Jason W. Ellis

Lockheed F-104 Starfighter at Air National Guard, Glynco, Brunswick, GA

Lockheed F-104 Starfighter on pedestal in front of Air National Guard, Glynco, Brunswick, GA

Following last week’s aerospace posts (Udvar-Hazy Center, National Air and Space Museum, 1929 Ford Tri-Motor, Deutsches Museum, and Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum), I have a brief one for you today: This cool Lockheed F-104 Starfighter on a pedestal display in front of the Air National Guard unit at Glynco in Brunswick, Georgia.

Before the pedestal was constructed and the fence put up, the F-104 had been resting on the ground in the parking lot. My dad and I stopped one evening to look it over real good.

One thing stood out. Behind the cockpit, there was mason glass jar screwed into a receptical with a hose leading to equipment behind the pilot’s seat. I’ve looked at service manuals that are online, but I’ve not yet found what its purpose was.

While this guard unit never flew the F-104 and Glynco is a former Naval air base, it seems an odd choice of air craft. Nevertheless, it might be meant to represent the Air Force in general rather than the specific operational mission of this air guard unit.

November 27, 2023

Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum Outside Savannah, Georgia, July 2010

Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah, GA, Entrance

Concluding a week of aerospace museum posts (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, NASM Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, 1929 Ford Tri-Motor Model 4-AT Visit to SSI, and Deutsches Museum in Munich), here is one featuring photos of a visit my folks and I made to the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum just outside of Savannah, Georgia in July 2010.

The Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum honors the Eighth Air Force which has its beginnings in World War II. It earned its “MIghty” moniker due to its overwhelming personnel and equipment capability, logistical prowess, and power application on the air battlefield.

At the time of our visit, it featured a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress in the process of restoration (I believe this has been completed now), Consolidated B-24 Liberator (nose), Boeing B-47 Stratojet, McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17, Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 (Cockpit), McDonnell ADM-20 Quail Decoy Cruise Missile, and other WWII related exhibits for British, Japan, and Nazi Germany.

It’s on the latter one of the Axis powers mentioned–Nazi Germany–that I want to give a word of caution. I have included at the bottom of this post images of the Swastika and Nazi Germany uniforms. Like the museum including these in its exhibits, I include these images as a reminder that Nazism is evil and we cannot let that evil return to the world in whatever form it might take. I believe that there we cannot be freedom of speech maximalists in our modern world where there technology has created an extremely imbalanced marketplace of ideas and lopsided means of discourse. If we don’t draw a line in the sand about certain evils, it seems certain that we’re destined to fall prey to the paradox of tolerance. I believed the breakdown of discourse and the ease of manipulating people during the early phases of social media already presented a clear and present danger. Knowing what I know now about generative artificial intelligence (AI)’s capability to do the work of manipulation at a far greater scale and for less money than what was achieved previously, recognizing so-called free speech maximalist owners of a certain social media platform isn’t all about free speech at all and seems to support Nazi ideology, and fearing how our democracy seems weakened and fractured from the assaults culminating in the Jan. 6 insurrection makes me beyond concerned about a return of the Nazi specter–but instead of forming elsewhere, it could manifest here.

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Restoration

Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah, GA, Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Being Restored

Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah, GA, Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Being Restored, Dorsal Gunner Position

Consolidated B-24 Liberator (nose)

Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah, GA, Consolidated B-24 Liberator (model)

Consolidated B-24 Liberator (Recovered Window)

Boeing B-47 Stratojet

McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 (Cockpit)

McDonnell ADM-20 Quail Decoy Cruise Missile

Air Crew Exhibits and Gear

Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah, GA, British Uniform and Flight Vest

Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah, GA, British Equipment

Nazi Germany and Japan Exhibits

Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah, GA, Nazi Party Uniform

Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah, GA, Nazi Arm Bands

Museum Rear

November 24, 2023

Aerospace Exhibits at Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany, March 2006

Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany, Lockheed F-104 Starfighter

I got a chance to visit the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany during Spring Break of my last semester at Georgia Tech as an undergraduate student in 2006. The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter above is one of the magnificent aircraft on display there. You can easily walk around the aircraft and walk up the steps to peer into the cockpit. There are also pictures of an LN-3 Inertial Navigation System for the F-104, Me 262 Schwalbe jet fighter, Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet rocket interceptor, Henschel Hs 293 radio-guided bomb, Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter, Junkers Ju 52 tri-motor (c.f. 1929 Ford Tri-Motor that I wrote about yesterday), V-2 Rocket that has cutaway details that you can walk around from nose to tail, and other rocket motors cut down to reveal their inner components. Different views of some of these aircraft are available on my recent posts of photos from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM) and the NASM Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

Also, there’s a photo of Friedrich Kaufmann’s Trumpet Player Automaton from the early 19th century, which reminds me of the Jaquet-Droz Automata that Y and I encountered in Switzerland in 2011 (reminding me that I need to post photos of them).

Lockheed F-104 Starfighter

LN-3 Inertial Navigation System

Messerschmitt Bf 109

Junkers Ju 52

Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe and Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet

Henschel Hs 293

V-2 Rocket with Cutaway Details

Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany, V-2 Rocket

Miscellaneous Rocket Motors and Cutaways

Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany, Rocket

Friedrich Kaufmann’s Trumpet Player Automaton (early 19th century)

Deutsches Museum, Munich, Germany, Friedrich Kaufmann's Trumpet Playing Automaton

November 23, 2023

1929 Ford Tri-Motor Model 4-AT on St. Simons Island, GA

Continuing this week’s aerospace posts (previously, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and NASM’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center), here are some photos that my dad took of a 1929 Ford Tri-Motor Model 4-AT that visited the St. Simons Island Airport at McKinnon Field. My mom and dad took a ride on the plane to experience travel of yesteryear (my first thought when they told me about it was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom).

This Ford Tri-Motor is owned by the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Vintage Aircraft Association (EAA/VAA). The EAA is the same organization that convenes OSHKOSH, the BIG annual airshow and fly-in.

1929 Ford Tri-Motor Model 4-AT on St. Simons Island, GA, Cockpit

1929 Ford Tri-Motor Model 4-AT on St. Simons Island, GA, Right Engine

1929 Ford Tri-Motor Model 4-AT on St. Simons Island, GA, Left Engine

November 22, 2023

Photos of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, August 2008

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, Spirit of St. Louis N-X-211

Yesterday, I shared photos of Y’s and my trip to the Stephen Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum (NASM). Today, I have some photos of our stop at the NASM on the National Mall in Washington, DC.

I think of museums of technology, like the NASM, as a kind of technical communication medium. Of course, the work of the displays, diagrams, multimedia, and explanatory text are different kinds of technical communication created to facilitate learning, contextualization, and curiosity. But, the museum as a whole–the system of the museum and its totality, its holism–is a giant technical communication medium, too.

Most of the exhibits seemed similar to the last time that I had visited Washington in the late 1980s, but one notable change is the restoration of the shooting model of Star Trek’s USS-1701 Enterprise, which used to hang in the air but it now at eye-level and encased in plastic (last photos below).

After our visit, the NASM did a big renovation of the museum on the National Mall and the Udvar-Hazy Center (i.e., the replacement of Space Shuttle Enterprise with Discovery).

Above and below, you can see Charles Lindbergh’s Atlantic-crossing Spirit of St. Louis. More pictures of the historic air and spacecraft on display follow.