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 Post subject: Aviation Museum Labels
PostPosted: Mon Apr 17, 2023 11:11 pm 
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Similar to the subject of the Best Aviation Museum Exhibits thread, another aspect of museum design I have spent a lot of time thinking about is labels. When doing so, it is helpful to have a list of examples to use for reference. Therefore, I decided to make a yet another list. As before, I am always looking for more, so if anyone has any pictures of their own please feel free to add them.

Aviation Museum Labels (Museum - Subject)

A few notes:
  • This list is intended to be a representative sample, so multiple examples from the same museum are only included if the design differs.
  • The list is limited to labels specifically for aircraft only. However, this is simply because it would take too much time at the moment to include anything else. So, if you want to add other types, go ahead.

Early labels from the late 1940s to the 1960s, often seen at airshows, seem to share some characteristics that put them in their own distinct category. Therefore, I decided to list them separately:

Early Aviation Museum Labels (Location/Event - Subject)

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PostPosted: Sun Jun 04, 2023 10:20 pm 
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Aviation Museum Labels (Museum - Subject) (Cont.)

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PostPosted: Sun Jun 04, 2023 10:32 pm 
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I also compiled some notes for a discussion on these types of signs the other day. I figured they are relevant enough to include them below:

  • "Title" – The standard format for aircraft is [Manufacturer] [Designation] [Nickname] and it would be best to follow this convention as closely as possible. (This is WikiProject Aircraft's policy.) Most challenges to this format come from the civilian world. First, civilian aircraft manufacturers have tended to avoid including designations as time went on (e.g. Cessna Citation) – presumably for marketing reasons. Furthermore, there is sometimes a tendency to list the year ahead of the manufacturer name (e.g. 1965 Cessna 172) that is most frequently seen in sales listings (e.g. Barnstormers, Trade-a-Plane). Both of these trends likely come from the automotive world. (Note that I have included quotation marks around the word title here because I am not sure of a good term that encompasses all three parts of an aircraft's name without using one of three said parts, so "title" is the best I could come up with.)
    • Manufacturers
      • License Built Aircraft – The biggest issue here is how to handle aircraft designs that are license built by companies other than the original designer. It is of course common for Navy aircraft to have their "title" name the specific manufacturer, rather than the designer. (e.g. a General Motors TBM Avenger, rather than a Grumman TBM Avenger) This is because the Navy had different designations for different builders. However, there is a lack of consistency on this point because Army Air Force aircraft only rarely get the same treatment. For example, how many signs have you seen that read Vega B-17 Flying Fortress or Ford B-24 Liberator? One fascinating example is what are essentially very early homebuilt aircraft. For example, NASM has a Curtiss Model F and NEAM has a
        Curtiss Model D that were both built by individuals who apparently not only did not use OEM parts, but didn't even have official plans.
      • Rebuilt Aircraft – I think everyone here is familiar with the data plate restoration debate that has been done to death, but assuming that you have an aircraft that falls into that category, how do you refer to it? The FAA's "51 percent rule" for homebuilts seems to be instructive in this and the above situations. It states that whomever is responsible for more than half of the construction of the airplane is regarded as the manufacturer. The practical implication of this is that their last name becomes the manufacturer name. (e.g. one of the two aircraft that was destroyed in a collision at Oshkosh in 2007 was technically a "Beck P-51A Mustang")
    • Designations – Bob Bogash, a former curator at the Museum of Flight, has a good page on his personal website about trying to determine the correct designation of the Lockheed Jetstar.
      • Variants – With American military aircraft, the standard seems to be that variant suffixes are included, but block numbers and manufacturer abbreviations aren't. (e.g. B-25J not B-25J-35-NA).This is a happy medium in terms of level of specificity and I would suggest sticking with it.
      • Punctuation/Formatting – This is probably one of the least important subjects because an error here generally does not have an impact on the overall narrative. However, I have to include it because it is one of my pet peeves. If nothing else, calling a Wildcat an "F-4F4" rather than the correct "F4F-4" might hurt the reader's impression of the museum. In rare cases, it could also cause confusion, since an EC130 is a European utility helicopter, but an EC-130 is an American four engine transport airplane.
    • Nicknames
      • Official vs. Unofficial – Another potential standard I would suggest is that "unofficial nicknames" – such as "Blue Canoe" for the U-3A be written in quotation marks. (The Air Mobility Command Museum has done just this with the webpage for their U-3A.) This alludes to the usage of scare quotes to "announce distance" and may be important for official museums as not suggesting their endorsement. (It could be compared to the statement at the end of ) Note that this is most common for aircraft like the U-3A that don't have an official nickname. There is sometimes an assumption – often not stated, implicitly understood – that every aircraft must have a nickname and if it is not present then one must be found. For good examples of the difficulties in dealing with official vs. unofficial nicknames, see: the A-36 "Apache/Intruder" and the AT-9 "Fledgling/Jeep".)
