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2008 Origins Trip


TonyE

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Today my dad and I left on the great journey to Origins (http://www.originsgamefair.com/) where I'm to show the Harpoon colors, meet UncleHarpoon and Bond. We zipped 450 odd miles from Minnesota to Bloomington, Illinois. The hotel borders the airport where the Prairie Air Museum is located (http://www.prairieaviationmuseum.org/). It isn't open until tomorrow but once the heat of the day subsided I couldn't wait and walked over to the museum. It is small, but it has an F-14D as promised! I thought I had the self restraint to wait until tomorrow to see it but alas I couldn't and man is she beautiful! There is a ladder up to the cockpit too so at least I'll get to see inside, extra bonus thanks if they let me sit in the cockpit and pretend I'm flying (the HUD glass isn't there, noticed that). I was a bit surprised that the engines are still in there.

 

I think this trip is going to go a long way to assuage my remorse at never seeing a Tomcat in flight...

 

Anyway, pictures should join the words tomorrow :rolleyes:

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Today my dad and I left on the great journey to Origins (http://www.originsgamefair.com/) where I'm to show the Harpoon colors, meet UncleHarpoon and Bond. We zipped 450 odd miles from Minnesota to Bloomington, Illinois. The hotel borders the airport where the Prairie Air Museum is located (http://www.prairieaviationmuseum.org/). It isn't open until tomorrow but once the heat of the day subsided I couldn't wait and walked over to the museum. It is small, but it has an F-14D as promised! I thought I had the self restraint to wait until tomorrow to see it but alas I couldn't and man is she beautiful! There is a ladder up to the cockpit too so at least I'll get to see inside, extra bonus thanks if they let me sit in the cockpit and pretend I'm flying (the HUD glass isn't there, noticed that). I was a bit surprised that the engines are still in there.

 

I think this trip is going to go a long way to assuage my remorse at never seeing a Tomcat in flight...

 

Anyway, pictures should join the words tomorrow :rolleyes:

 

Looking forward to see any of your well deserved discoveries along the way. Say hello to you Dad, and Larry.

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Day Two - Success and Disaster!

 

Herman, you'll be happy to know the F-14 actually didn't have its engines anymore, nor ANYTHING else, all gauges, switches, bubble gum, GONE. The museum people just had good cutouts of the engines that looked real when I was wandering by at twilight yesterday. The F-14 was great, I was thinking the radome didn't look so big up close, then I walked back to the fence for a head on look and it is huge.

 

Now for the disaster, I only took photos on one flash card and was having trouble with the camera staying on. I thought it was the camera not recognizing that the batteries were charged. Well, I got one look at my photos before the flash card became useless. My second action was to copy them onto the computer but every copied file was corrupt :(. Thankfully my dad is using a film camera so photos will eventually show up. I'm trying some disk repair tools too in the interim. I figured it was a little museum and alternating between flash cards wouldn't be needed until tomorrow (I learned to alternate long ago to make sure at least some photos survive).

 

So no photos yet...

 

We're now just North of Dayton and 8 miles from the USAF museum.

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Now for the disaster, I only took photos on one flash card and was having trouble with the camera staying on. I thought it was the camera not recognizing that the batteries were charged. Well, I got one look at my photos before the flash card became useless. My second action was to copy them onto the computer but every copied file was corrupt :(. Thankfully my dad is using a film camera so photos will eventually show up. I'm trying some disk repair tools too in the interim. I figured it was a little museum and alternating between flash cards wouldn't be needed until tomorrow (I learned to alternate long ago to make sure at least some photos survive).

 

So no photos yet...

 

C'mon now computer/tech GURU. Is this an aweful weak cover story for a road trip with Dad? :D

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Day Three - USAF Museum

 

Good news, the camera works using the other two memory cards (is it strange that I happened to have three of them...). That or the Ni-MH batteries are intimidated by me having purchased some Alkalines.

 

We didn't finish the museum, even without reading the majority of the materials surrounding the craft. We'll head back tomorrow to finish up the post WWII. Today we did origins of flight, WWII, the Presidential hangar, the R&D hangar, and a part of the Korea/Vietnam area.

 

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Central monument of the USAF Medal of Honor arrangement.

 

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The only way you'd find me there is in Flight Simulator 2000 (where I've done quite well thank you very much)

 

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One of at least three wooden wind tunnels on display at the museum.

 

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Spad, gotta take a photo of it :)

 

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For the naval warfare buffs B) , one of the first stand-off ASW weapons, pretty much described as an aerial torpedo, no pilot, just a rudimentary automated flight control system, not bad for pre-WWII.

 

More to come

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Day 2 continued

 

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So many blades...

 

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Dad in front of VIP puddle jumper

 

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Little bit bigger puddle jumper

 

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VC-137 comm station

 

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DarkStar, funny looking thing

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Day 2 Continued some more

 

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Finless Sparrows

 

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XB-70 exhaust, last time I visited it was parked at an angle so you could get a good stern shot, this was the best I could do this time around, still impressive.

 

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Snakeyes?

 

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XB-70 intake, note that you can store entire planes under the wings of the XB-70 and clearance even under the fuselage is at least 8 feet. Did the designers intend to go mudding with the thing or what?

 

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F-22 shields the engine very well

 

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Finally a picture of me and the YF-22

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Day 2 final set of pics. But don't worry, there are many I haven't posted and will post at some point with the full quality versions.

 

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A variety from the R&D hangar, notably the SRAM hanging from the ceiling. I like nukes for some reason

 

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X-24 under the XB-70 wing

 

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Back end of the X-10. From what I can surmise with some imagination is that those are thrust vectoring nozzles?

 

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Again more a shot to show a bunch of the planes in R&D hangar, note the contraptions hanging from the ceiling from autogyros to target drones.

 

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Speaking of autogyros, one of the first from the Early Flight area

 

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So this is a Harpoon forum, best have a depth charge

 

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Crazy Germans!!! The description reads, "Focke-Achgelis FA-330 'Sandpiper' rotary wing kite towed by German subs in WWII."

 

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Me-262, they also have a cut-away engine from Me-262

 

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We'll finish off today's photos with a Mig-21

 

That's a glimpse at what today held, more stuff up my alley tomorrow with the more modern aircraft.

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Indeed, many thanks for the picturesque tour !!!

 

Btw, a lot of digicams hate alcaline batteries, as most of them simply can't give enough juice so that might be your trouble right there.

For example some Panasonics only work with rechargeable nimh or Panasonic's brand of supercharged alcalines.

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Day Four - USAF Museum

 

Today we finished up the Korea->Vietnam->Misc hangar, convered the entire Cold War hangar (mmm), and the missile rotunda! Then we drove on to the Canton/Akron area of Ohio. I'm pretty wiped so only a few photos today.

 

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Overview overlooking the Cold War hangar from the missile rotunda.

 

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Same, different angle, the B-36 is still huge!

 

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Stealth Bomber, quite a piece of work that one is, very impressive yet so understated, it looks positively tiny behind the B-1. Once again (ala the F-22) I think 'pregnant guppie' whenever I look at the curvy stealth planes.

 

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Warhead buss from an MX missile. I took a quick stab at stitching together my photos of the MX on display and to say it was no longer straight edged would be an understatement so that will require more work. The missile area really impressed me, no Minuteman of any variety but there was an Atlas, Atlas II, Jupiter, MX, and one other, plus various other tidbits (Minuteman re-entry vehicle, INS of an early ICBM, etc.).

 

 

Try 2 for F-14 tomorrow, then on to Columbus for Origins.

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