January 2012
I’m writing this on a cloudy, windy, rainy day at home, and I’m doing what’s most suitable for a day like this: I’m sitting at my desktop computer and allowing the kindness of others who have forwarded to me several emails that will enable me to take a virtual trip through aviation’s yesteryear.
I began my rainy day diversions with a collection of black-and-white photos of days long past. The first one was an aerial shot of Newark Airport, circa 1960. On the ramp at the big old terminal building are a bevy of piston airliners, a scattering of early airline turboprops, and a New York Airways helicopter waiting to lift off in the foreground. In the background, I can nearly see myself in my new copilot’s uniform as I walked across that familiar stretch of concrete that led from the employees’ parking lot, a flight kit in one hand and a suitcase in the other, about to embark on the magical adventure of being an airline pilot in those days.
The next photo was even more up close and personal, since it was taken inside that crowded terminal building—a building that now looks quite small in the picture but back then appeared so incredibly large and imposing. I can, I swear, remember every step of the way between the terminal’s entrance door and the west wing exit that led to our operations area. This was the path that led me to the airliners that took me to the sky—how could I forget that?
More photos of DC-6s, a DC-7, Constellations, Convairs, DC-3s, a Viscount. The ramp shots of dozens of nicely dressed travelers lining up to climb the steps that led to the well-appointed interiors of those ancient pelicans made me realize once again how removed we are from the sense of the airplane itself is in today’s modern world, and how the General Aviation segment has become the final bastion of that sensation of physical magic that the older airplanes invariably possessed.
Why? Because we walked up to our aerial carpets and looked up at them, and directly at them, too—with the aerial machine visible to us in its entirety. We could fully appreciate an aircraft’s individual lines, its dimensions, its stature. The visual difference between a DC-3 and a Constellation made an immediate impression on the traveler (and the pilot, too, if the truth be known). Climbing up those external stairs to a big airplane’s entrance door amplified its size and its physical presence, and it made your entrance into that machine into something special.
Compare that for a moment with what goes on today. A passenger walks from an antiseptic terminal building, through a metal tube, and into another metal tube that is filled with seats. Unless they make an effort, the type of aircraft they’ve boarded—or the fact that it’s an airplane at all—hardly makes an impression. Just put on your music headset, fire up your cell phone or play a video game and, unless the flight is delayed or the ride turns out to be bumpy, you stand a good chance of never really realizing that you have left the surface of the earth.
Once again, as I’ve said so many times in the past, General Aviation has far more in common with airline travel from the old days than anything the airlines are doing now. When a traveler—be it a pilot or a passenger—walks up to a J-3 Cub or a Piper Aztec, there is going to be an immediate impression of the airplane itself. That impression and those sensations will stand a good chance of enhancing the upcoming experience—it always did for me. Flight is more “real” when you walk up to an airplane and climb into it, rather than having yourself poured into it through a carpeted cattle chute.
The final picture in my black-and-white emailed array was particularly significant to me. It was a photo of a Pan American Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, and it was exactly the same airliner (N1029V; Clipper Golden Eagle) that I spent a lifetime climbing in and around one wonderful afternoon. I was 14 years old at the time, and a Pan American employee from my neighborhood had brought me out to Idlewild Airport (now KJFK) in New York that day while he worked half a shift in the hangar.
The Stratocruiser was parked on the maintenance ramp, waiting to go eastbound across the Atlantic Ocean sometime that night. While my host did his work in the hangar, I climbed all around that enormous airplane for hours. I was alone for the most part, and I savored every inch of that magnificent airframe, from the baggage compartments to the captain’s seat. The memory of that particular airplane and that particular day has stayed with me for 50-plus years; it’s funny how some things will stick with you.
Here’s some more aviation nostalgia I want to pass along, and it is something you can see for yourself. It is the virtual tour of the United States Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, and it is the best of these sorts of things I have ever seen. Here is the Internet address so you can try it for yourself when you’ve finished reading Piper Flyer: https://www.nmusafvirtualtour.com/full/tour-pkg.html.
You start the program out by facing the museum’s main building. Begin by pulling down the map from the top right, then select an area that might interest you. If you’d like to start outside and work yourself in, begin your virtual tour at Air Park. Click on any of the blue dots inside that area and your view will come from that spot.
You can use the scroll buttons on the bottom to turn yourself slowly around in a complete circle. While you’re doing this, you will see what would have been in front of you had you done the same maneuver in the flesh. You can also tilt your eyes up or down, and move nearer or further away from whatever particular airframe you might be examining. The Air Park has lots of interesting stuff that ranges from a Lockheed Lodestar and a German Junkers Ju 52 on through a C-141. For most of the exhibits throughout the virtual museum, you can click on the particular subject and you’ll open up an information window with more photos, descriptions and specifications.
Pull the map down again and try another area. How about World War II? A great choice because, on top of having a huge array of great airplanes (B-25, B-17, C-47, to name just a few), they’ve also got some great displays and fabulous videos.
Ready to move on? The Presidential Aircraft section has Harry Truman’s C-118 (DC-6) “Independence,” among others.
Research and Development has the Douglas X-3 Stiletto on through a de Havilland Dominie. The Southeast Asia section gives you an opportunity to spend time with an F-111, a B-52, and many others. Click yourself into The Early Years, and you’ll get a great look at a Curtiss P-6E, a Tiger Moth, a S.E.5. The Korean War has a B-29 fuselage, and The Cold War has everything from a T-34 to the giant B-36 bomber. There’s a Memorial Park, and a Missile and Space display, too.
But now for the real thrill. Once you’ve whetted your aviation history appetite by trying out the Air Force Museum virtual tour, you need to crank up your own airplane and fly yourself to Dayton. The tour website provides detailed instructions for your rental car, and tells you what hours the museum will be open and what few days it is not.
This is a very worthy General Aviation destination because, by physically showing up, you can lay your fingers against Harry Truman’s airplane, walk through the fuselage of the B-29, and take in all the sights, the sounds and the physical presence of a great deal of aviation’s past.
The virtual tour provided by the United States Air Force Museum facility is quite nice, but an in-person visit would be so much nicer. I’ll also guarantee that it will be far more meaningful.
Editor-at-large Thomas Block has flown nearly 30,000 hours since his first hour of dual in 1959. In addition to his 36-year career as a U.S. Airways pilot, he has been an aviation magazine writer since 1969, and a best-selling novelist. Over the past 30 years he has owned more than a dozen personal airplanes of varying types. Send questions or comments to editor@www.piperflyer.com.
