And if you are lucky and you become a docent at an aviation museum, you get to share your knowledge with people from all walks of life. Most, if not all, are volunteers who donate their time and expertise to educate the public about aviation. Museums simply could not function without them.

They may volunteer at a museum once a week (or more) or work alternate weekends. They often wear a uniform of sorts, such as a polo shirt with the museum logo or a jacket or vest and have a museum ID lanyard around their neck. A great many also wear a “fun meter” button with the needle pegged to maximum.

• READ MORE: Earhart Museum to Explore Evidence Related to Aviatrix’s Disappearance

The reason? They love what they do.

As someone who spends a great deal of time at aviation museums, I can tell you they all have their own character and energy, and they all rely on volunteers to operate. Some of the volunteers bring special skills and restore airplanes to their former glory. But many more are the faces of the museum to the public—the docents. You don’t necessarily have to be a pilot, mechanic, engineer, or retired from an aviation career to be a docent—you just need to bring your enthusiasm.

EAA Aviation Museum (Oshkosh, Wisconsin)

“Storytellers are the best docents,” says Chris Henry, manager at the EAA Aviation Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. “They can help make the planes pop to life and make you inspired

to learn more at home. A good docent should lead you to wonderful stories, leaving you wanting to know more and wanting to go home and research further.”

Henry notes the museum has a large cross section of society as docents coming from different walks of life and age ranges.

• READ MORE: New Museum of Flight Exhibit Explores Living in Space

“We have everything from WWII veterans to current high school kids,” he says. “It’s helpful if the docent has a passion to keep learning, and they are passionate about sharing what they learn, and they just enjoy showing people new things that they have never seen or heard before.”

Museum of Flight (Seattle)

The larger the museum, the more docents it has.

According to Brenda Mandt, docent programs supervisor at the Museum of Flight (MOF) in Seattle, the docent cadre is made up of 162 volunteers.

“Most of them work one day a week, and they work the same day and shift each week,” says Mandt.

To become a docent at the MOF, a person must take a 12-week basic training class that acquaints them with museum policy and procedures and teaches how to build a tour.

• READ MORE: Michigan Flight Museum Sells Centerpiece B-17 ‘Yankee Lady’

“Docents have a great deal of freedom to create tours that interest them most,” says Mandt.

Many of the docents either have or have had careers in aerospace or the military and often build tours around their experience.

For example, docents Jim Frank and Dave Cable are retired Navy aviators who served aboard aircraft carriers, so they know about “landing on a postage stamp.” Frank’s talk on the history of carriers is informative and entertaining, and Cable’s tour of the A-6E Intruder, the airplane that brought him home many times, and the F-14 Tomcat are quite moving and bring a smile to the face of museum visitor Jack Schoch, a retired Navy chief who served on five different carriers, including a war cruise during Vietnam aboard the USS Enterprise.

That’s one of the best parts of these tours—the docents are able to make them relatable to visitors.

Palm Springs Air Museum (California)

Requirements for docent training vary by museum.

At the Palm Springs Museum in California, the applicants are required to go through a background check and approximately 40 hours of training, “most of which can be done online,” says spokesperson Ann Greer. They also undergo on-the-job training in one of the 10 different areas of the museum.

“We have over 300 docents, and the museum is run with military precision,” says Greer. “They work four-hour shifts, [and] they may be in one of the hangars or on the hot ramp [where aircraft move] or in the library or gift shop. In the hangars we have a crew chief who keeps an eye on things, and if we want to talk to a particular docent, we have to ask the crew chief. There is a chain of command as the docents’ main job is to interact with the visitors and keep an eye on exhibits and airplanes.”

Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum (McMinnville, Oregon)

At the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, docents in training will spend at least 50 hours under the wing of Don Bowie, a retired Air Force aviator who has been with the gallery for 26 years.

Although the facility is most famous as the location of the Howard Hughes HK-1, the flying boat famously known as the “Spruce Goose,” according to Bowie, there is a lot more going on besides that popular exhibit.”

The museum features two buildings—one houses the HK-1, and the other is devoted to the Space race. Bowie works the floor, helping visitors and docent candidates learn about the aircraft and spacecraft on display.

“You are a volunteer here, and the job has to be fun and you have to be a people person,” he says. “You meet people from all over the world.”

Bowie says the best part of being a docent is when someone comes in and asks about a specific aircraft that is special to them, and there is a docent who shares their interest.

Docent Schedules

Because docents are volunteers, they aren’t required to put in massive amounts of hours on the job, but many do because it is a labor of love. Most museums ask for a commitment of at least one day a week, and often the docents rotate working weekends.

The docent’s typical day often begins with a crew briefing before the museum doors open. This is when they learn about special events at the museum, such as school tours or corporate meetings, and when exhibits are being installed or removed.

