Warbird Information Exchange

Science Museum Bids for Famous Army Air Relics

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Want $250,000 exhibit for Chicago.

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Temporary transfer of the Army Aeronautical museum, whose exhibits trace the history of flight, from Wright field in Dayton, O., to the Museum of Science and Industry in Jackson park was announced yesterday by Mayor Kelly.
The museum, described by aviation authorities as one of the finest collections of aeronautical engineering exhibits in the world, will be lent to Chicago for the duration, said a letter written by an official at Wright field, Mayor Kelly said.
A United States army air corps spokesman in Dayton told a correspondent of THE TRIBUNE yesterday, however, that no definite proposal for the transfer of the museum to Chicago has been made to Wright field officials. Formal application for removal of the exhibit to Chicago will be made today, Maj. Lenox R. Lohr, president of the Chicago museum, said last night.

Army Closed It.

The aeronautical museum, which was established at Wright field in 1931 and installed in its own building in 1936, was closed by an army directive in June, 1940. The exhibits, valued at $250,000, were stored except for a few small displays which have been used in promoting recruiting and war bond sales.
Outstanding among the exhibits is a replica of the original glider made by the Wright brothers in the early 1900's and used in developing their first airplane. The DH-4, which served as flagship for the first group flight to Alaska in 1920, is another historic plane in the collection. This plane, an English type bomber flown in the World war, also was used for the first air mail flight.

First Modern Type Airliner.

The forerunner of the great commercial airliners of today, the Fokker Bird of Paradise, which made the first flight from Oakland, Cal., to Honolulu, T. H., in 1928; a skeletonized Berliner Joyee, one of the first pursuit planes made in the United States, and a Nieuport plane of French design used by the United States air corps in the World War are in the museum exhibits. The Fokker Bird of Paradise was the first plane with full cantilever wings, wings braced wholly from inside.
The first turbo superchargers, which have been perfected recently to enable planes to fly at an altitude of 40,00 feet or better; the first controllable pitch propellors; and the first 2,000 horse power 24 cylinder X type Packard engine are other outstanding exhibits.
The development of power plants, aircraft instruments and equipment, radios, parachutes, aviation clothing, aeronautical photographic equipment, landing gears, fuselages, and wings are delineated in the displays.
Many of the projects shown in the museum were initiated by Maj. R. W. Schroeder, chief of the flight test section of the army in Dayton, O., in 1917 and 1918. It is development of these early devices which give modern planes their power, safety, and speed.