A day in DC, page 2
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A scale model of the Nimitz-class aircraft carriers of the age of modern naval warfare. (or perhaps it was the real deal... in which case... it is a carrier for ants, and needs to be at least three times bigger...) Aircraft carriers effectively rendered Battleships, Battlecruisers and Cruisers obsolete.
Yay! more scale models (I used to make tons of these as a kid)
This is a "heads up display" or HUD. It was basically a very fancy gunsight which, on more modern planes, also shows you trivial little details like your bearings, altitude and airspeed
Medals of Honour (except they spelled "Honour" incorrectly)
The Zero... the bane of allied forces fighting in the pacific. More manœuverable than just about anything... until the P-51 mustang came along... and that was very late in the piece. The US simply relied on greater numbers to defeat the Japanese until then...
On top, the Messerschmitt Bf-109, the Luftwaffe's word for "we kick ass". These guys f**ked up allied planes in the early part of the war and, if it weren't for the superior top-speed of spitfires, may well have won the war in the air. Below... the P-51 mustang by North American Aviation (now Rockwell), "Cadillac of the sky" benefited from advanced aerodynamics which made it faster AND more fuel efficient, giving it enough range to escort bombers for the full duration of their missions... which decisively turned the war in favour of the allies.
Model planes used to teach pilots how to identify theirs and enemy planes
This place is soooo cool. Most of these planes aren't even models, they're the real thing.
...and the one that started it all - the Wright Flyer, which made its first powered flight in 1903
This is the camera that they took to the moon.
...what I want to know, is where are the cupholders?
The Saturn V rocket, which would carry Apollo 11 to the moon. (this is a scale model, the real thing is a bit bigger)
The F-1 engines for the Saturn V first module. Interestingly, the engines for the subsequent stages of the rocket are named J-1, J-2, J-3 etc... these guys were manufactured by the same people who made the P-51 from a few pictures ago.
The Lunar lander. This is a life-size model... the real ones aren't around anymore. The bottom half gets left on the moon, you see, so they're a little tricky to retrieve, and the top half is discarded once its job is complete.
The American History museum was closed for renovations, so they moved some of the cooler items to the Air and Space museum temporarily. This is Abe's hat...
...and Ed's light bulb.
...and my hero - Kermit the Frog.
"there's no place like home"
This is a Stradivarius... this one is interesting in that it is one of only 11 Stadivari which are decorated...
R2D2 and C3P0 from the Stargate trilogy
...a very old stopwatch.
This was a bit of a curiosity. An old typewriter. The caption is factually incorrect, and I must write to the Smithsonian about it when I get the time. It says that they arrangement of keys was to (1) prevent the typewriter from jamming (this is correct) and (2) also to promote faster typing (this is not correct, in fact, the very opposite is true, the arrangement is designed to slow down typists so that the typewriter wouldn't jam)
Mold on exhibits is a museum curator's nightmare... except of course, when it is this mold.
Some guy named Babe Ruth was apparently very good at baseball. (actually, he was a really really good pitcher... but he ended up stuck with the bat all the time because of the economic principle of comparative advantage)
This one belonged to Louis Armstrong
These were Muhammed Ali's (the boxer formerly known as Cassius Clay)
Just can't get enough of George Washington's stuff...
Who's seen "Full Metal Jacket"? That's the hard hat.
I kinda grew up watching M*A*S*H... this is the streetsign from the set.
...and this is the stopwatch from 60 minutes.