Spring Flowers

Wisteria close to the farmhouse

Lilacs? Wisteria? at a sidewalk cafe in Petersburg, Virginia

I love Azaleas!

 

If you look very closely on the right side of the tree you will see PINK Dogwood blossoms.  This is not a case of two trees planted side by side.  After seeing this, we began to pay closer attention to all Dogwoods.  Surprise, surprise!  We found LOTS of these around Virginia.  We're thinkin' the two trees have been grafted together in order for this to happen.  Just thought we'd like to share pretty things with you!

John is such a good picture-taker!

American Goldfinches and Buzzards

The American Goldfinch is a fun little bird.  When he flies, he "bounces."  They're very acrobatic.  Their feathers are brightest in color in the Spring.  I wish the feeder would hold still, but the birds seem to think it's their very own playground and they to enjoy it.  Makes for difficult picture taking though...

We've seen buzzards drying out their wings on wet, dewy mornings before.  It's always fascinating to us to see them just sitting there, stock still, waiting for the sun and breeze to dry their wings before they try to take flight for the day.

Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Orion Capsules

Before the shuttles, there were capsules.  Now, think about it.  Someone comes to you and says that they're gonna strap you to some monster rockets, launch you into space, then let you drop like a rock thousands of feet back to earth and splash down in the ocean.  You might ask, what keeps me from sinking?  How about a flotation collar?  Alan Shepherd took on the challenge and was the first American in space.

Project Mercury ran from 1959 into 1963.  Think about the state of computers in that time frame.  What I get in a laptop now, they used entire floors for in the 60's.  No computer in this capsule, huh?


After that, in just two years, Project Gemini put ten manned  flights into space.  They were practice runs for landing on the moon:  orbital maneuvers, EVA's, rendezvous and dockings in order to return to earth.  The Gemini capsule was supposed to try out a paraglider wing for a more controlled re-entry landing.  It was an inflatable delta wing.
 

Notice the capsule in the background has wheels - all the better to roll to a sweet stop.  (The one in the foreground was for our understanding of what they looked like on the inside.)  There were too many technical difficulties to overcome in too short a time frame, so the concept never became operational.  Ultimately the paraglider wing took hold and was used for hang gliders.

The final capsule to evolve was the Apollo series.  Three astronauts died in Apollo 1 on the launch pad when the cabin caught on fire.  Apollo 13 was an amazing show of American ingenuity.  (You might remember a movie called "Apollo 13" with Tom Hanks.)  Ultimately the Apollo program would take three astronauts to the moon, with two of them actually walking (and playing golf) on the moon.

The Orion capsule being built by Lockheed Martin is part of the Constellation program began in 2005.  A test flight is scheduled for 2014 with the first manned mission to take place after 2020.  However, the Obama Administration's cancellation of the Constellation program was signed into law October 11, 2010.  The bill now moves the U.S. space exploration objective more toward a near-earth mission and an eventual Mars landing.

The Bark of the Dog-wood

No, really.  The "bark" of the Dogwood.

The name for the tree originated in Europe.  It had something to do with the bark being used to wash dogs. (I won't tell you why the dog needed washing.  That's my little secret.)  

But there is more to the Dogwood that just it's bark.  Back in the day everything medicinal was from nature.  Nowadays it's concocted in a laboratory using chemicals that mimic nature.  I'm not sure which is better for us - but I'll take whatever works!

Before quinine the bark of the Dogwood was used to control fever.  Two scruples of powdered Dogwood bark would treat colic, agues, and lots of other miseries.  (A "scruple" can be compared to an "iota."  My momma used to say I didn't have an iota of sense.  She also said, when I asked for some kind of treat at the store and I had a fit when she said no, Momma would look at me with one of those looks and say, "I don't care one iota," so I'm guessin' a scruple can't be very much, huh?)