This column first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: Being Aviation Docent Simply Labor of Love appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Jessen was born in 1937 and raised in Chicago. As a teenager she joined the Civil Air Patrol, where she had her first opportunity to fly an airplane. Her interest in aviation continued at University of Oklahoma (OU) where she joined the school’s flight club, known as the Air Knockers. She was a skilled pilot and earned several flight trophies. She also became the first woman to work as a flight instructor at OU.

In the summer of 1961, when Jessen was 24, another woman flight instructor in Oklahoma, Wally Funk, told her about an opportunity to join an experiment to see if women pilots could become astronauts. Jessen applied, was accepted, and quit her job as a flight instructor to become part of the “Mercury 13” experimental program based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jessen passed the tests and was preparing to go to Florida with the rest of the trainees, but the program was canceled.

Jessen was always modest about her role in the space program. However, she served as a role model for several women who became flight crew for space shuttle missions. She received notes from them thanking her for her part in the space program.

In 1962, she was hired at Beech Aircraft in Wichita, Kansas, as a sales demonstration pilot.  She added additional ratings as she became qualified to fly everything Beech Aircraft produced.

She gained prominence as one of the “Three Musketeers,” a promotional event that involved Jessen and two other pilots flying formation across 48 states in 90 days to promote the new Beech Musketeer. She would later write about this experience in her 2009 book, The Fabulous Flight of the Three Musketeers.

It was at Beech that she met her husband Bob, who had been a B-29 pilot during World War II. Aviation was a key part of their relationship as the pair moved to Idaho in 1967 and started a series of aviation businesses while raising a family.

Jessen loved to fly and promote aviation. She served as President of The Ninety-Nines, the international organization of women pilots, and was skilled at research. She was determined to chronicle the feats and accomplishments of the first women pilots. This led to her book, The Powder Puff Derby of 1929, published in 2001. She also penned Amelia Was Right, and Sky Girls: The True Story of the First Woman’s Cross-Country Air Race. In addition, she was a regular contributor for The Northwest Flyer and The Idaho Statesman.

Perhaps inspired by what she found during her research, Jessen began air racing herself and continued to fly until health challenges prompted her to hang up her wings in 2017.

While no memorial plans have been announced, those who wish to remember Jessen are invited to make a donation in her name to The Ninety-Nines, a 501(c)(3) organization that supports women pilots.

The post Remembering the Legacy of Gene Nora Jessen appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Anderson, a “triple ace” who shot down 16 enemy aircraft during World War II, died at his home in Auburn, California, on May 17. He was 102.

Anderson’s aviation career spanned 30 years. After WWII, he became a test pilot, flying more than 130 different aircraft, and was in the cockpit at the birth of the jet age. Some of his test flights involved a small fighter being carried aloft by a Convair B-36 Peacemaker bomber, which was released from the larger aircraft.

• READ MORE: Two Legendary Ace World War II Pilots Return to the Skies

He served at the Pentagon and in the Pacific as the wing commander of the 18th Tactical Fighter Wing on Okinawa and later the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing based in Thailand.

When he retired from the military in 1972, he held the rank of colonel. He was heavily decorated, having earned five Distinguished Flying Crosses, 16 Air Medals, two Legions of Merit, a Bronze Star, and a Commendation Medal. In 2022, the Air Force promoted him to the honorary rank of brigadier general.

Anderson was a favorite on the airshow and fly-in circuits. He often spoke at events held by the Commemorative Air Force and was inducted into the CAF’s American Combat Airman Hall of Fame in 2001.

Anderson is probably best remembered for flying his P-51 Mustang Old Crow. Prior to flying the P-51, Anderson flew a P-39 Airacobra.

According to the CAF, with the blessing of Anderson and his family, the Central Texas Wing was able to add the Old Crow name and livery to the CAF’s P-39 in July 2022. The P-39, a P-51B, and a P-51D, all bearing the Old Crow livery, served as a backdrop for a special Warbirds in Review presentation with Anderson as the guest of honor.

The post Remembering the Late WWII Triple Ace Bud Anderson appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The late Kohn, from Brookfield, Wisconsin, spent his life behind a camera and immersed in aviation. He authored several books that were filled with his photography. Among the titles still available are The Story of the Texan (American Flight Manuals), Pilot’s Handbook for Model YB-49 Airplane, and the Armchair Aviator series. If you couldn’t make it out to the airport, curling up with one of these books could be the next best thing.

The photos and the documentation provided on each image span decades of work. The Hall of Fame is seeking to raise approximately $65,000 for the project, which includes hiring a professional preservation company to digitize the entire collection in order to make it accessible to the public through an online archive. In addition, the funds will be used to create a searchable website, educational materials, outreach activities, and museum exhibits to showcase the collection’s significance.

According to the WAHF, the aviation community has already contributed approximately 33 percent of the necessary funds as of May 10.

“We are excited to embark on this fundraising campaign to ensure that the legacy of Leo Kohn lives on,” said Dan Silvers, WAHF’s historic image preservation chair. “The digitization of this collection will not only preserve these priceless images but also make them accessible to aviation enthusiasts, historians, and researchers worldwide.”

