Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Another beautiful Gulf Shores day.  Sam figured out he could make his morning walk a little longer by leading me down the main road to the Loop E campground and then back home by way of the nature trail.  I felt like the extra long walk was a good idea since he would be spending a while alone in the coach.  He still looked sad as we left him to head back to the National Museum of Naval Aviation to see what we missed on our first visit.

Last time there was no time for Hanger Bay One, so we headed in that direction first.  Just inside the door was the first airplane to ever land at the south pole.  One of the docents filled me in on the mission. The landing skids melted the ice while landing, which refroze quickly when the plane stopped.  He pointed out the brackets under the fuselage where Jet Assisted Take-Off bottles were attached.  That had to be tense wondering whether or not the JATO rockets were enough to break them free of the ice and get them back in the air.  If it had not worked, it would have been the end for the crew.  I guess that was on their minds as they named the plane Que Sera Sera.

When the president is on an aircraft its callsign is temporarily changed as in Air Force One or Marine One.  The plane below was the first and only "Navy One" when George Bush was being flown to an aircraft carrier for a celebration ceremony.

I had a small connection with the "Navy one" S-3 aircraft - I worked on the ADI and HSI displays in the cockpit.

I'm sure George looked in the cockpit as he boarded - I wonder if he was curious about the great looking displays.

When we entered the museum we snagged a couple of tickets for the flight line trolley tour, so we had to leave Hanger Bay One before getting a chance to look over all of the displays.  Aboard the trolley, Dave Seiler was our tour guide. He was in the Marines for 28 years and had a lot of stories to tell.

The Navy had so many of the SNJ-6 trainers, below, at the end of the war they were sold as surplus.  Hollywood studios bought them up at $1,500 a copy to use in movies.  Dave told us anytime you see a Japanese Zero in a movie it is most likely one of these, painted with the rising sun insignia on the wings and fuselage.  The only folks who would know the difference were the pilots who probably really did not want to relive those days by watching war movies.

He told us while filming the movie "Top Gun", Tom Cruise took a little hop in a real F-14.  I'm sure the pilot was proving a point as he managed to get Tom to up-chuck twice before landing.  To be fair, I suspect they could put this jet through maneuvers that would make almost anyone sick.

The museum had a lot of detailed models of the various Navy Aircraft Carriers, but this was the only one we saw with crew onboard.  Below, you can see one sailor partied too much in port the night before.

Standing less than a quarter mile from the museum was the Pensacola Lighthouse.  It was built around the same time as the forts in the area.  It was close to closing time and I'm not sure we had the energy to climb the stairs, so we just stopped in the parking lot for a quick picture and then headed home.