Florida Air Museum - Part 3

Welcome back to a pretty neat tour of the Florida Air Museum in Lakeland Florida.  There's a lot to see and a couple of the old Geezer Gold Wing guys are already sitting down instead of walking around looking at the exhibits.

That's John who is wore out and making a call to his wife.  In all honesty, John was pretty well bushed before the ride.  He told me his daughter's family was down from one of the Carolina's with the grand kids and he must have played with them too much.   He's about to take off on his own and head for home, but he's going to miss a couple of neat things out on Hangar A.   But, before we walk over there, we have lots yet to see here. 

If you saw The Aviator with Leonardo DiCaprio playing Howard Hughes, you'll remember that he went up in a plane during the filming of one of his movies to prove a point about flying.  He crashed trying to execute a roll and this is a picture of the plane he crashed.  Note the propeller.

Well, that propeller, or what's left anyway is still around and in the FAM.  This place houses quite a lot of stuff relating to Hughes.

That includes a model used for wind tunnel experiments for the famous Spruce Goose D-2 Bomber built and flown by Howard Hughes.   

One of the engines in cut-away used for flying the Spruce Goose.  They were Pratt and Whitney's

I don't have a clue as to what this was,  but it was interesting and had some writing around it and was linked to Howard Hughes.  

If you watch The Aviator, you will see a scene where Hughes takes his girlfriend, Katherine Hepburn up in one of his planes at night.  This is true to history, and these are the actual leather flight suits used by Hughes and Hepburn.  The suit above is Hughes'.

This one is Hepburn's.  As noted, it is remarkable they survived, because when Hughes was spiraling into weirdness he would periodically burn all of his clothes to rid himself of the germs.  That these suits survived is a wonder, and a boon to the museum.

This is one of those box helicopters you could buy and assemble at home.  It was made by a company called Revolution and this was the Mini-500.  You could get the engine and everything for around $24,000 and it took approximately 40 hours to assemble.  And I thought  a gas grill was a bitch of a project.  They were, however, poorly made and most never took actual flight.  Somewhere around 178 were sold and there were also 9 deaths associated with it.  As soon as word about its safety spread, the company went out of business.

This is the cockpit of the Revolution Mini-500, a-one seater.

This is Neal Loving's designed sport plane.  It is designed primarily as a pylon racer and is generally only flown for short periods.  It only has a 15 gallon gas tank and when you sit in the cockpit you don't sit in a chair, you sit on the floor with your legs in front of you.  This plane also has no ailerons, flaps or drag devices, so landing is more floating than anything else. 

The above plane with the sinister Soviet red Star was the P-51 Mustang.  At the start of World War II this plane became instrumental in Allied air superiority.  Various incarnations with Great Britain, and at times using their Rolls Royce engine, this plane became the Air Force workhorse in escorting bombing missions over Germany.  After the war the P-51 was distributed to many nations and also served a defining role during the Korean War.  10 were shipped to Soviet Union, but they claimed they were all underwhelming with what they could produce so they used them as trainers.   This is also the plane Chuck Yeager used during the war to shoot down 12 Luftwaffe planes.

The F-14 Tomcat.  It first went into production in 1970 and was retired in 2006 when the Super Hornet rendered the Tomcat obsolete.  Oddly enough, the only nation where the Tomcat is the plane of choice is Iran.  This was the plane made recognizable with the Top Gun movie with Tom Cruise.

This jet was based on the USS Theodore Roosevelt and this emblem features a running Felix the Cat with a bomb.  This insignia actually goes back decades to 1929. Lindbergh and Butch O'Hare used it when they were in the Navy. The VF-31 squadron used it back then and it has been used ever since.  The "E" is a designation naming this squadron the "Commander Naval Air Forces best fighter group in the Atlantic Fleet." 

The nose of the Tomcat.

Another view of the F-14.  Fliers of this jet called themselves "Tomcatters".

And just like Top Gun, we have Johnny and Ninja here who once commandeered this fighting place. 

Various engines were placed around Hanger A.  

This is an Army PT-22 Ryan Recruit.  These were made for training new pilots and were used extensively in World War II.  The instructor would sit behind the pilot and was a simple easily maneuverable plane for training. 

I have to tell you I don't know what this engine powered.  

This is the Beech Staggerwing.  Manufactured from 1932 until 1949 this was a workhorse during the way in hauling things from place to place.  Difficult to see in this picture but the front wing was farther forward than the upper one, thus staggered wings. 

Another engine but I think this is a fighter jet type.  Not sure, however.  All I know is I'd like to have it on my bike.

And finally, the "Spirit of Peace" balloon gondola which soars I guess about as high as you can go and still use helium as a source.  Steve Fossett used this once and there was an attempt at intercontinental travel that was aborted when China complained about incursions in its air space.  But what about entertainment, can you use DISH TV up there?


Anyway, it was a fun ride back to St. Pete and enjoyed the tour with the Gold Wing geezers.