[youtube]https://youtu.be/7gmZ9X9Aplk[/youtube]

That was fascinating. Makes me want to do a trip to New Zealand. I noticed all the pilots were wearing Campbell Aero helmets (a fine Kiwi product).

In the USA, the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome (near Poughkeepsie, NY) is probably the best WW I flying collection in the country.

One weekends in the summer, they put on an airshow that is a mix of silly and serious. The museum and shops are worth it, outside of the airshow.

Mike C.

There is also The Golden Age Air Museum (https://www.goldenageair.org) in Bethel PA.

The airfield there is 8N1 and at 2700' of sod easily doable by something modern.

A Mid-Atlantic BT fly-in there would be a lot of fun.

The grass field at Grimes is always in great shape. I've been there many times.

Peter Jackson is just releasing The Beatles "Get Back" documentary on Disney Plus tomorrow. I had no idea how talented he is. What an amazing guy.

About six years ago my partner sold all her stuff to realize a dream of flying to New Zealand, buying a car, and living out of it for six months. I joined her mid trip for just shy of a month. We went to The Vintage Aviator and Peter Jackson’s WWI museum. Seeing the actual Maltese Cross that was cut off the back of the Red Baron’s Fokker after he was shot down was, and still is the single most impressive piece of aviation history I’ve had the privilege of laying my eyes on. My brain quite literally was having trouble processing what I was staring at. Absolutely unbelievable museum.

There was another amazing WWI collection that was restored and kept with the same level of love and passion in Paso Robles California that unfortunately stopped evolving in 2016 with the death of Javier Arango, it’s owner and patron in a tragic accident. I went to grade school with Javier and his sister in Mexico City.

Here is a nice tribute by Peter Garrison on Flying Magazine. https://www.flyingmag.com/technicalities-casualty-war/

And here is an article on the collection published on Air & Space magazine - https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of- ... s-3409154/.

The Museum of Flight in Seattle has a very impressive WWI collection.

Up close you realize these unstable contraptions were held together with wood, fabric varnish and wire.

A glancing blow or heavy handling would collapse the structure. A round in the wrong place would set you ablaze like kindling.

No parachutes. It was no game for the timid.

Best,
Rich

Since we are discussing other flying (?) WW1 collections … Shuttleworth

https://www.shuttleworth.org/

If you venture to Rhinebeck, there are more hangars up the hill from the main parking lot. Visit the hangars up the hill!

Second that, but I'd note they really are more focused on the Edwardian (pre WW I) stuff and they have the best collection of that anywhere in the world, and they FLY them!

They also have a great between the wars collection. They actually don't have that much that was actually in WW I and WW II, which makes it unique.

An evening air display at Shuttleworth on a nice calm English evening is about as close to pure aviation heaven as there is.

Mike C.

I would love to read (new/recent)test pilot reports on the flying characteristics of the early aircraft.

The Trimotor is the earliest aircraft I have flown … and it is a pig. Lots of aerodynamics had not yet been figured out. I wonder about earlier aircraft …

That reminds me of some of the discussions that the Pietenpol Aircamper builders and pilots have about flying qualities. That's a Depression-era homebuilt airplane, c1929, with an airfoil that is by today's standards very primitive. The tail feathers make no attempt at smoothly transitioning to the fuselage, having an airfoil at all, gap seals between the moving parts and fixed parts. I remember someone describing a first flight performed by a seemingly highly qualified pilot who was apparently unfamiliar with the design. IIRC, the individual declared the handling characteristics to be somewhere between terrible and dangerous. Now, the design is 90 years old and everything that entails, but it also has a really great safety record.

I recently bought a used book from a BeechTalker (Military Aeroplanes, by Grover Loening, 1918... it's too old to have an ISBN number). The technical stuff in there about aerodynamics and structures really surprised me. I knew that the industry in WWI developed a lot of new ideas with real scientific rigor, some hits and some misses, but it wasn't haphazard like some romantic notions of the era would have us believe. Still, the depth and correctness of a lot of the theory in this book, freely available in 1918 and not state secrets, it impressed me. At the same time, there is a lot of conceptual stuff that is missing, yet to be figured out and understood for years to come.

I've never got to fly in let alone fly a Ford Trimotor, and I envy you a bit for that! Flying pig, yep, I totally believe it.

Aerodynamicists learned a LOT between the mid 1920’s and mid 1940’s. Yet a few genuine turds were designed in the early 1940’s … I am thinking of the P-75. IIRC; they miscalculated (mismeasured?) the CG by 14 inches. <gulp>

And the Skycatcher … slow speed aerodynamics were not what the CFD models predicted for the stall AoA. Flight test has a way of humbling engineers!

there is an excellent collection of WW1 and WWII aircraft near Virginia Beach

https://militaryaviationmuseum.org/airc ... -aircraft/