Warbird Information Exchange

So OK. I spend an hour reading all of these responses to a legitimate question and I still don’t get to learn the secret handshake?

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Dave,
Just do what I do....Show up at their door step and don't leave until all questions are answered....bring a sack lunch too, and be kind, and offer them some of your PBJ sanwish...Git 'er done, Son!

p.s. beer...a great tool

What is that suppost to mean? On my old forum we had historical subjects posted all the time with such contributers like David Aiken, Barrett Tillman, and John Landstrom. We learned and discovered a lot of new history that will never be found in any popular history book. But it was correct information non the less.

Sorry sir if I misunderstood the comment....

Cheers,
Nathan

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I think the phone call advice is sound, and you might also try writing a real letter, you know, one of those paper things? Anyone can whip off an e-mail on a whim, but if you've gone to the trouble of a phone call or letter, you're showing you are serious. Of course, include your e-mail address in the letter to make it as easy as possible for them to respond.

Showing up in person is great too, I'm sure, but if you've misplaced your personal teleportation device and the museum happens to be thousands of miles away, it could get time consuming and expensive.

All of the comments about the customer service staff of museums running on a shoestring are well taken. And to be honest, I'd generally prefer that museums have volunteers working on the aircraft and displays rather than answering your questions. But when it comes to basic questions such as the ID of the aircraft on display, it would seem rational to place this info on the web site. I think we can agree that the vast majority of aviation museums have web sites that are pathetic from the standpoint of providing that type of basic info of interest to buffs. Many have no info on the specific aircraft at all, just a potted history of the type.

August

I'm pretty sure the definition of "public" in this case relates to the great majority of carbon-based life on the planet and not just our niche focused sub-grouping of history and warbird enthusiasts that are well versed on vast tracts of information related to the topics we cover. If you were to debate the war in a general public setting... well, you might get the most ALPHA acting person in the group to push and persuade the masses on his point of view. Much like the blustery father-figure who we see shepherding a group of kids or Boy Scouts at an airshow... pointing to an A-26 and saying "Look kids, that there Bee-fifteee-two was the plane that dropped the bomb on Heeeero-sheeema after taking off from an aircraft carrier in the ocean... 'fact, that might just be the same plane, 'cuz it's got somethin' painted on the nose!"

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Ryan Keough
Stow, MA

Hmm..I thought the CAF's Boeing F1F1 was the one that dropped the Bombs?

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DBF

Ryan may be right, but if he is, Dave is still wrong. Our niche has indeed mastered vast tracts of information (much of it pointless technical trivia) but it is also profoundly biased in systematic and very predictable ways. Very often, the other carbon-based life supplies the perspective and common sense that we lack. We would do well not to dismiss any participants in the historical discourse.

August

What I meant or least think I meant about debating history is very simple. We have seen and heard stories of an airplane with some sort of history that is muddied. For the sake of making my point, let's use Kee Bird. Many, many stories have been debated, and sometimes things in print have been taken as fact. However, as you will find if you go back and do any research on this site, there are many people, with the facts, who have spent a long time trying to correct the story. When story is told incorrectly for long enough, fact no longer seems to matter. (Other topics in this category include P-51 histories!)

I will try to the phone method, though, not sure where that will get. It is however worth a try. For the sake of my education though, does anyone know if there is a master loan record for the services? Would that be public record or online?

dave

History is, or at least, can be a rather slippery thing. So much of it depends upon point of view. Hard facts ARE hard facts, but don't tell the whole story. If you look at cold hard facts and statistics, they can give one a distorted view. Example. The P-39 had the lowest loss/sortie rate of any AAF fighter in the ETO. Less than one third the loss rate of the P-51. That is just a statistic. Does it make it the safest? Does it make it the best? NO. A statistic gives only raw numbers without perspective. I would imagine few pilots would call it the best or safest fighter! How it was used, where it was used, who was flying it, how well trained, how good was ground support and parts availability.

When a textbook or a TV show tries to boil down a complex situation with a myriad of variables down to something so easy a caveman can understand it, we have trouble. Today's "General Public" are into soundbites. If it can't be explained in 30 seconds, it is just too much information.

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Do you really believe this? Honestly?

To me it seems that when ordinary people care about something, they can learn plenty about it. Do you have a local baseball or football team where you live? Aren't there a lot of members of the general public near you who know every member of the starting roster, most of the second string, and can handicap each player's chances against the next game's opponents? A lot of guys "play" in online fantasy leagues where, to have any success, you need to do enough in-depth research to earn a master's degree, maybe even one of the easier Ph.D.s.