Organizers note that special care will be taken to ensure that each image is properly identified, and described. This will include the documentation of key details such as the date, location, aircraft type, engine, and color scheme, as so many of the photographs are in black and white.

For those who would like to learn more about Kohn, who died in 2014 at age 86, there is an exhibit of his work opening at the Kelch Aviation Museum in Broadhead, Wisconsin, on June 9.

The post Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame Launches Photo Digitization Campaign appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

With a lengthy lifespan comes a colorful history. And while we are able to peruse our aircraft logbooks for clues or even easily access decades of ownership and registration records from the FAA, gaps abound. So we’re often left without much background or context regarding their past lives. The grand adventures, close calls, and colorful circumstances through which our airplanes endured typically elude us as we daydream about their past lives. 

I considered myself fortunate when, from out of the blue, an individual from my airplane’s past contacted me via email. Her name was Phyllis, and when browsing this column, she recognized my Cessna 170 as the airplane she and her husband, Al, used to own between 1970 and 1981. She explained that although Al had passed away in 2017, she still kept in touch with Dick, the gentleman to whom they had sold to and from whom I had purchased the airplane.

• READ MORE: Navigating the Aircraft Ownership Learning Curve Through Type Clubs

It was a pleasure to make contact with Phyllis. I learned a few things about the 170 and told her the whole story about meeting Dick and buying it from him. Recognizing it was a long shot, I asked her if she happened to have any old photos from the days she owned it. She said she did, and a couple of weeks later, I received some color photocopies of my airplane, wearing a different tail number and frolicking among the beaches of the Pacific Northwest. 

As someone with a soft spot for bygone eras and forgotten times, I was immensely grateful to receive these glimpses into my airplane’s history. I shared them with Dick, as well. He was able to provide some additional context to the photos, explaining what beach was likely visible in one of the photos and pointing out how Al chose the former tail number (N170AL) to display his initials. 

Last month, I had the unexpected opportunity to give my friend Jim a glimpse into his own airplane’s history. While aimlessly scrolling through eBay listings for old airplane slides and scanning for any particularly interesting slices of aviation history, I spotted a Cessna 170 with a paint scheme that looked familiar. The listing was for a set of 10 old slides taken at an unnamed fly-in sometime in the early 1980s, and the 170 pictured appeared to have the exact same paint scheme as Jim’s 170.

• READ MORE: Going to the Birds, And How Not To

This was quite the coincidence. Jim’s airplane had been repainted in its original factory paint scheme but with nonstandard colors. In place of the standard primary reds, yellows, or blues, his plane sports a color palette nearly identical to that of the A&W burger chain, a tasteful pairing of orange and brown. The likelihood that these slides showed a doppelganger was miniscule…but I had to be sure.

Of course, the tail number was inconveniently cut off in every photo, making a positive identification impossible. But a closer look and some methodical detective work eventually resulted in certainty beyond a reasonable doubt. The airplane in the slides sported the exact same Horton STOL kit and the same engine modification, but the deciding factor was the presence of a unique decal on one wingtip but not on the other. It had to be Jim’s plane.

I went ahead and spent the $12 for the set of slides. When they arrived, I had them professionally scanned and printed, and I placed the two best shots in a small frame for Jim to hang on the wall of his hangar. Sure, they were relatively unremarkable photos in the grand scheme of things, but they captured a scene showing his airplane in a time well before he bought it. Best of all, it showed his airplane wearing a set of wheel pants. Having only ever known his airplane with a big set of Alaskan Bushwheel tundra tires, it was both amusing and comical to see.

• READ MORE: When It’s Better to Have It and Not Need It

Since making this aviation-related archeological discovery, I now keep an eagle eye out for any old photos or articles featuring any of my friends’ airplanes. I even went so far as to enter a handful of their tail numbers as “saved searches” in eBay so that I’ll be alerted if and when any items, such as photos, slides, or logbooks, are listed for sale with those tail numbers in the descriptions. 

In this way, I hope to once again pair forgotten memories with the present day, filling in vacant gaps in history with context that would otherwise be lost forever. I think anyone who considers themselves to be caretakers of aviation history, rather than just owners, would greatly appreciate the effort.

The post Seeking Out Ghosts of Your Airplane’s Past appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Born in 1882, Geoffrey de Havilland was the second son of a village pastor. At an early age, he displayed a mechanical interest and pursued a career as an automotive engineer, building cars and motorcycles. Frustrated at work, in 1909 he received a gift of 1,000 pounds from his grandfather to build his first airplane, just a few years after the Wright brothers had made their first flight.

By World War I, de Havilland was working for Airco, where he designed a number of early warplanes, which enjoyed varying success, and flew as his own test pilot. In 1920, with the support of his former boss, de Havilland set up his own independent company and embarked on a series of aircraft named after moths, inspired by his love of lepidopterology, or the study of butterflies and moths.