Some folks think the name Dogwood came from "dagwood," dag being ancient language for meat skewer.  The Dogwood is exceptionally heavy, hard wood and would have been excellent as a skewer.  How hard is it?  Dogwood is so hard that it's been used as a wedge for splitting logs!

Dogwood is also important to the textile industry, because of it's hard, tough, resistance to abrasion: the more you wear on it the smoother it becomes without snagging threads.  The shuttle-cocks used for pulling yarns back and forth to weave textiles on looms are often made of dogwood.

Dogwood is also used in making golf clubs - definitely a need for hard heads there...

From Confederate Balloons to Tuskegee Airmen

During the Civil War both the Union and Confederate armies used hot air balloons for advance observation platforms.  (Refer to "Lee's Hill" post dated December 6, 2011)  Now I got to see what the Confederates made one of their balloons out of!  Dress silk!  They oiled the fabric (what a shame!) so that it would hold air better.

This fabric was used to construct a balloon that was used at the battle of Gaines Mill in Virginia.  Federal troops captured the balloon it in July, 1862.

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The Tuskegee Airmen was an air group that fought the Luftwaffe over Europe.  But while part of them were dog-fighting over there, the rest were battling segregation and racism over here!  That's right, the Tuskegee Airmen were black.  This particular plane:

was decommissioned from the Army in 1946 after having been used at Moton Airfield in Tuskegee, Alabama as a trainer of primary flight skills.  It was then used for years as a crop duster before essentially being lost to history.  In 2005, Air Force Capt. Matt Quy and his wife, Tina, got their hands on it, named it The Spirit of Tuskegee, restored it, and took it to air shows all over the country to bring its history back to life.

In 2003 Congress established funding for the 19th Smithsonian museum:  the National Museum of African American History and Culture.  It will be built on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. and is scheduled for completion in 2015.  The Spirit of Tuskegee will be moved there then.  The Quy's did an awesome job restoring this!

1,000 Years of Rockets!

 
The rocket probably originated in China 1,000 years ago.  The gunpowder rocket spread throughout Asia, then reached Europe by the late 1200s.  It served mainly as a firework or signal rocket, although Congreve, Hale, and other war rockets became widely used in the 1800's.


In the 1880s, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky of Russia realized that rockets could function in a vacuum and began formulating his theories of space rockets.  American Robert H. Goddard had similar ideas and undertook the first modern experiments.  He started with solid fuels in 1915, then switched to more powerful liquid fuels in 1921.  Goddard continued experimenting until his death in 1945.


Goddard established many firsts, but due to his secrecy, his actual influence upon modern rocket technology is questionable.  Other independent experimenters appeared in the 1930s and laid some groundwork.  However, modern rocket technology owes more to World War II developments -- especially Germany's V-2, the world's first large-scale, liquid-fuel rocket.


After the war, both the United States and Soviet Union developed large-scale rockets based on the V-2.  The Space Age began in 1957 with the launch of Russia's Sputnik 1, and since then rocketry has undergone enormous technological revolution including nuclear, electric, and other forms of rocket propulsion.

Nike-Cajun Sounding Rockets,

Regulus I Cruise Missiles, Nike-Ajax Missles, Orbital rockets, Titan rocket engines, Navaho rocket engines

And the always fun Rocket Man!!

There are hundreds more rockets and one-of-a-kind planes here.  Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, Virginia is an absolute MUST SEE for yourself!

Now, These Were Brave Men!

Can you imagine flying back then?  This was the world's first military plane:

It was 1908 and the Wright Brothers had been trying to get the military to buy a plane since 1905.  Finally, the Board of Ordnance and Fortification and the U.S. Signal Corps put specifications out for bid.  Cleverly, the specs were written in such a way that only the Wright Brothers could build it!  The contract was for a quantity of one, if it met all the flight tests, etc., for $25,000 plus a bonus if the aircraft exceeded speed and flight time.  It did, and the final cost to American taxpayers was $30,000.

