Tag Archives: evergreen aerospace museum

Titan II Installation

The Titan IV at Evergreen isn’t the only Titan there. They also have a Titan II ICBM. This is installed upright in a recreation of the launch facility that would originally have been buried deep under a remote part of the US countryside. You can walk down and check out the control facilities (probably a touch closer to the silo than would originally have been the case) as well as get down to the base of the silo where the twin nozzles of the missile are. Looking up at the missile from down there is quite an impressive sight.

The Titans were liquid fueled rockets. The process of getting them ready for launch was a lot more complex than for the solid fueled rockets like the Minuteman that replaced them so they were a lot less responsive. However, they fulfilled their role for a long time. They also had a secondary career as manned launchers. The Titan II was the launch vehicle for the Gemini missions so it is a lot more familiar to most people than would be the case for the average ICBM!

Skyray – Or Is It?!

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The A-4 Skyhawk had a long and illustrious career in many air forces around the world. It has a close cousin that didn’t fair so well. The Skyray shared a few design cues with the Skyhawk but it was designed as a fighter rather than an attack aircraft (although the Skyhawk spent a lot of time as an adversary fighter over the years). I find the Skyray a more attractive aircraft than the Skyhawk (not that I have anything against the Skyhawk) but that might be more about the rarity value.

I thought I had come across one parked in the parking lot of the Evergreen Aerospace Museum in McMinnville Oregon. I was surprised to find it there at all and more so to see it sitting outside. I am not sure what the future is for the jet – obviously some parts are removed for the time being – but I hope it will make it in to restoration. It certainly is worthy of a good home. That is even more true because it is not a Skyray. It is actually a Skylancer. This was a development of the Skyray that got so modified that it became a new type. It never got to production and this example was used by NASA before retirement. In this location, it is possible to get up on the earth bank behind it to get an angle that might be trickier if it ends up inside the museum.

Nozzle Details on Titan IV

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The missile display at Evergreen Aerospace Museum is impressive. They have sourced a lot of different types and they have a Titan IV section lying on its side. You can get up close to the nozzle of the rocket motor and it is a cool thing to see in detail. Looking from a distance, they look very simple but, once you are close up, the complexity of the structure and the cooling structure to stop the plume from burning right through the nozzle are really impressive. The shaping of the nozzle itself, in contrast, is very simple. The expansion ratios are calculated carefully and the profile is a smooth transition to minimize the losses. Quite the contrast.

Seasprites Don’t Show Up Too Often

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The first time I ever heard of the Kaman Seasprite was in the 1980s when Airfix released a new kit of the SH-2F variant. I thought it was a cool looking model but I wasn’t very aware of what it was used for. It was already getting towards the end of its time in service with the US Navy with the SH-60B Seahawk becoming the platform for shipboard helicopters. A few export programs went forward but these were not particularly successful.

I am not sure whether I have ever seen a Seasprite for real prior to visiting Evergreen at McMinnville. They have a corner that is stacked with helicopters. A Seasprite is one of the collection and I was pleasantly surprised to see it. Given the number of airframes they have in this corner, everything is jammed together. This made it hard to get a nice angle on the Seasprite but I was able to get a few shots anyway.

Was This Sensor Once Highly Classified?

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The SR-71 Blackbird provided a reconnaissance platform that was unmatched. It would have been pretty high in the sensitivity list when it came to its sensors and capabilities. Now the jets are all retired. The example that is in the Evergreen Aerospace Museum has one of the sensors extracted from the sensor bay and mounted on a stand in front of the aircraft. I imagine there was a time when this was something that would not be available for me to look at but now, I guess, this is just another obsolete piece of tech.

Sabreliner Testbed

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The Sabreliner is a neat little jet under normal circumstances, combining as it does the wing of the Sabre with a fuselage for passengers. This example, that now lives in the Evergreen Aerospace Museum in McMinnville Oregon, is even better because it is a testbed. The nose has a new radome grafted into place to allow the testing of different radar. Meanwhile, pods can be mounted under the wings to test a variety of different sensors and electronics. Some of these different configurations are displayed alongside the airframe. Good to know that after years of specialized service, the aircraft will survive in the indoor comfort of the museum.

Build a Blackbird Pano

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While I was wandering around by the SR-71 at Evergreen and taking some pictures, one of the museum docents approached me and asked if I wanted to go upstairs. I had seen the stairs and a gallery but the signage showed it as closed off. If I had an invitation, I wasn’t going to say no, though! The location put you above the Blackbird giving a great perspective that you don’t normally get. However, I was pretty close in so the lens I had was still not wide enough. Time for a pano instead. I took a sequence of shots to try and cover the whole thing as best I could. Then it was up to the software to do the stitching. The above shot was the result.

NASA Gulfstream STA

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The Evergreen Aviation Museum has more aircraft than it has space to display. Some of them are parked out in the parking lot including a NASA Gulfstream II. This is no normal GII either. It is one of the four Gulfstreams that NASA had converted to act as Shuttle Training Aircraft (STA). They were used for the shuttle crews to practice the approach and landing phase of a mission when the shuttle was gliding (very steeply) in the atmosphere.

The main gear was deployed to increase drag, the thrust reversers were engaged in flight and the flaps could be moved up as well as down to modulate life. One seat was set up as a shuttle pilot station while an instructor sat in the other. Many practice landings could be carried out using the STA fleet. They also provided a secondary transport function.

The aircraft is currently in a rather ignominious position in the parking lot and it will hopefully find a better permanent home.

Blackbird Motor

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The SR-71 that is located in the Evergreen Aerospace Museum is configured to give some interesting views of the aircraft. One side of the aircraft is opened up to show the engine. The whole of the outer portion of the wing folds up to give access to the engine. I had no idea that was the way it operated until I saw this plane. It does show the engine configuration nicely. At the high supersonic speeds, there is a bypass process whereby a lot of the flow is taken around the core. The pipes for this can be clearly seen along the side of the engine.

Where to Park Your 747?

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Evergreen Aerospace Museum has a couple of 747s as part of the campus. They are retired freighters from the now-defunct company that provided a lot of the backing for the museum when it was established. One of the 747s is sitting out in front of the main museum building. The other one is slightly more dramatic. It is parked on top of a water park that is next to the museum. The waterslides come from within the fuselage. Getting the plane up there must have been quite something to watch. Now it is an eye-catching way to let everyone know where the water park is.