• READ MORE: Reaching Uncharted Corners of the Globe in a Fokker F.VII

In 1932, he introduced the DH.82 Tiger Moth, a variant of earlier aircraft designed specifically as a military trainer for the Royal Air Force (RAF), as well as other air forces. Like many aircraft at the time, the Tiger Moth’s fuselage is constructed of fabric-covered steel tubing, while its wings are made of fabric-covered wooden frames. I’ve seen a single person lift a Tiger Moth by the tail to take it out of its hangar. The Tiger Moth was powered by a de Havilland Gypsy air-cooled, 4-cylinder in-line engine which produced 120-130 hp, depending on the version.

Like most trainers, the Tiger Moth had two seats, each with its own set of controls, with the student in front and the instructor or solo pilot in back. One of the major changes introduced to the Tiger Moth, at RAF insistence, was folding door panels that made it easier to enter and exit both cockpits. The feature was absolutely essential when a student or instructor needed to quickly bail out wearing  heavy parachutes.

The silver knobs on the left control throttle, fuel mixture, and aileron trim. The knob on the right enables “auto slots,” slats on the wings that automatically deploy like flaps to provide additional lift at low speeds and high angles of attack. Notice that there is no artificial horizon. However, there is a turn indicator (in the center) as well as a red column that indicates the aircraft’s pitch. It is currently showing nose-up because the plane is resting on its tailwheel.

The compass, situated just in front of the stick, is a bit tricky. You can either keep it pointed toward north and look to where the line is pointing, or you can rotate the compass ring to show the current heading at the top and follow that by keeping it centered.

• READ MORE: Reenacting Bombing Missions in an F-117 Nighthawk

In addition to the cockpit gauge, there’s also a mechanical airspeed indicator on the left wing. Red shows typical stall speed range (below 45 mph).

I’m at England’s Upavon Airfield, a few miles north of Stonehenge, which was home to the RAF’s Central Flying School, founded in 1912, and where the first Tiger Moths were delivered. It is now a small army base (hence the vehicles) and is also used as a glider field. With no electrical starter, the Tiger Moth is hand-propped to get it started. The turning of the propeller, by hand, engages the magnetos that send charges to the spark plugs, starting the engine.

This particular Tiger Moth, N-6635, is based on the one on display at the Imperial War Museum at RAF Duxford, near Cambridge. It’s actually a composite that was put together with parts from different Tiger Moths.

The engine is modeled realistically. If you overstress it on full throttle for more than a few minutes, it will overheat and conk out. If you let it idle for too long, the spark plugs will foul up. With a small engine like this, the left-turning tendencies are not pronounced. However, the trickiest part of takeoff for most tailwheel airplanes is still when the tail comes up. The descent of the rotating propeller causes a gyroscopic precession to the left.

The Tiger Moth gained immediate popularity as the RAF’s primary trainer—the first airplane a would-be pilot learned to fly after ground school before moving on to more advanced fighters or bombers. It gained a reputation for being “easy to fly, but difficult to master.” In normal flight, it was forgiving of mistakes. On the other hand, the Tiger Moth required great precision from a pilot to learn aerobatic combat maneuvers, without going into a spin. However, it recovers easily from spins, which meant it highlighted a student’s shortcomings without (usually) putting them at fatal risk. Though I did notice that when flying upside down (or going through a roll), the engine sputters, probably because gravity messes with the fuel flow.

During the 1930s, between world wars, students selected by the RAF took about nine to 12 months to earn their pilot wings, building up about 150 hours of flight time, about 55 with an instructor and the rest solo. Their instruction included night, formation, and instrument flying, along with gunnery and aerobatics (for combat).

The Tiger Moth was sold to 25 air forces from different countries and proved popular to private buyers as well. It was a big commercial success for the company. A total of 1,424 Tiger Moths were produced prior to the outbreak of WWII, most of which were manufactured at the de Havilland factory in Hatfield, north of London.

Slowing down while descending to land can be difficult. I found I usually needed to cut the power to idle and glide in. Power-off landings were a very typical method in that era. It’s nearly impossible to see forward in the Tiger Moth, especially when landing. It’s best to lean your head out the side, while keeping one eye on controlling the airspeed at around 60 mph (about 15-20 mph above stalling).

• READ MORE: Exploring the Checkered History of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter

There are also no wheel brakes. So once you do land, you just have to let friction slow you down. It’s easier in a grassy field like this.

The success of the Tiger Moth led to Geoffrey de Havilland being awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1934. But its story was only just beginning.

Welcome to Goderich Airport (CYGD) in Ontario, Canada, about 2.5 hours north of Detroit on the eastern shore of Lake Huron. In 1928, de Havilland set up a subsidiary in Canada to produce Tiger Moths to train Canadian airmen. This Tiger Moth, #8922 (registration C-GCWT), is based on a real plane that belongs to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Mount Hope, Ontario, and is in airworthy condition.

With the outbreak of WWII in 1939, the British government realized that Britain itself was an unsuitable location for training large numbers of new pilots. Not only is the weather often poor, the airspace over Britain was quickly becoming a battleground between the beleaguered RAF and the German Luftwaffe—the last place you’d want a student pilot to learn how to fly.

