Museum - RevuAIR

Curtiss N-9H

By fStop Fitzgerald | 27 May 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

http://uslanka.net/wp-content/cgialfa Kampot BuNo A-2453

This Burgess Company-built Curtiss N-9H was powered by a 150-hp Hispano-Suiza engine and thus received the H suffix. It was received by the Navy on 24 June 1918 and flew only 74 hours and 25 minutes before being stricken from the Navy List on 12 February 1919. Its “body” was broken in two behind the rear seat after a crash at Miami, Florida, on 5 February during a “fast landing.”

I also illustrate aircraft for Norman Polmar’s long-running column, Historic Aircraft, in the U.S. Naval Institute’s Naval History magazine. Depending upon the subject (primarily how much information is available) and time constraints, I will create it in 2D software with a combination of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, or 3D using Strata Design working from Illustrator lines.

This first blog entry on the aircraft I’ve done was published in the October 2018 issue of Naval History. This is its link: https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2018/october/historic-aircraft-floatplane-trainer

I found some rather nice drawings for source images in the February/March 1966 issue of Air Progress drawn by Bob Parks.

While there is adequate information to make a 3D version of the drawings, deadlines on other projects turned this into a 2D drawing.

Because I like to do specific aircraft that have something of a history or story behind them I research serial numbers (known in the Navy as Bureau Numbers or BuNo). My primary source for BuNos is the U.S. Navy’s official reference United States Naval Aviation 1910–2010, a book that I happened to edit. Very few were printed and they are virtually impossible to come by, however, the excellent news is that the book is available FREE in pdf form to anyone.

It is a large book, two volumes, the first is the chronology of Navy aviation, the second consists of data, including BuNos. Because it is so large, the files are broken down into easily downloaded bits. You can find the master link at this address: https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/publications/publications-by-subject/naval-aviation-1910-2010.html

An alternative—and extremely worthwhile and accurate—site is Joe Baugher’s aviation site. I have it bookmarked because I use it so often and it has yet to fail me.

From there I looked for the Navy’s Aircraft Record cards. Short of doing research at the Naval History and Heritage Command archives, they have a fair number of early cards, filed as Aircraft History cards. Sadly, because of lack of resources and time, only aircraft A-52 to A-3999 cards are available online. Gladly, this was good enough for me.

It was going to be hard to pick a particular N-9H, virtually all had the same story—crashed, damaged, or otherwise lost during training. I settled on BuNo A-2453 manufactured by the Burgess Company of Marblehead, Massachusetts, in June 1918. It existed for barely nine months before being written off at Miami in February 1919.

The record card states: “Body broken in two back of rear seat. Radiator damaged beyond repair. Bottom sucked off of pontoon. Plane sank and nosed over after making a fast landing. Tail was broken off in righting the plane to tow it in.” It only had 74 hours and 25 minutes of flying time.

CSS Tennessee Brooke Rifles

By fStop Fitzgerald | 25 June 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

The Confederate ironclad Tennessee was effectively armed with a concentrated and powerful armament of two 7-inch Brooke double-banded rifles fore and aft on pivot mounts and four 6.4-inch Brooke double-banded rifles, two per broadside.

The 7-inch rifles, weighing 15,300 pounds each, were manufactured in Selma, Alabama. This, the bow gun, tube no. S-10, is property of the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) and located at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, DC. Its companion tube, no. S-5 at the stern pivot, is also the property of NHHC, is on loan and on display outside the Selma City Hall. In the background, the three visible guns are from Tennessee’s four-gun broadside battery.

This gun is one of the four 9,000 pound 6.4-inch broadside rifles, three of which are also at NHHC in Washington. It was forged at the Tredegar Ironworks in Richmond, Virginia.

This illustration shows the guns mounts. The pivot guns were mounted on large sliding carriages and the broadside guns on two-wheel Marsilly carriages.

…Her Name is Sal…

By fStop Fitzgerald | 19 June 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

Some photographs from one of my favorite museums

The Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse, New York, is arguably the centerpiece of a state-wide program centered around the historic Erie Canal. The museum is housed in the Weighlock Building built in 1850 to weigh canal boats to determine their tolls. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is the sole survivor of seven on the canal system. As its name indicates, it consisted of a lock, which when drained would lower the boat onto a set of scales. The boat’s annual empty registered weight was subtracted from the Weighlock weight to determine the weight of its freight.

The Greek Revival style building was used for 74 years as a state office building after tolls were abolished in 1883. In 1957 it was slated for demolition, but saved by citizens interested in the building and the canal’s history.

In its present form, the majority of the formerly open but covered lock is now enclosed in glass panels and houses a full-size canal boat, which visitors can board. These images do not give the full breadth of the museum’s displays. Each aspect of the canal from its inception and first plans, to the surveys, to excavation, to impact on the nation are all (and more) graphically represented.