hiller | RobsBlogs

Hiller Aviation Museum has another aircraft I find interesting. This is the AD-1 Oblique Wing research aircraft from NASA. I have crossed paths with this machine before. I have seen it at Hiller before but it was also still at Edwards when I paid a visit to the NASA facility there in 1990. The oblique wing concept is an interesting one. Swing wing aircraft aim to combine he low speed and high speed characteristics required into one plane by having multiple wing sweep angles. The oblique wing approach aims to simplify this by having a single wing that pivots. The sweep angle is the same but eh CG is unaffected and the pivot mechanism much simpler.

Forward swept wings are fine so, while the oblique wing looks odd, it should be practical. It will have some interesting aeroelastic issues to be dealt with but, it should be possible to engineer. Whether it will then deliver the benefits has never been tested. The AD-1 was a low speed research aircraft only but it flew many times over the years it was in service. Now it hangs from the roof of the museum.

I took a trip to the Hiller Aviation Museum recently. The trip was to see a speaker who was appearing there and that will be part of another post. However, I did have a good look around the museum while I was there. Located on San Carlos Airport, I have been to the museum a few times in the past when I was visiting the area for work but I hadn’t been since we moved west. My buddy, Hayman, is a volunteer there so I have no excuse for not having been recently!

A few things have changed since I was last there. The SST mockup has now gone freeing up some space for other exhibits. This post isn’t a comprehensive review of all that is there. It is more a focus on some of the things that caught my eye while I was walking around. One item I have to mention is the Boeing Condor unmanned vehicle. It is a cool thing to see but, since it is so large, it is squashed in amongst all of the other exhibits. I decided that I should try and get something to show it in all its glory. There was a balcony which would have had a better angle but that was restricted to some simulation experience. Instead, I decided to try a pano approach instead. It came outs reasonably well although taking out some of the distortion in post processing was necessary.

I had another go at a pano with the interior of the Albatross. It is a lovely looking aircraft with a great interior which is visible through the side door so getting too much of a shot of the inside was hard to do. A pano gives a bit more of a feel for the layout in there. It looks like a nice plane to take around the world!

The museum is great and the gift shop is pretty cool too. I have to admit a model helicopter left with me and now sits on my desk. It is an AW101 in Canadian rescue colors and looks pretty sharp!