During flight trials on September 18, 1908 there was a propeller malfunction, a crash, and the first fatality ever in an airplane.  Orville Wright was seriously injured in the accident, also, but as soon as he recovered, trials began again at Ft. Myer, Virginia.  The final test was a cross-country flight of 10 miles with a passenger. This flight also served as the official speed trial for the plane.  The specifications required a minimum of 40 mph; they averaged 42.5!  Mission accomplished!

The Army purchased it that year, used it to train pilots in the fall of 1909 and in 1910, then donated it to the Smithsonian Institution in 1911 after acquiring other aircraft.  Designated Signal Corps No. 1 by the Army, it is generally referred to as the Wright Military Flyer.  That means that the Smithsonian has had this airplane over 100 years!!  It certainly looks brand new to us!

Billy Mitchell followed as the famous World War I airman.  After the war, he was the one that convinced the military that naval vessels were dangerously susceptible to aerial attack.  He demonstrated this fact by leading a group of Army bombers to sink the captured German battleship Osfriesland.

Then, in May of 1927, Charles (Lucky Lindy) Lindbergh became the first person to fly around the world solo.  (Well, almost solo.  There was this fly that got trapped in the cockpit with him that he talked to and that helped to keep him awake!)  His plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, is on display in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.   Over the next five or six years, he made many more historic flights all over the world.  Lindbergh also flew fighter planes in World War II in the Pacific theater.

Robert Goddard invented and launched the first liquid fuel rocket in 1926.  In 1942 the German Messerschmitt became the first true operational jet plane.  But it wasn't until the Russian's launched Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1 in 1961 that man flew the first spacecraft.  Just think:  in only fifty years we went from the first military plane barely able to lift off the ground and travel 10 miles to rocketing into orbit! Amazing!

More Planes

I am writing this blog to stay connected to our kids and grandkids.  If you don't want to see any more planes, don't look.  :-)  But, I'm guessin' y'all don't mind because we've had almost 7500 hits to our blog in the few months we've been publishing!

A Flying Wing

The first working "flying wing" design was by Northrup in 1941 for military use.  Fifteen B-35's delta wing bombers were built, three actually flew, but they had some "issues," so large production contracts went to Convair and planes with conventional fuselages.  Northrup later partnered with Grumman and in 1981 a military contract was awarded for their now-famous Stealth bomber.  It would take years of labor before actually taking flight, and it was the use of in-flight computers that made that possible.  It could carry as many bombs as the equally famous B-52, but it's design and high tech features made it very difficult for radar to detect.  There are currently 21 of the Stealth bombers in use today.

Pilots loved to decorate their planes.  Maybe your Uncle Bubba can fill in the blanks about some of these aircraft.

Being a woman I was attracted to the bling of this satellite: 

But we came to see the shuttles!!

NASMuseum

On approach, the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum next to Washington, D.C.'s Dulles International Airport is great architecture:

That hanger is huge beyond belief!  Housed inside is everything from the Goodyear blimp's gondola to the famous planes from World Wars I and II, the supersonic Concorde from Air France and the S.S. Discovery.  These are all the real deal, folks, not replicas, not 3/4 models.  It is really stunning stuff.

Parking was $15, but if you take a car full of people and entrance to the museum is free then it isn't too bad.  There is a nifty sculpture named Ascent in the parking area:

I love its simplicity and elegance.  The panels on either side of the walkway list the names of people who are dedicated to flight.  To me the panels resemble airport blast shields.

One of the first planes we see is the R-71A Blackbird.  What a cool plane!

The next plane is a Vought F4U-1D Corsair.  It's a cool plane; look at the dip in the wing just as it comes off of the fuselage.  The whole reason that was done was to allow ground clearance for the huge propeller.

