Little pilots

Today myself and my little brother Arjun become pilots in Airspace museum and explored the cockpit controls. We both are very excited to see and touch all the controls that pilots use to fly a plane. My brother switching on all the lights including flashing beacon on the backside. It was thrilling learning experience for both of us.

Main parts of Cockpit:

Throttle Levers
Primary Flight Display
Direction Finder
Altitude Indicator
System Information Display
Navigation Controls
Radar Display
Control Wheel
Rudder/Brake Pedals and Footrests

              Now we know what are the things a pilot do while we are flying on the flight. Hope I will fly the real plane one day with my brother :-)

Space Shuttle Discovery

Today I made a discovery of Discovery ! I was very amazed to see this huge space shuttle in the Airspace museum. It looked awesome and humongous !!! It was white and grey in color.

Discovery was NASA's third space shuttle orbiter to join the fleet, arriving for the first time at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in November 1983.

It was launched on August 30, 1984, for its first mission, to deploy three communications satellites.

Since that inaugural flight, Discovery has completed more than 30 successful missions, surpassing the number of flights made by any other orbiter in NASA's fleet. Just like all of the orbiters, it has undergone some major modifications over the years. The most recent began in 2002 and was the first carried out at Kennedy. It provided 99 upgrades and 88 special tests, including new changes to make it safer for flight.

During its many successful trips to space, Discovery has carried satellites aloft, ferried modules and crew to the International Space Station, and provided the setting for countless scientific experiments.

It is now retired and kept on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia which is very close to my home :-)

World's Smallest Plane

Today I visited the Airspace Museum in Chantilly and amazed to see the world's smallest plane. It is called Stits SA-2A Sky Baby which was a home built aircraft designed for the challenge. The Sky Baby was designed by Ray Stits in 1952 and costs $2500 in 1952.

The upper wings have flaps, the lower wings have ailerons(French for 'little wing'). Most aircraft use a flat firewall between the engine and pilot's feet, the Skybaby is configured with the pilot sitting with the engine close to the lap, and rudder pedals located under the oil sump toward the front of the cowling. 

I always wanted to fly this kind of small plane and was very excited when I saw this plane in the museum. It's just the size of my arms !