The Leaning Teepees: Maverick, Goose and the Leaning Teepees

Our tribe field trip today was to the Carolinas Aviation Museum. While the weather was cold and wet for this primarily outdoor tour, the braves were quite excited to see all kinds of vintage aircraft, which included helicoptors ("Cobras", "Huey's", and "Sikorsky's"), jet fighters ("Tomcat's and "Harrier's"), a commercial plane, and even a midget racer. Our tour guide, volunteer Marsha Hanna, provided the Leaning Teepees with a great narrative history of aviation, beginning with a quiz about "not the Wrong brothers", but the Wright brothers, and how they were able to get a plane off the ground by following some of the principles they learned while building bicycles.

The Aviation Museum has been around for many years, and relies on volunteers and donations to operate. It was located so close the one of the runways at Charlotte-Douglas Airport, that we were able to see a variety of planes take off and literally "disappear" within a matter of seconds, thanks to low cloud cover.

Marsha shared with us valuable information such as how airplanes measure speed, with a probe located at the front of all planes; we saw a plane similar to the type that Senator John McCain was in when he was shot down over Vietnam, and even got to learn about how pilots climb up specially hidden stairs to get into a Tomcat fighter - which can go up to 1544 miles per hour!

Of course, the braves didn't just want to look at planes - they wanted to be a hands on group and go inside of them, and play with the buttons. That request was fulfilled when everyone was able to board the cockpit portion of a large cargo plane, and take turns pretending to be the pilot, co-pilot, engineer, and navigator. Additionally, the tribe was able to board a DC-3 plane that is still in operation today, while it was in for yearly maintenance. Quite a different flying experience from today's commercial planes, as this plane was first put into service in the 1940s and is now primarily used in airshows. A visit inside the plane show about 20 seats, with enough legroom that you would have thought it was used on International routes.

And, the braves were able to climb into a mini-simulator to pretend they were flying a jet fighter. In all, it was both and educational and hands-on experience for the Leaning Teepees. As an added bonus, Papa Fox brought each tribe member a patch from Crowders Mountain, in recognition of our climb to the top a few months ago, to add to our collection and put on our vests.