If I am not mistaken the Wright Bros. owned a bicycle shop before they got into their endeavors to master flight, so there has always been that early connection. The one below is situated in a WW II exhibition about the Flying Tigers at the Museum of Flight, in Seattle. There were also some historic photographs taken in China at the time, showing many more bicycles in use. Bicycles aside, if you are interested in aviation the museum is worth a visit if you find yourself in the area.
They have got some funky things, such as the Gossamer Albatross II. This is the twin of the Gossamer Albatross which, if you are old enough and remember, is a super-light pedal-powered single person thing that flew across the English Channel (barely). The GA II was the first controlled indoor human powered flight when it flew inside the Astrodome in 1980.
Of course the bikey-connections are not the only things of interest there. Commercial flight, military applications and history, and space exploration; and then you can take the bridge across the road to go aboard Air Force One, the version which saw service during the Eisenhower through Nixon presidencies, and a Concord, in case you never got to see one before they were taken out of service. Personally, I liked the World War I and II exhibits best; they were very informative and well organized, with aircraft and other artifacts displayed.
the Russians got into nose art too, as you can see by this tiger
which has just killed Hitler in the form of a deer
No comments:
Post a Comment