Tag Archives: dallas

Flying Pancake

A long time ago, I was part of an ISAP symposium held in Dallas. During the field trip day, we went to a number of locations, all of which were very interesting. One of them was the restoration facility at what was then the Vought factory, now Triumph I think. This was run by volunteers that had retired from the plant and was working on a number of projects including painting an F4U while we were there. Another project that was a work in progress was the Flying Pancake. At the time is was skinless and in a rotating frame to allow everyone to work on it more conveniently.

Roll forward to now and I was at the Frontiers of Flight Museum at Dallas Love Field. The museum is the home of the finished restoration. The aircraft looks fantastic. The restoration team did a great job. To see it completed including the huge propellers is something special. Fortunately, there is a mezzanine level above the plane so it is possible to see it from a number of angles. Great job everyone involved.

Frontiers of Flight Museum

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A work trip to Dallas wrapped up a few hours prior to my flight home. I was flying out of Love Field so figured a quick detour to the Frontiers of Flight Museum just across the field from the terminal was in order. What I hadn’t appreciated was that tons of school parties had the same idea. The place was heaving with kids and being kids, they were doing everything at high speed and high volume. The inside of the 737 exhibit was not a great place to be!

Southwest has a big influence on the museum including a whole 737 and the front fuselage from another. They don’t dominate things though and there are plenty of other airframes both inside and out. I shall pick on a few favorites in due course but here is a sample of what was there. It was a brief visit but a fun one.

Cotton Bowl

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I have heard about the Cotton Bowl a lot over the years. There are so many Bowl games these days that I kind of forgot that some of them are actually the names of stadiums. I didn’t even know where it was. Turns out it is Dallas and it is right by the approach to Love Field. I happened to have the camera in hand as we came down final approach and got a few shots of the stadium and the surrounding facilities. It looked a bit quieter on this day than is sometimes the case.

Geometry in Housing or is it Monopoly

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A quick trip to Dallas for work was necessary and I took the little camera along for the trip. As we came in towards Love Field, we flew over ares that are in the process of being built up or have recently been so. Seeing plots of land with the street layout showing but the plots not yet built up showed what had been there before in the areas that were now populated. A closer look showed that the houses did have a variety of styles but, from above, the roofs all seemed to be very similar and they were close together. It was almost like someone had grabbed a bunch of houses from a Monopoly set and lined them up next to each other. On the ground it probably looks nice but from above it was very uniform.

Over Downtown Dallas

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My layover in Dallas was followed by a flight to Oakland. The departure from Love Field takes you directly towards the heart of Downtown Dallas. It was a bit of a cloudy day so there was neither an unrestricted view nor the greatest of light but I did get a good look at the city as was passed overhead and then turned around to head west. Here are a few quick shots I grabbed as we went.