight.

Aviation Shoppe

This shop will tell you lots of airplane history, and sells real blueprints (I can tell you the difference between blueprints, bluelines, and the bond copies that are mostly used today) of airplanes. Also it has recordings of airplane sounds, which I sometimes play for my boys if they are behaving.

Man Will Never Fly

Claims that "Airports and airplanes are for the gullible. Little do 'plane' passengers realize that they are merely boarding Greyhound buses with wings." Has an Aviation Hall of Infamy Award presented to "some aviation goof-off who, in the opinion of the Awards Committee, has done the least for aviation" such as Snoopy, "who has shot down more Sopwith Camels than were ever built."

Aviation education

Collection of links to educational sites about aviation history.

Other museums:

The Alamo

Weald and Downland Museum

Fascinating museum in south England showing how English architecture developed from medieval times to modern times.

Bent's Old Fort

I have enjoyed this National Historic Site with several relatives, but particularly with my father. Also see The Fort, a restaurant in the foothills west of Denver built to look like Bent's Old Fort, out of actual adobe (the reproduction at the park is cinder block). I met Sam Arnold's daughter at an adobe-making exhibition at New Mexico's El Rancho de las Golondrinas, where she was asking a different level of questions from the other spectators. I told her that I remember my mother feeding a cherry to Sissy Bear.

Other historical links

Sir Nicholas Winton

More people ought to hear about Sir Nicholas Winton. This man, who has passed his 102th birthday, rescued 669 mostly Jewish children from Czechoslovakia just before war broke out. One of the children, Tom Graumann (#652), has gone on to live what I think is a very remarkable life of his own, and raise four children, one of whom is a friend and customer of mine. You can hear Tom Graumann's story on the June 21 and 28, 2009 programs of Unshackled.

Lunar Landing Sites

Google map of the lunar landing sites of Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17.

American Heritage magazine

Nice history-related website, but what I really like is their Invention and Technology magazine, which a friend got me started on.

Just because I like them:

Taylors of Harrogate

There are a few other proper English teas (PG Tips isn't too bad), but I particularly favor Yorkshire Gold.

Blockade Runner and River Junction

Two of my favorite places to buy my everyday clothes and accessories.

Garryowen

Marching song of the 7th Cavalry Regimental. General Custer liked the tune because it matched the cadence of a cavalry horse marching in formation. You can hear the song itself here.

Monocles for sale

Yes, you can get your own monocle, here, or here.

A beautiful sound

On a recent trip to England, I happened to be visiting the Shuttleworth collection just as they were bringing out and firing up their 1909 Bleriot XI. I turned on my camera, and if you are patient enough to wait for the long download, click on the picture here to hear the sound of a 100-year-old airplane that still flies regularly.

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