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Thursday, August 5, 2010

Chicago Museum of Science and Industry





This past Monday, my brother and I went to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. The top picture is a tsunami simulator. Next, there's me sitting in a model of a San Francisco cable car. The actual cable cars in San Francisco, still carrying commuters and tourists, are the only movable national monument in the US. Next, there's a just hatched chicken. Finally, there's a full size model of the Wright flyer. The Wright brothers were not merely the first human beings to actually perform a heavier than air powered level flight with a human on board (model planes, birds and pterodactyls were earlier). They were the first people to describe how airplanes needed to have control of their pitch, roll, and yaw. They also were the first to build a gas engine that was both light enough and powerful enough to fly itself, a pilot, and the plane.

With all that, the plane they designed must have been very difficult to fly. People keep trying to build a model flyer that actually flies, but they find the design extremely difficult to control. The Wrights were lucky they didn't get killed while trying to fly.

At the museum, we saw a sign that the museum is having a contest. The winner gets to literally live in the museum for a month, play with the exhibits after closing time, and become a representative of the museum to the public. When I read about that contest, I realized that the person they're looking for is me. I'm working on my contest entry materials. All I need to do is to convince them that I'm the best person for the job. I already know it. I'm working on getting some stuff together so I can demonstrate to them that I'm their guy.
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The EAA Air Show at Oshkosh





Last week, I went to the EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. It's an amazing air show that happens every year. Three of these pictures are self explanatory. The one of the sailplane on the ground with a retractable pusher prop mounted behind the cockpit is powered by a battery driven electric motor. The battery power gets it up in the air. Then the prop retracts into the fuselage and the plane becomes a soaring sailplane.
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