      • Reporting Names – A related subject is how to deal with names applied to aircraft by a foreign country such as NATO reporting names for Russian/Soviet aircraft and the "hillbilly names" used for Japanese aircraft in World War II. One suggestion is to not include such names because doing so would respect the agency of the individuals who designed, built and flew the aircraft to apply their own names to the aircraft. Furthermore, including reporting names in the same position in the title can cause confusion by suggesting it was an official name used by the operating country. The counterargument, of course, is that such names are the way that most westerners would be familiar with such aircraft and are a key part of the history of the airplane. The way Wikipedia deals with it, which is what I would suggest following, is that the reporting name be left out of the "title", but included in the body text.
      • Foreign Names – The specific issue here is translation: Should foreign nicknames be rendered in their original language or translated into English? (Including both is an option for body text, but is a bit too long and unwieldy for the "title".) To take one example, the Fw 190 is sometimes known as the "Wurger". (I have my doubts that nickname was ever official, but that's a separate issue.) However, there is more than one translation of the name. In many English language media it is translated as "butcher bird". However, this translation seems to be preferred because it is aggressive and "cool". An alternative translation using a more neutral name would be "shrike". A similar situation exists with Japanese aircraft and ships, which often get poetic translations of their nicknames that seem to be favored (or at least emphasized) due to exoticism. (I often think of the many USS Philadelphias. Would an American translate the name into Japanese as "city of brotherly love"?)
  • Airframe Identity – One common standard I would like to see adopted is that all signs include the specific identity of the airframe – i.e. the serial number, registration, etc. – somewhere on the sign. There is a lot of focus on making signs accessible to the average expert museum goer, but this is the one concession to the aviation history expert that is very helpful. Odds are those sufficiently interested in the subject are knowledgeable enough to be able to take that piece of information, search it online, and find the specific aircraft's history from other sources.
  • Specifications – The problem I have run into is that different sources give different and often conflicting specifications for aircraft. Sometimes this is the result of different variants being used for reference (e.g. B-25J vs.TB-25N). Other times this is the result of information being filtered through various sources over the years. Further still, in many cases manufacturers had different standards. For example, a 3-view drawing of the N2T I was working on the other day actually measures the height of the aircraft down to the 64th of an inch – far in excess of what would seem to be necessary. (It is quite ironically a worthless level of specificity as well, since the extension of the oleos in the landing gear would vary based on any number of factors that would be nearly impossible to control for.) (The Battleship New Jersey put out a good video a few weeks ago with some theories as to why their ship is frequently reported to be longer than the other ships in the same class.) A good source for American military aircraft are a series of documents called Characteristics Summaries/Standard Aircraft Characteristics. (A large collection of them can be found on a page on a website called Alternate Wars. The webmaster is currently in the process of switching to a different host and renaming the website to "General Staff", but the documents will eventually be made available on a new page.) I have an unfinished article on just this subject that includes some examples of the differences even in official documents. Please find a copy of it attached.
    • One aspect that traditional aircraft signs do a poor job of conveying is the variability of aircraft performance. Guests often ask things like: "What is the top speed of this airplane?" or "How high can it fly?" and expect a single answer. However, anyone who has ever looked in the back of a pilot's manual and seen the pages and pages of tables and charts (see table of contents attached) knows that there is not one single answer to this question. Aircraft performance depends on air temperature, altitude, fuel load, payload, and a bunch of other factors. Our Merlin engine label (which I, unfortunately, cannot take credit for) did a good job of this. It listed the horsepower of the engine as "1565 at 3000 RPM and 12,250 ft" instead of just "1565 hp". However, this adds an additional level of complexity that might overwhelm the average visitor.
    • On a personal note, I generally do not memorize specifications for aircraft to recite for tours. I feel that it is far more important to convey to the visitor that, say, a P-51 was important because "it was the first fighter that could escort bombers all the way to eastern Germany and back" than "it could fly up to 437 mph". However, this is not to suggest that including specifications on signs are not necessary. Quite the opposite, having it on the signs removes the need for me to relay that information to the guest and I can just point them to it if they have a question. What it does illustrate is that focusing too much on statistical details can obscure what is really important.