Canada, in contrast, offered vast areas far from enemy activity, where pilot training could be conducted. To take advantage of this, the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) was created to instruct thousands of airmen from Britain and across the Empire in safer locations like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Bermuda, and South Africa. The yellow “training” livery was typical of the BCATP, though the real-life airplane was also equipped with a plexiglass-enclosed cockpit to permit winter training.

Many of the small airports dotted across Canada from east to west—as well as some large ones—got their start as part of BCATP, commonly referred to as “the Plan.” I selected Goderich to fly from because after it was built in Canada in 1942, this plane, #8922, was used to train pilots here at the No. 12 Elementary Flying Training School (EFTS), as part of the BCATP. The same airplane later went to No. 4 EFTS at Windsor Mills, Quebec, an airfield that no longer exists.

Eventually, there were 36 elementary flight schools across Canada, in addition to dozens more devoted to training bombardiers, navigators, and gunners. At least 131,533 Allied pilots and aircrew were trained in Canada under BCATP—the largest of any country participating in the Plan—of which 72,835 were Canadian. The program cost Canada $1.6 billion but employed 104,000 Canadians in air bases across the land. De Havilland produced 1,548 Tiger Moths in Canada, by war’s end, to help stock these flight schools with aircraft.

While training pilots in Canada was safer than in Britain, lives were still lost. From 1942 to 1944, a total of 831 fatal accidents took place, an average of five per week.

• READ MORE: The Story of the Schneider Trophy and the Supermarine S.5

BCATP training was by no means limited to Canada. I’m here at Parafield Airport in Adelaide, Australia, which was home to that country’s No. 1 Elementary Flight Training School and received its first Tiger Moths in April 1940. This particular Tiger Moth, A17-58, was built by de Havilland in Australia in 1940 and apparently still continues to fly. Australia eventually had 12 elementary flight schools (plus a host of other schools) as part of BCATP, which was known there as the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS).

Prior to BCATP, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) only trained about 50 pilots per year. By 1945, more than 37,500 Australian aircrew had been trained in Australia, though many then went to Canada to complete their more advanced training before going into combat. Most Australians in the RAAF went on to fight in the Pacific Theater, though some joined the RAF to fight over Europe. De Havilland built a total of 1,070 Tiger Moths in Australia and even exported a few batches to the U.S. Army Air Forces and the Royal Indian Air Force.

The BCATP was one of the largest aviation training programs in history, providing about half of the airmen who flew for Britain and its dependencies in WWII. The ability to train in safety, away from the combat zone, gave Allied pilots a crucial advantage over the Germans, who typically went into combat with roughly half the training hours of their  counterparts. The program was so important that President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who called the U.S. “the arsenal of democracy,” dubbed Canada “the aerodrome of democracy” as a result of its contribution to training Allied airmen—many of them in the Tiger Moth.

Tiger Moths were not only used to train pilots during WWII. Some were deployed for coastal patrols. I’m here at Farnborough, Britain’s former center for experimental aircraft development (southwest of London), to investigate another interesting purpose they served.

No, it’s not a mistake—there’s a reason why there are no pilots visible in either cockpit. This aircraft, LF858, was what was known as a “Queen Bee.” British anti-aircraft gun crews needed practice firing at real targets. But flying an airplane with people shooting at you is, well, rather dangerous. So de Havilland figured out a way to put radio equipment in the rear cockpit that could receive messages for an operator on the ground and work the aircraft’s controls accordingly. In other words, it was the world’s first “drone” aircraft.

Besides being able to fly by remote control, the main difference between a regular Tiger Moth and a Queen Bee is that instead of metal tubing for the fuselage frame, the latter used wood (like for its wings) to save money. The objective wasn’t to shoot down the Tiger Moth—that would be wasteful. Gunners used an offset to hopefully miss, so the airplane could land and be used again. But if they did hit, no pilots were at risk.

About 470 Tiger Moth “Queen Bees” were built during WWII. The term “drone” for a pilotless airplane derives directly from the Queen Bee program and refers to a male bee who flies just once to mate with a queen then dies.

By the end of WWII, nearly 8,700 Tiger Moths had been built, 4,200 of them for the RAF alone. It continued to be used by the RAF for training until it was replaced by the de Havilland Chipmunk in the 1950s.

The fact that so many people across the British Empire had learned to fly in a Tiger Moth made them immensely popular after the war, among private pilots and enthusiasts. An estimated 250 Tiger Moths are still flying, including this one based out of the small airstrip near Ranfurly on the southern island of New Zealand.

A number of Tiger Moth clubs exist around the world. The late Christopher Reeve, of Superman fame, once joined one of these clubs and learned how to fly the Tiger Moth. Reeve even made a movie about it, which you can find on YouTube. He said it took some time getting used to how slow they approach and land.

