Magnificent Flying Machine
One of the must-see's for any pilot has to be the legendary "Spruce Goose" built by Hughes Aviation. I had always thought it was still in Long Beach, CA. Imagine my delight when I learned that it was a short drive away from Astoria in McMinnville, OR of all places. In 1993 they dismantled it in CA and barged the pieces up the coast for restoration and reassembly in it's new home in McMinnville. Who'da thunk it. Anyway, the scale of this thing is quite impressive and no photos do it justice. I saw the movie the aviator and pictures on the Web, but was still quite overwhelmed when I drove up to the building(it fills the entire building in which it is housed) and dwarfs even the SR-71 Blackbird under it's right wing. Needless to say I was quite impressed.
The photo below was a paste of 3 photos that don't quite line up because I didn't have a stationary place to take the photo. Even so it does give a hint of just how large this thing is. And to know that it actually flew left me in awe.
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Another thing that struck a chord with me was this print of "Rosie the Riveter"s at work. My Memaw passed away just under two years ago and it was only at her funeral that I learned that she used to work on aircraft when she was a young woman. She was petite and often worked in the more unreachable places inside the airframe. I wish I had known about it while she was still alive because I would have loved to have heard some of the stories. She was alive to see me enter flight school but passed before I completed my Private pilot certificate. I think she might have liked to have flown at least once with me.
During my flight training I had several specialized simulator sessions in a device called a GAT(General Aviation Trainer) it demonstrated several of the potential illusions which one might experience while flying in conditions where you lose visual reference(night, in the clouds, hazy horizons) and also some of the illusions created by non-standard runways(upsloping, downsloping, narrow, etc..) Anyway, it was shaped like a stubby little plane with no windows, and this device reminded me of that, its sort of interesting that some things don't change much.
The photo below was a paste of 3 photos that don't quite line up because I didn't have a stationary place to take the photo. Even so it does give a hint of just how large this thing is. And to know that it actually flew left me in awe.
.
Another thing that struck a chord with me was this print of "Rosie the Riveter"s at work. My Memaw passed away just under two years ago and it was only at her funeral that I learned that she used to work on aircraft when she was a young woman. She was petite and often worked in the more unreachable places inside the airframe. I wish I had known about it while she was still alive because I would have loved to have heard some of the stories. She was alive to see me enter flight school but passed before I completed my Private pilot certificate. I think she might have liked to have flown at least once with me.
During my flight training I had several specialized simulator sessions in a device called a GAT(General Aviation Trainer) it demonstrated several of the potential illusions which one might experience while flying in conditions where you lose visual reference(night, in the clouds, hazy horizons) and also some of the illusions created by non-standard runways(upsloping, downsloping, narrow, etc..) Anyway, it was shaped like a stubby little plane with no windows, and this device reminded me of that, its sort of interesting that some things don't change much.
posted by IFly at 6/19/2006 08:12:00 PM
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