By V-J Day (Victory in Japan Day), September 2, 1945, Corsair pilots had amassed an 11 to 1 kill ratio against enemy aircraft.  That means they took out eleven enemy planes for every one loss of an Allied plane.  Even Charles (Lucky Lindy) Lindbergh flew one of these in bombing missions against Japanese strongholds in the Pacific!

We have family connections to the Vought:  our sons paternal grandfather worked at LTV (Ling-Temco-Vought).  He also worked on (and received an award for) the planning of DFW airport.  He was a pilot and owned three airplanes at one point.  One of my favorite stories is about his getting a sewing machine for his birthday one year, so when their grandmother's birthday rolled around he bought her one of those three airplanes!  That's what happens when people stay married for decades ... :-)

I think their maternal grandfather also worked for LTV (back in the 1940's), but he was working at General Dynamics in Fort Worth when he met my mom.

The Kawanishi N1K2-Ja Shiden Kai (nicknamed by the Allies, "George") was the best Japanese naval fighter produced in quantity during World War II.  This is one of only three remaining today.

Notice the size of the wing ABOVE "George"!  I think it is the wing of the Enola Gay:

She is the actual airplane that delivered the atomic bomb over Japan ending World War II in the Pacific.

Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, Virginia

Right next to Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, D.C. is one of the Smithsonian Institute's nineteen (19) museums and galleries, nine research centers, 140 affiliated museums around the world, and  the National Zoological Park.  Today, two of America's space shuttles, the Discovery and the Enterprise, are together at Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.  Yesterday, April 20th, they took the Enterprise out of the museum in order to put the Discovery in, and will be transporting the Enterprise piggy-back on it's 747 buddy elsewhere.  If we could have come then, we would have been able to photograph them nose-to-nose.

But then we wouldn't have been able to get a picture of the piggy-back operation.

Now, you may not like the clarity of this photo, but look at the distance John had to zoom in on in order to get it:

If you look at the top edge of the horizon, right in the center, just above the tree line... well, you'll have to trust me on this, but THAT'S where the piggy-back shuttle is!  I would have loved to have been on that plane arriving at Dulles - talk about a closer look:

Well, you'll have to come back tomorrow for amazing photos of the entire museum.  It is an absolutely spectacular place - unbelieveable, really - especially for free!  (Well, there was a $15 parking fee...), but this was the best part of John's CEU Cardiac Conference at the National Institute of Health trip!

The shuttles will both be there until Tuesday of this week, April 24 (maybe Wednesday...)

The Thomas Wallace House

Built in 1855 on the southwest corner of Brown and Market streets in Petersburg, Virginia, this home gained historical importance on the morning of April 3, 1865 when Grant met with President Abraham Lincoln in the parlor.

One witness said, "Seeing ... a body of soldiers halted in front of a fine old residence on Market street, we found its spacious piazza occupied by General Grant and staff, together with some of his corps commanders ... in front of the house, at the edge of the street, in the midst of soldiers, sat President Lincoln upon his horse..."

Grant and Lincoln moved indoors.  It was during this meeting in the Wallace house that Grant advised Lincoln that he wanted to let the Army of the Potomac and James defeat Lee's force, rather than Sherman's men, hoping to avoid political stirring up of sectional feelings.

Lincoln was looking forward to the end of the war, and he discussed leniency for the South and his vision for reconstruction.

These were very important points considering the future reuniting of America.  In hindsight, knowing Lincoln would be assassinated in a very few day, the importance is magnified exponentially. 

The home and landscaping are still very attractive ... until one looks closely.  The house is vacant and disintegrating.

I don't know why I would think a town like Petersburg would have any interest whatsoever is perpetuating memories of their long siege ending in defeat.  It is so easy to forget what communities suffered.  Thoughts of embarrassment on my part crowd out my appreciation of history.

Still, it is obvious that this community has a lot to offer the students of history - maybe more than any other single location in Virginia that we've been to, history that goes much farther back than the Civil War.  It is also obvious that this community could greatly benefit from tourist dollars.  For their own sake I would think they would want to capitalize on such things as a presidential visit.  If I lived in Petersburg, I would want to take this home back to the glory of PRE-Civil War 1855 - to remember and celebrate the good times.

