TEXAS AIR MUSEUM, STINSON FIELD (Mark)

Sharing a picture of my brothers, sister, Dad, and I as I think back to the last two weeks . . .

Currently we are back home in North Carolina and I am sitting at my desk, listening to thunder rumble in the background.  

I am posting about what I was doing a week ago, while still in the San Antonio.  I have been wanting to get to the Texas Air Museum with my Dad for the past several trips, so we made sure to stay in San Antonio long enough this time to make the trip possible.

The museum is at Stinson Field, the second oldest airport in the United States.  I have better pictures of this plane from my trip to Kill Devil Hills, which you can see it from an earlier blog post about the Wright Brothers.

Katherine Stinson (February 14 1891 – July 8, 1977) was an American aviation pioneer.  In 1912 she became the fourth American woman to receive her pilot’s license.  She set numerous flying records, and was the first female aviator hired by the U.S. Postal Service.  She was one of the first pilots ever to fly at night.

This airplane is one of the first types she flew, only slightly advanced from the Wright Brothers' earlier efforts.  When you see how fragile the planes of this era were it is remarkable what was accomplished with them.

The Museum was started in 1999 by John Tosh.  Mr. Tosh is a remarkable man; he enlisted in the U.S. armed forces during World War II at the age of fourteen.  He served in WW2, Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm.  He has collected aircraft and memorabilia from the earliest days of flight to the modern age.

Included in the museum are some humorous pieces.

One exhibit I found very interesting was about the Berlin Airlift, as I have read several books regarding the flyers who participated.  It was interesting to see an actual parachute used to deliver candy to children who were lining the airfield:

Originally I took this photo simply to send to my brother Michael, who has an optometry practice in Redding, CA.  However as we continued touring the museum we learned about the huge amount of medical research done regarding aviation that took place in the area.

John F. Kennedy was in the area the day before he was assassinated, to dedicate a new facility for medical aviation research.  The museum has a small theater where you can watch the entire dedication speech.  It is one of the last views of JFK available.  

This next picture is a bit hard to see fully because of the glare.

It is a capsule used to test and train astronauts to get them used to using equipment when you are “not right side up.”  It was also used to measure physiology of the subjects when in positions that stressed situational gravitational positions, not generally encountered.

My dad, a retired API aircraft mechanic, inspecting the propeller and gearing of an aircraft that used huge engines:

Notice how big the propellers are.  They actually have a caution against standing on them!

Some of the exhibits are in need of further restoration.  This is a wonderful older aircraft in need of some TLC:

If you are in the San Antonio area and you have an interest in history and aviation the Museum is definitely worth a stop.

We would have spent longer viewing the exhibits, but Texas was - and is - in the midst of a heat wave.  After three hours we headed back to the house to enjoy air conditioning!