Tiger Moths have appeared in several films, often disguised as other biplanes. For instance, the plane in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) was a Tiger Moth, decked out to look like a German Fokker. The silver biplane in The English Patient (1993) was a Tiger Moth (the other, yellow biplane in that movie was a Stearman). It’s worth mentioning that the biplane in Out of Africa (1985) was not a Tiger Moth, but the earlier and very similar Gypsy Moth, also built by de Havilland. Apparently there was even a movie in 1974 called The Sergeant and the Tiger Moth (1974) about a guy and his girlfriend who aren’t even pilots but build and fly one anyway. I have no idea if it’s any good, so please find and watch it for me.

If you’d like to see a version of this story with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here. This story was told utilizing Ant’s Airplanes Tiger Moth add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, along with liveries and scenery downloaded for free from the flightsim.to community.

The post Recreating the de Havilland Tiger Moth appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Monday marks the 87th anniversary of the event. NBC reporter Herb Morrison was on location to cover what had become almost routine—the docking of the German airship for the newsreels.

That day the ship carried 36 passengers and 61 crewmembers. As the newsreel cameras rolled, the ship approached, and while attempting to attach to the mooring mast, a fire broke out along the dorsal fin. Kept aloft by highly flammable hydrogen, there was no stopping the fire. The burning airship rapidly fell 200 feet to the ground.

Of the 97 on board, 62 survived. Among the dead were 13 passengers, 22 crew, and a member of the ground crew.

The public did not see the newsreel images of the event until a few days later as the film had to be developed and copied for distribution to movie houses. Morrison’s emotional description of the event included the phrase, “Oh, the humanity!” The audio was added to the film in postproduction.

Then, as now, there was an investigation into the cause of the accident—and it is still debated. One of the most commonly held beliefs is that static electricity along the airship’s skin ignited the hydrogen. Some believed the ship was destroyed in an act of sabotage, as it was a symbol (to some) of Nazi power and intimidation because of its sheer size and the swastikas emblazoned on the tailfins.

About the Ship

The airship, designated LZ-129, was walked out of the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin factory in 1936. Measuring 804 feet nose to tail, it was larger than the record-setting LZ-127, the Graf Zeppelin, commanded by factory manager Hugo Eckner. The Graf Zeppelin flew around the world, setting speed records, and was often the subject of newsreel features as it visited exotic places.

Eckner was a German national hero for his work with zeppelin and did not like the Nazis. As such, he refused to name the new ship after Adolf Hitler, who came to power in 1933, when he was named chancellor by German President Paul von Hindenburg. Hindenburg’s death in 1934 paved the way for the expansion of the Nazi Party.

The Nazi Party, aware of Eckner’s criticism, had him blacklisted and refused to allow his name to be printed in newspapers.

The U.S. shared Eckner’s concerns about the rise of the Nazi Party, and fearing helium would be used for military purposes, refused to export it to Germany. Although it had been designed to use helium, the Hindenburg was converted to hydrogen use. The Graf Zeppelin also used hydrogen.

• READ MORE: The World’s Largest Aircraft

Hitler did not see the Hindenburg as a military asset. However, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels did, and he made use of both the Hindenburg and Graf Zeppelin, which he saw as symbols of Nazi power. They were used for propaganda, which included dropping pro-Nazi leaflets, broadcasting patriotic messages from a sound system, and most famously, flying over the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

The Hindenburg made several trips between Berlin and New York. To travel on it was luxurious. Meals were served on fine china. People dressed for dinner. Unlike airliners of today, you could walk around and stretch out in the passenger cabin. For entertainment, there was a piano made from aluminum to save weight. Because fire was a real danger, passengers were not allowed to carry lighters or matches, but there was a smoking room that was lined with metal and had a special pressure door and a lighter secured to the wall. A crewman handed out cigars to passengers who wished to smoke.

At the time any air travel was glamorous, fascinating, and impressive. The airships were frequently photographed, with one of the most impressive being a black-and-white picture of the airship over New York City. People would pull off to the side of the road to watch it fly over, and basically everything would stop as people looked up to see the engineering marvel.

One of those was my father, who as a little boy was playing in a creek in New Jersey when a shadow fell over the water. Dad looked up, and there was the Hindenburg. A man wearing a white cap and a blue coat with three gold stripes on the sleeve leaned out of the gondola and shouted down to Dad in heavily accented German, “How is the fishing?”

This would not be my only connection to the Hindenburg. During a ground lesson at my first flight instructor’s home, I noticed a set of metal plant stands in the kitchen made from what looked like triangular girders. His name was Dutch Werline, and flight instructing was a second career for him. I remarked that they looked like something from an airship—and it turns out they were. His father was part of the Navy’s rigid airship program in the 1930s, and the tables were made from unairworthy scrap parts. During the Great Depression, when he did not have much money, he crafted them as a Christmas present for his wife.

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Werline’s father is one of the Navy men who was on hand to help the Hindenburg moor that day. He survived. His son, then an infant in his mother’s arms, was also there that day and was mentioned in the local press coverage as being the youngest person to be present.

