Cradle of Aviation Page 1

CRADLE of AVIATION MUSEUM

It's fitting that there is such a great museum located on Long Island since the region laying in the shadows of New York City has over the decades contributed immensely to the history of aviation and aerospace. Lying at the western edge of the Atlantic Ocean made Long Island the perfect launching site for transcontinental flights, while the geographical flat treeless feature of central Long Island, known as the Hempstead Plains (only natural prairie east of the Allegheny Mountains) was the perfect natural airfield.

Long Island has deep roots in aviation by posting numerous firsts-here are just a few accomplishments that took off or landed on the island:
•1916 - First Night Flight
•1917 - First Flight of a Pilotless Aircraft (Sperry Aerial Torpedo)
•1919 - First Transcontinental (US Navy NC-4 Flying Boat)
•1919 - First Transatlantic Flight (landed at Roosevelt Field)
•1923 - First Non-Stop Transcontinental Flight
•1924 - First Round-the-World Flight (landed at Michell Field)
•1927 - First "Solo" Transatlantic Flight by Charles Lindbergh
(took off from Roosevelt Field)
•1929 - First "Blind" Instrumentation (Sperry & Kollsmans Companies)
Flight by Jimmy Doolittle (took off from Mitchell Field)

Home to Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, Republic, and many more, these companies also contributed to the war effort providing many superior aircraft designs that help the Allies win the Second World World. Republic alone, produced 15,000 P-47 Thunderbolts, while Grumman continued supplying the Navy with models like the F-14 Tomcat. Noteworthy, Grumman was also instrumental in landing man on the moon, producing the Apollo Lunar Module (LM).

Appropriatelly, the museum is located on land once part of Mitchell Field Airforce Base, and nearby, Roosevelt Field. both airfields playing an integral part of many historic flights. With over 75 air and spacecraft from a hot air balloon to the Lunar Modular, exhibits, shows and even a planetarium, plan your next flight to the Cradle of Aviation Museum.

Titled “The First American Woman in Space,“ this sculpture depicting Dr. Sally Ride in her Space Shuttle In-Flight Suit fronts the museum's entrance greeting all visitors.

Grumman F-11A Tiger hangs in the museum's lobby (entrance). The Blue Angles flew this model between 1957-1969.

Grumman F-11A Tiger. The Blue Angles flew this model between 1957-1969.

Grumman F-11A Tiger. The Blue Angles flew this model between 1957-1969. Far right is an original Consolidated Fleet Model 2 trainer, and top left a Velligdan Sailplane. Flown in the 80s, James Velligdan, a nuclear physicist at Long Island's Brookhaven National Laboratory, built this high-performance sailplane for aerobatics.

Grumman F-11A Tiger. The Blue Angles flew this model between 1957-1969.

Consolidated Model 2 Fleet trainer. Popular in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Roosevelt Aviation School in Mineola opened on Long Island in the late 1920s, and their first aircraft were five new Fleet Model 2s, including the one on display.

Found upstate New York, the museum volunteers restored the Fleet Model 2 to its displayed beauty.

The Gyrodyne Company of America, St. James, Long Island built the Gyrodyne XRON Rotorcycle, a one-man helicopter between 1954 and 1956.

The Apollo 11 mission's trip to the moon was far higher than the Paramotor FX1's ceiling of approximately 10,000 feet.

THe museum celebtrates eight distict moments in flight (especially on Long Island:
• A Dream of Wings - up to 1903
• The Hempstead Plains - 1904-1913
• World War One - 1914-1918
• The Golden Age - 1919-1938
• World War Two - 1939-1945
• The Jet Age - 1946-Present
• Aviation Today
• Space Exploration

1922 Sperry Messenger (Replica). This aircraft was built by museum volunteers from original plans, and capable of being flown. This "messenger carrier" was designed and built to replace motorcycles. A 64hp Lawance engine provides the power.

Giuseppe Bellanca - Aviation Pioneer.

Bellanca Monplane replica.

Originally constructed in the back of a Brooklyn, New York, bakery, Italaian immigrant, Giuseppe Bellanca would build four more identical aircrafts.

Trucked from Brooklyn to the Hempstead Plains and Mineola Flying Fields for his first test flight, he contunued enjoying numerous more successful flights culminating in the creation of a flying school from 1911 to 1915.

Interestingly, powered by a whopping Anzani 30hp motor, one of Bellanca's first students was the future mayor of New York City, Fiorello LaGuardia. Yes the LaGaurdia in New York's LaGuardia Airport.

Bellanca would continue to contruct many more record-setting and long distance machines throughout the 1920s.