Full disclosure, most of these answers are filtered through the lens of military – especially American – aircraft and so are likely particularly biased towards this particular scenario.

The pedestal signs (i.e. the signs for each plane) at our museum have a historic picture of the aircraft, a list of specifications and a short narrative summary. The narrative summary is broken down into three parts: a general history of the aircraft type, the military history of the airframe in the museum and the civilian history of the airframe in the museum. (see attached for an example)

Regarding more specific implementations for exhibits, one interesting case I dealt with a while ago was a display case we have showing the World War II U.S. Navy training sequence. It included models of a J3C, N2S, SNV, SNJ and F4U and each aircraft had an associated 8" x 6" label that gave a brief overview of the aircraft and some specifications. When I remade the labels, I decided to limit the facts listed and settle on a consistent format. However, the key decision was that I wanted the specifications to emphasize the overall message of the case. Given that I interpreted the message to be the increasing difficulty and complexity of the airplane at each stage in training, I picked gross weight, top speed and horsepower. Previously, the list of facts included details such as manufacturer, cost and number built. (see attached for pictures comparing the old and new labels and an overall view of the display case) Now, admittedly, this isn't your standard pedestal sign next to an airplane situation, so it didn't have to follow the rules above. However, I still feel that there is a relevant takeaway here in that when writing labels for an exhibit, it is worth considering the larger context in which they will be displayed and how it reinforces or hinders any message you want to convey.

Attachment wrote:
Depicting Aircraft Specifications in Public Displays
By Noah Stegman Rechtin
3 August 2017

Should the specifications reflect the particular accompanying airframe or an idealized version of it?

Which variant should the specifications reflect?

The specifications on a display, by necessity, are discrete. It would be too complex for the average visitor to list every possibility. However, to a pilot, an aircraft’s specifications fall somewhere within a range determined by a large number of factors. This is why a chart depicting the flight envelope is not just a line, but an area.

The Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum’s Pearl Harbor Blog has an excellent post about the similar difficulties in finding the correct top speed for the Mitsubishi A6M “Zero”. It also notes the fact that many of the specifications given in popular books do not list sources.[1]

There are two situations that can cause a range of numbers to have to be selected from. One occurs when the historical record is either contradictory or lacking. For example, when two different top speeds are reported in two different sources. The other happens if there is no definitive answer and it has to be qualified. For example, when one top speed is possible under certain circumstances and a different one is possible under another.

B-25 Example
  • B-25 (Wartime Model)[2]
    • Length: 54 feet
    • Wingspan: 67 feet, 6 inches
    • Height: 15 feet, 9 inches
    • Empty weight: 20,300 pounds
    • Maximum capacity load: 35,000 pounds
  • B-25C[3]
    • Length: 54 feet, 1 inch
    • [Wing]span: 67 feet, 6 inches
  • B-25J[4]
    • Length: 53.5 feet
    • [Wing]span: 67.6 feet
    • Height: 16.3 feet
    • Empty weight: 19,530 pounds
    • Combat weight: 27,400 pounds
    • Take-off weight: 35,000 pounds
  • B-25J (2)[5]
    • Length: 53 feet, 5 3/4 inches
    • Wingspan: 67 feet, 7 inches
    • Height (to top of fin): 16 feet, 4 3/16 inches
    • Design gross weight: 26,150 pounds
    • Maximum allowable gross weight: 36,500 pounds
  • B-25J (3)[6]
    • Over-all Length: 53 feet, 5 3/4 inches
    • Over-all [Wing]span: 67 feet, 6.7 inches[7]
    • Over-all Height (3-point Position): 16 feet, 4 3/16 inches
    • Weight (Highest Known): 36,600 pounds
  • TB-25L[8]
    • Length: 53 feet, 6 inches
    • Wingspan: 67 feet, 7 inches
    • Height (to top of fin): 16 feet, 4 inches
    • Normal gross weight: 26,000 pounds
  • TB-25M[9]
    • Length: 53 feet, 6 inches
    • Wingspan: 67 feet, 7 inches
    • Height (to top of fin): 16 feet, 4 inches
    • Normal gross weight: 26,000 pounds
  • TB-25N[10]
    • Length: 53 feet, 6 inches
    • Wingspan: 67 feet, 7 inches
    • Height (to top of fin): 16 feet, 4 inches
    • Design gross weight: 26,150 pounds