Same with movies, music, whatever they're into. In fact, I can't think of anybody who doesn't know just as much about something as we know about planes and history.

And we're all just "into soundbites" about things that don't interest us as much. For you it might be emo music, the stock market, or the war in Darfur that you prefer to understand at just the soundbite level. We can't all know a lot about everything. I don't see that as "trouble," let alone reason to disparage your intellect, or anyone else's.

August

Dave-

There is a master loan list for the NMUSAF, I've seen it posted but can't find it right now. Ask mustangdriver on this forum, and he might be able to help you out. I know the Navy has one, but you'd just have to find the right person to ask there.

I have worked at a local museum, and know that it is all about making contact with the right person. Our curator is slammed with so much operational stuff that he has a great deal of donations piled up right now waiting for proper accessioning into the collection. With the help of loyal volunteers, that is starting to happen. If you e-mailed the curator, it was hit or miss when he might get to your question. But if you were somehow able to get my e-mail or phone number, you'd get an almost immediate response. It was just a matter of finding that right person.

kevin

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What I still can't see is what you are trying to find out, Dave.

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As the curator of a small aviaton museum (Waco Historical Society Air Museum) I can answer a few things but they are basically a reiteration of what you just heard. We have an email for contact information for the museum. However, since the museum is not even staffed during the week and is only open on weekends due to lack of volunteers, the email is read sporadically. Any questions regarding Waco history is forwarded directly to me via a volunteer or the Executive Director (the only paid employee). I answer every single one that I see. In our specific case, I am truly the only one associated who can answer the historical questions. A few can tell about basic airplanes or talk some about the nine airframes we have but no one can go into in depth detail. The volunteers have my phone number to give out if someone wants to speak with me directly because you stand a better chance calling me or emailing me directly than meeting me in person at the museum as I am not there as frequently as some of the volunteers. I work for the airlines full time, run the National Waco Club, try to keep the two flyable Wacos we own going as well as try to work on the two projects we own. You have seen that first hand Dave. From May-October I am gone most weekends so cannot be at the museum unless for special events that are pre-scheduled.

Now that this has turned into a long-winded dissertation, I can suggest what others have. Try to talk to the Curator directly. That has gotten me places with other museums. Ask here on WIX if anyone is associated with a particular museum. If so, there is your "in"....potentially. Visit said museum and ask to speak to the Curator and hope she/he has time or is there. Obviously, the bigger the museum the more difficult. I hope this helps at least a little.

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One more Curator's view for you. Simple questions get answered a whole lot faster than involved complex ones. If you send an email to a museum with 10, 20, 100 or more aircraft and ask for the serial numbers and histories of everything in the collection your request likely is going to go straight to the bottom of the pile. Ask for two or three of the ones you are most interested in and then wait a bit after you get an answer and ask for the next few. After awhile your name will become familiar and the person answering your questions will probably be willing to do a little more work for you. Remember that very few museums have someone on staff whose only job is answering research questions and your question is also almost certainly not the only one they have waiting in their inbox on any given morning. Even those of us who do this 40 hours a week have to set priorities and answering even the easier questions is generally going to be fairly low on the to do list.

James

Andy, James and Kevin, thank you for more input at the museum level. I started this thread out of frustration, though, I have actually gotten some interesting perspectives and reasonable ideas.

JDK, I was added to the email lists of a few museums after requesting IDs for a few airplanes. As I stated at the beginning, the Intrepid Museum is the one in which I have tried the most unsucesssfully. I have not even gotten a reply such as thank you for visiting our museum. However, I was requesting the Bu Number associated with their Avenger. I asked about it previously on this site when I posted pictures from my visit last year. Since it is a bird on loan (I believe it is on loan, but have found no evidence to the contrary) from the NMNA, I assumed this would be an easy task to find. I am also interested in the ids of several of the other airframes on the deck of the aircraft carrier! Another email attempt to get information that recieved no replies was the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas. I was specifically inquiring as to the id of the F-8 nose on the trailer that appears designed to travel to airshows and point people in the direction of the museum. I have not yet followed up on that one!

As I said to begin with it was a rant! Do I think that their should be better access to the information at public museums, Yes I do. Do I think that I should have unlimited access, No. But somewhere in between lies answer. How do I find it? There have been plenty of suggestions, of which I may try a few.

Kevin said there is a master loan list for the NMUSAF. Is that a FIA thing or is it public record? How about the Navy list? Also, is the Army list included in the USAF list or is that a separate list as well?

Thanks for any additional information or input.

dave