Another Reality

When folks think of war I am almost certain that they think about soldiers and battles or of families back home.  Very rarely does one hear about the impact national conflicts have on local populations.  For instance:

Here in Petersburg, Virginia, one early morning during the Civil War, the minister of this church

came to his sanctuary and found a soldier sitting with his back to the church.  At first glance the minister believed the man to be wounded, but as he got closer he realized the young man had died there.  It then became necessary for the minister to ask a neighbor to help him move the man to a cemetery before ladies and children in the neighborhood happened upon him. 

Petersburg was under siege for almost a year - the longest siege of the war.  As horrifying as it was I can only imagine that one would have to multiply it exponentially to consider what life in London would have been like during the German Nazi blitz of World War II.  Other cities across Europe were very nearly wiped from the face of the earth.

Matthew (Chapter 24) and Mark (Chapter 13) quote Jesus in the Bible:  When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be frightened; those things must take place; but that is not yet the end.

If you have a Bible, pull it out and read these chapters in their entirety - or download a Bible online and read this.  Read it slowly.  Go to a local church - you don't even need to wait for Sunday services - and ask the pastor to help you understand it.  If each man, woman, and child on earth would know these words and accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, maybe, just maybe, all of this could be avoided...

Almost As Good As The Alamo!

Ain't that Texas flag purty?!  (Did you know that the Texas flag can be flown at an equal height to the United States flag?  That's because Texas was a nation unto itself prior to joining the Union.  Hmmm.  So was Hawaii.  I wonder if they can also fly their flag at a height equal to the U.S. flag??  All of the other states were just territories prior to joining the U.S., so they can only raise their flag below the height of the U.S. if they're flown together.)

Back to the Civil War...  The above flags are flown in front of the new Museum of the Confederacy branch in Appomattox, Virginia.  (See recent post regarding that museum.)

The Battle of Sabine Pass in 1863 was almost as good as the Alamo - only the outcome was considerably better:

"A Federal attempt to establish a foothold in southeastern Texas resulted in a classic David and Goliath battle at Sabine Pass on September 8, 1863.  (The Sabine Pass is almost on the Gulf coast in deep south East Texas on the Louisiana border.)  A force of 42 Irish-born Confederates known as the 'Davis Guards' (Company F, 1st Texas Heavy Artillery), under the command of Lt. (later Major) Richard William 'Dick' Dowling, turned back an armada of four warships and 22 transports carrying 4,000 Federal soldiers.  Aided by the shallow Sabine river and its marshy banks, the Texas artillerists captured two of the gunboats and 350 men without losing any of their own men.

"Dowling and his men won high praise and official thanks from the Confederate Congress, which called it 'one of the most brilliant and heroic achievements in the history of the war.'  The ladies of Houston, Texas, honored the men of the Davis Guards with a medal - one of the only medals created within the Confederacy.  The Sabine Pass medals were made from smoothed down Mexican silver dollars and presented to the men on the first anniversary of the battle."

(Did everyone know that during Texas' war for independence from Mexico there were bunches of Irishmen who fought?  I guess it had to do with the Catholic Church's influence in establishing missions throughout Mexico and Texas?  Guess they stuck around for the Civil War, too.)

About six months later the Federal forces again tried an invasion from the Gulf coast. 

"Confederate forces turned back a major Federal campaign up Louisiana's Red River toward Shreveport and eastern Texas in the spring of 1864.  Lt. Gen. Richard Taylor's 8,800 man Confederate army at first fell back before the combined land and naval forces commanded by Major General Nathaniel Banks.  Taylor found an opportunity to counterattack, routing the enemy at the battles of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill, Louisiana, on April 8-9 and driving Banks back down the Red River."