The destruction of the Hindenburg resulted in a loss of public confidence in travel by airship. The Graf Zeppelin would remain in use until the beginning of World War II, when it would be dismantled and its components melted down or repurposed for the war effort.

U.S. Navy and Rigid Airships

The U.S. Navy experimented with rigid airships. In 1922, the first American-built airship, the USS Shenandoah, began assembly in Lakehurst. Its design was based in part on a German ship, L-49, that was captured in France during World War I. Unlike the German ships, the Americans’ were designed to be filled with helium. That didn’t prevent them from having accidents, however, as the airships were vulnerable to weather.

In 1925, the Shenandoah was making its 57th flight when it was caught in a storm over Ohio. The strong up-and-down drafts overstressed the ship, tearing it apart. It crashed in three pieces: bow, stern, and control car—all coming down near Caldwell, Ohio. The stern section sank rapidly and the control car crashed to the ground, while the remaining bow section turned into a free balloon. The crew in the bow were able to release the helium in such a manner that they were able to land it. Fourteen of the crew of 43 died in the crash.

The loss of the Shenandoah did not deter the military. The United States had received LZ-126 as part of WWI reparations, and in 1924 it was flown by Eckner and a crew to the U.S., where it was redesignated ZR-3 and renamed the USS Los Angeles.

In 1931, a photo was taken of the ship attached to the mooring tower and up on its nose as the tail was caught by a gust of wind. The men inside held on for dear life until the tail came back down. The Los Angeles took part in military exercises as an experiment.

The Navy had two other rigid airships, the Akron (ZRS-4) and the Macon (ZRS-5), that were designed to be flying aircraft carriers. They had internal hangar decks and sort of a trapeze attachment to capture scout aircraft. Both met similar fates as they crashed offshore in storms. 

The Akron went down in 1933 off the coast of New Jersey, killing 73 of the 76 crew on board. One of them was Rear Admiral William Moffett, the first chief of the Bureau of Navy Aeronautics. Moffett Field, the home of Hangar One and now Google in Silicon Valley California, was named for him.

The Macon crashed in a storm off the coast of California in 1935. Of the 83 crew on board, only two were killed because the ship had emergency gear for water landings. The loss of both ships prompted Congress to suspend the Navy’s rigid airship program.

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The aircraft is owned by the Coulson Group in Port Alberni, British Columbia, and spent decades fighting wildfires up and down the west coast of North America. An earlier deal to send the aircraft to the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida, fell through but the airplane was painted in navy blue in anticipation of that move.

“We are pleased to have the Philippine Mars join our museum where we will preserve this World War II-era aircraft for decades to come,” said Scott Marchand, CEO of Pima Air and Space Museum.

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A sister ship, Hawaii Mars, which fought fires up until 2015, will be sent to the B.C. Aviation Museum in Sidney, B.C., near Victoria.

“As a fitting tribute to their years of service and years of hard work by many people in B.C. and the U.S., we are pleased to see both Mars aircraft landing to rest at world class institutions in 2024,” said Coulson Group CEO Wayne Coulson.

What’s not clear is how the massive flying boat will get to Tucson. It has no landing gear and operates only from water. It needs a relatively big body of water to take off and land, and there is no such open water in the immediate area of the museum.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on AVweb.

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It would entail multiple powerplants, long drive shafts, and pusher propellers mounted on the extreme aft end of an aircraft. Well-stocked from the war effort with a robust team of engineers and faced with a dwindling number of military contracts, the company tasked a team to investigate and develop the concept.

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The company’s first attempt at integrating the new design resulted in the XB-42 “Mixmaster”—an experimental military bomber with twin contra-rotating propellers mounted to a common drive shaft. Although the company built and flew two examples, the military quickly lost interest in piston engines, and Douglas pivoted, ultimately reworking the XB-42 into the jet-powered XB-43. Neither aircraft would advance beyond the development stage.

Undeterred, Douglas unveiled a proposal for the same twin-powerplant, pusher-propeller concept in 1945, which was applied to a conceptual airliner. Called the Douglas DC-8 “Skybus,” it would utilize the same Allison V-12 engines as in the XB-42, this time buried in the forward fuselage section and linked to the aft propellers with a series of shafts that extended nearly the entire length of the 77-foot aircraft. The Skybus never left the drawing board.

Douglas would try one last time to make the unconventional design work, this time in the form of a 39-foot-long, 5,085-pound, five-passenger GA aircraft. With a large, bulbous forward fuselage section and low wing, the Cloudster II housed two 6-cylinder Continental piston engines behind the passenger compartment. Douglas designed the aircraft around two 250 hp engines but explained in a 1947 press release that it would be flown initially with 200 hp engines until the more powerful ones became available.

As unique as the pusher design was, it was not without precedent. Just two years earlier, Lockheed had built and flown its Model 34 “Big Dipper,” and WACO’s Aristocraft made its first flight only a few months before the Cloudster II. The companies touted many of the same theoretical advantages, including unrestricted visibility from the cabin, no spiraling slipstream effect from a forward-mounted (tractor) propeller, and a quieter cabin. 

