More from the Science Museum

Here's the Randy sitting in the jet turbine of a Boeing 727. That's a picture that not many people have, that is, except for the thousands of people that have gone to this museum. In the same room as the model train track they have a whole load of aircraft adangle from the ceiling. How does one dangle a Boeing 727 from a ceiling? That's 169,000 pounds. Plus they had to account for the weight of all the museum goers walking in there to see all the hands-on flight information booths inside the aircraft. Here's another little clue that our move to the west was a good idea, Boeings are made in Seattle. Cue Twilight Zone music now. It was interesting to see how much aircrafts have changed in the last century. From next to the 727 you can see the replica of the Wright Brothers' plane (we saw the real one in Washington DC a few years back), and several other planes across the room. Then you walk into the 727, which was built sometime between 1963 and 1984, and you realize that nothing has really changed in passenger airlines since then. Yeah, maybe the upholstery on the flotation device seats has become less blue, but it really is the same ride in brand new planes. Oh wait, let me take that back, the price of sitting in one of those non-blue seats has changed a lot...on to the next picture!

Now here's that same Randy standing beside a World War II Sturzkampfflugzeug (Stuka), which is one of only two left intact in the entire world (the other one is in London). These were crazy little dive bombers that had rear gunners and sirens that would wail as they made their attack. That would be frightening. I wonder if the reason the Germans lost the war is that it took them so long to say the long names of their aircraft that they didn't have the time to shout "Fire!" before it was too late. The little airplane beside which Randy is looking quite serious was captured in Libya in 1941. These little guys actually had automatic air brakes in them so that if the pilot blacked out from the g-force while diving, the plane would automatically pull up. Neato.

The last picture shows Randy, Sara and Zoe entering passenger train number 999 of the Empire State Express (at least part of it), whose inaugural trip took Syracuse New Yorkers to the Chicago World's Fair in May of 1893. This little train was quite a big deal, as it was once considered the fasted vehicle in the world, hitting a top speed of 112.5 mph. Eventually diesel powered trains came around rendering 999 obsolete. After spending 10 years doing switch car work in New York, it was donated to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, and eventually boarded by my family. I really like big metal objects that move really quick. Mankind is a pretty amazing kind.