Endnotes
  1. How Fast Was the Zero?,” Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum, April 9, 2012.
  2. Pilot Training Manual for the B-25 Mitchell Bomber (Headquarters, AAF, Office of Flying Safety, n.d.), 18.
  3. Recognition Pictorial Manual, FM 30-30 (Washington, D.C.: Training Division, Bureau of Aeronautics, Navy Department, 1943), n.p.
  4. Characteristics Summary,” May 17, 1950.
  5. AN 01-60GE-1, pages 1 & 85, April 1944, 28 June 1946 & 24 April 1947.
  6. T.O. 01-1-131, 24 March 1945, page 2.
  7. Oddly, this particular dimension is given in decimal format when all other measurements for the B-25 that are less than whole are fractions.
  8. T.O. 1B-25(T)L-1, page 1-2.
  9. T.O. 1B-25(T)M-1, pages 1-1 and 1-2.
  10. T.O. 1B-25(T)N-1, pages 2-3.


Attachments:
TSWM Pedestal Signs V2-1 (Excerpt, Reduced, Converted).png
TSWM Pedestal Signs V2-1 (Excerpt, Reduced, Converted).png [ 498.5 KiB | Viewed 2098 times ]
Pilot's Flight Operating Instructions for B-17F and G – 1 October 1943_0081 (Converted).png
Pilot's Flight Operating Instructions for B-17F and G – 1 October 1943_0081 (Converted).png [ 223.8 KiB | Viewed 2098 times ]
IMG_2023-03-24_12-13-02 (Reduced, Converted).png
IMG_2023-03-24_12-13-02 (Reduced, Converted).png [ 687.66 KiB | Viewed 2098 times ]
IMG_2023-03-24_11-20-01 (Reduced, Converted).png
IMG_2023-03-24_11-20-01 (Reduced, Converted).png [ 588.09 KiB | Viewed 2098 times ]

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Last edited by Noha307 on Tue Jun 06, 2023 7:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 05, 2023 4:06 pm 
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The Army Flying Museum, Middle Wallop in the UK had a revamp of its displays in 2018, part of which was a standardisation of the exhibit labels. All exhibits had labels of the same size and style which meant that space for descriptions was limited to 80 words. The result was descriptions that had to 'give' something interesting to youngsters, enthusiasts and non enthusiasts equally, somewhat of a challenge, but a fun one all the same.
This is the panel for the ex Argentine Huey and as you can see the 80 words were used for the aircraft's individual story. The word limit didn't leave any room for an explanation why the aircraft is brush painted in white household emulsion, that part of the story is usually left to the museum's explainers.
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PostPosted: Fri Jun 30, 2023 5:53 pm 
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Aviation Museum Labels (Museum - Subject) (Cont.)

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PostPosted: Thu Jul 06, 2023 6:46 pm 
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Here are some I've done for the Connecticut Air & Space Center

Connecticut Aviation History Timeline
https://www.coroflot.com/cdsoltis/Connecticut-Air-n-Space-Center-Baldwin-Display
Image

Aircraft / Engines / Etc. - Info Graphic Placards
https://www.coroflot.com/cdsoltis/Connecticut-Air-n-Space-Center-Exhibit-Boards
Image

Some Additional Boards Here:
https://www.coroflot.com/cdsoltis/Connecticut-Air-n-Space-Center-Design
Image


I've made alot more in recent years and will have to upload them at some point. Enjoy

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PostPosted: Mon Jul 17, 2023 7:55 pm 
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Aviation Museum Labels (Museum - Subject) (Cont.)

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 28, 2023 12:01 am 
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Aviation Museum Labels (Museum - Subject) (Cont.)

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