RCOL 102 - Spring 2010
Taking Flight! 100 Years of Aviation in Popular Media

Class Schedule: Thur 7:15-9:15pm - Napier 101

Course Syllabus

Attending the inaugural flight of the PJ-260 is considered to be one of the required attendances for the Reader's College. Unfortunately, flying an airplane that large and complex will be completely dependent on the weather.

In addition, the biplane must be flown when Bill is available. I've talked to him, and here is the schedule. We will fly the plane at the first available time as listed below DEPENDING ON THE WEATHER.

• Saturday, May 1st, 9:30am
• Sunday, May 2nd, 11:00am
• Monday, May 3rd, 6:30pm
• Tuesday, May 4th, 6:30pm

Since the weather may not cooperate with all of our schedules, it might be that you miss the flight (I sure hope not!). For most of you, that won't affect your course grade, but a few of you still have an un-madeup absence. There will be some "optional" make-up opportunities this week, but probably not until Wednesday. (The weather looks bad on Monday, and I have a prior commitment on Tuesday.) I will notify you of availability of Blu-baby flying or other opportunity as soon as I know. If you do have an absence or a partial absence, and you are not sure about all 4 times listed above, you probably should condsider one of the "optionals" just to be safe.

In any case, even if you've already got the grade in the bag, I hope to see you at the van at 9:30am on Saturday morning! I can't wait to see that big bipe fly!!

Blu-Babies: The purpose of one type of optional excursion is for you to get to fly your blue foam airplanes some before the upcoming final "required excursion" which is, of course, the first flight of the PJ-260 (sometime around the end of April). Since flying the blu-babies is dependent on the wind, the excursions to fly blu-babies will take place at very short notice. I will text you when I think the weather is apropriate and then everyone who can will meet at the soccer field or the football practice field, both near Odells. Each 1 hour you attend one of these flying sessions will count as an optional excursion (what a deal). These will start occurring Monday, 4-12 weather permitting.

F.L.A.P.S. excursions: Two other optional excursions are available on April 17 and April 24. However, I will not be able to provide transportation to these, so you'll need to convince Sam or DJ to give you a ride if you want to go.

• Saturday, April 17 is the F.L.A.P.S annual Auction/Swapmeet. It takes place at the McGee Firehouse (intersection of Hwys 414 and 318) beginning at 9:30am. You must stay for at least 1.5 hours for this to count. The swapmeet starts first, then the auction begins at about noon. I suggest showing up around 11:00am so you can take part in both. I will pay your admission if you go to this one.
• Saturday, April 24 is field-opening day at the F.L.A.P.S. RC field on Carter road. We will paint, mow, cut brush, run chainsaws, pushover outhouses, and assorted other things. We probably start work around 10am and then stop at noon for hotdogs and hamburgers - then we do a little flying if the wind is nice. For this to count, you need to show up no later than 11am, do a bit of work, and then stay for lunch (what a deal!).

Meet in the Lansing parking lot at 1:00pm on Saturday or Sunday (whichever day you signed up for). We will travel to Hammondsport, NY to the Glenn Curtiss Museum. We will return at 4:00pm.

At the museum, you will see lots of airplanes naturally, but Glenn Curtiss contributed to many other areas of sport and recreation as well. You will see motorcycles, boats, and even travel trailers (yes - he held a land speed record on motorcycles and was a pioneer in the development of travel trailers as well as airplanes). Check out the link above and I'll see you this weekend.

It's Sky King night. Look up a bit of trivia about the program. If you want to check out more TV episodes after Thursday night, go to American Flyers Sky King page. They have 62 episodes (not in order unfortunately).

We need to move ahead in history a bit, otherwise we'll never make it to present day. So we jump to WWII. There were tons of movies made about and during WWII so there were plenty to choose from. I wanted something early and wanted something that was under 2 hours long. Lots of good classics, but many were well over the 2 hour limit (30 Seconds over Tokyo fell into this category").

I ended up selecting John Wayne's first war movie - Flying Tigers. The filming of the movie started in February 1942, just 3 months after Pearl Harbor was bombed. It aired in October of 1942. It was nominated for 3 Oscars - so for it's time, it was good.

It has been argued that many movies made during the war were propaganda aimed at rallying support for the war effort. This is not unusual. Do a search on this movie and read some of the comments about it and where it falls in the spectrum of fact vs fiction. The premise is intriguing (and based on true events) - American mercenaries flying for China against Japan. (Also search "American Volunteer Group".)

Movie starts at 7:15 sharp! (1 hr and 42 minutes).

We will discuss "Hell's Angels" and pick a day to travel to the Glenn Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport, NY. We will also discuss Charles Lindbergh's 1927 flight from New York to Paris in his plane, the Spirit of St Louis.

Reading Assignment: To prepare for that discussion, read at least the first 3 articles listed below. Give yourself some time, a couple of them are a few pages. (Feel free to read the others if you want.)

Wikipedia article about the airplane itself: The Spirit of St Louis

Interview with Charles Lindbergh - Reprint from Popular Mechanics, Nov 1927

Reprint of NYTimes article from May 22, 1927

Spirit of St Louis Airplane log book

Technical preparation of Spirit of St Louis Document

I will present more information about the historic flight on Thursday. In the mean time, you can browse the charleslindbergh.com site for lots of other interesting stuff.

Reading Assignment: Below are linked several articles from the New York Times which were published in 1908. You need to read at least 4 of them before class. One of those four must be one of the two highlighted in red below (and both are recommended). For your others, try to pick something different than your roommates. It's OK to read them all (and most are brief).

Wrights flying together at Kill Devil Hill - new version of plane (May)
Wrights sign contract with French (May)
Wrights to fly for Army (May)
**Feature article on Wrights from May 17
Expectations for Flight tests for Army (June)
Curtiss June Bug to enter Scientific American Cup (June)
Wrights offered money in France (July)
Glen Curtiss June Bug trial (July)
Glenn Curtiss June Bug success on July 4
Wilbur burned in France (July)

Airships competing for speed:
Dirigibles in US
and planes in France (August)

Before first passenger fatality (September):
Orville in US
Wilbur in France
**Selfridge death in US with Orville (September)
Wilbur having success in France (September)

To see more articles from 1908, click here and then click a part in a month and scroll down looking for "Wright" or "Curtiss" or "Aeroplane".
Feel free to share anything else you find interesting.