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Moulton Taylor, the designer of the similarly configured roadable “Aerocar” that would fly a couple of years later, added that at idle a propeller mounted to the extreme aft end of the fuselage has the effect of an anti-spin drag chute, adding stability and aiding recovery from spins. Taylor defended the pusher configuration passionately, observing, “Who ever saw a boat with a tractor propeller?”

Another benefit of the design had to do with controllability in the event of an engine failure. Like the Cessna Skymaster, the Cloudster II utilized centerline thrust, meaning that if an engine failed, the remaining engine could power the aircraft without introducing asymmetric thrust and the associated handling challenges. Of course, because the Cloudster II utilized just one prop and drive shaft, a single point of failure of any of these components would leave the aircraft entirely unpowered, illustrating the lack of redundancy compared to a traditional twin.

When the Cloudster II finally flew, it encountered problems that were both predictable and serious. The lengthy drive shafts produced significant vibration through the airframe, a problem that would require careful engineering and multiple isolation units to address. Additionally, the location of the engines mounted side by side, deep within the airframe, introduced cooling issues. While more airflow could be ducted onto the engines easily enough, this would come at the expense of significant drag. 

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Ultimately, development of the Cloudster II was abandoned in late 1947. Douglas reportedly donated it to a local Boy Scout troop for ground training before it was scrapped sometime after 1958. The concept was then left for WACO to pursue, also unsuccessfully, with its Aristocraft.

In the early 1960s, Jim Bede attempted to make it work with the Bede XBD-2. Later, in the 1980s, the twin-turboprop Lear Fan 2100 attempted to resurrect the concept yet again, but despite building and flying three examples, it once again fizzled out.

The post The Bold, Bulbous Douglas Cloudster II appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

In 1939, Franklin Roosevelt was the first sitting president to recognize GA, according to AOPA president Mark Baker. This year also marks the 85th anniversary of AOPA, an organization created to support GA.

The National Celebration of GA Flyover will be broadcast live on AOPA’s YouTube channel with commentary from longtime “AOPA Live This Week” host Tom Haines and journalist Miles O’Brien. The pair will be on a rooftop providing commentary as aircraft fly overhead. 

Haines noted that he’s spent a good bit of time researching the participant airplanes and was impressed to learn of their rich history.

Logistics

Mike Ginter, AOPA vice president of airports and state advocacy, will serve as the air boss for the event. Ginter said that all the aircraft will be strategically launched from Frederick Municipal Airport (KFDK) in Maryland—the home of AOPA—beginning at 11:30 a.m. EST on May 11. 

The aircraft will be expected to fly at 90 knots at an altitude of 1,000 feet, ensuring they are visible from the ground and online. 

“The goal is to get aviation outside of the airport fence lines,” Ginter said.

For those who won’t be in D.C., pilots are encouraged to organize watch parties at their airports.

Sixty aircraft, representing 20 different chapters of GA, are scheduled to participate. The aircraft and pilots, most of whom are the aircraft owners, were selected months ago.

Baker will be leading the parade, flying his Beechcraft Staggerwing 17, an aircraft synonymous with the golden age of aviation. The round-engine Staggerwing biplane was one of the first to feature an enclosed cockpit. In the 1930s, it was the choice for executive transport and air racers.

“It’s going to be a special time for AOPA and for general aviation,” Baker said. “What a sight it will be to see the history of general aviation flying over the National Mall, as GA has given this nation so much over the past many decades. AOPA is uniquely positioned to plan this complex event and execute it safely and professionally.”

Among the aircraft planned to appear are a WACO UPF-7, Douglas DC-3, a Grumman Albatross, one of the only two Beechcraft Starships still flying, a Robinson R44, and a Piper M700 Fury certified this year.

The flyover will also feature an appearance by the Titan Aerobatic Team.

Parade Route

Washington has some of the most restricted airspace in the country. More than 11 agencies, including the FAA, air traffic control, TSA, and U.S. Secret Service are coordinating for the event, which will include flight in Prohibited Area P-56. The restricted airspace was created after 9/11. 

The route takes the aircraft past the Lincoln Memorial, down Independence Avenue, and past the Washington Monument.

GA, By the Numbers

Parade aircraft were selected to showcase technological advancements in aviation and demonstrate the ways GA has improved its safety records over the years.

According to AOPA, the GA industry enjoys the safest record ever due to better aircraft, navigation systems, flight training, and better, more engaging ways to stay proficient. General aviation aircraft fly more than 26 million flight hours each year, including about 30 million takeoffs and landings.

AOPA officials said they hope the event will help spread the word that general aviation often comes from small towns with small aircraft manufacturing facilities, such as Yakima, Washington; Vacaville, California; and Vero Beach, Florida. 

More information on the event, route, and planned aircraft can be found on AOPA’s GA Flyover campaign website.

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