Original subtitles

It’s been 100 years since the first powered flight.

We walked on the moon...

That’s one small step for man,

one giant leap for mankind.

Revolutionized travel...

And warfare.

The story of flight \h\h\his so fresh...

We have liftoff...

Every object is a witness to history.

At one of the busiest museums \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hin the world,

\h\hthey aim to keep that history alive.

We’re contributing \h\h\h\h\h\hto the history

\h\h\hand contributing to the future as well.

For those who collect...

Looks like I have \h\h\h\h\han overcoat

from the royal air force here.

Go, go, go!

Transport...

It’s the widest thing \h\h\h\h\hi’ve ever moved.

And preserve its thousands of treasures.

We have very little time to do a great deal of things.

Keeping cool \h\h\h\hunder pressure

is a job requirement.

What was that?

It just got real easy \h\h\hall of a sudden!

My name is Samantha snell.

I’m a collections project \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hspecialist

\hhere at the national air and space museum.

Samantha snell may not have a fancy title,

but she has a big job.

\h\h\h\h\hshe’s a guardian of our nation’s treasures,

\h\h\h\h\hhelping to oversee 70,000 objects and counting.

Everything that we have in the air and space museum

has some kind of story.

We’re here as caretakers

\h\hon a daily basis for these artifacts,

but we need to preserve them and do our best for their longevity,

so that the American people \h\h\hcan come and enjoy it.

Today sam’s at the Paul e. Garber storage facility

in suitland, Maryland.

She and a team of specialists

are loading up a Vietnam era \h\h\h\h\hf-100 fighter jet.

\hit’s scheduled to be out on display in three months’ time.

It’s got to come up \h\h\h\h\h\habout four feet.

John, come up.

Crew chief John shatz and company

\h\hhave taken the former fighter jet out of storage

\h\h\hand broken it down into three segments for transport.

Alright, lock it up \h\hthere, I think were good.

First up, the 9,000-pound fuselage.

It’s the core of an aircraft

\hthat in its day packed an unprecedented wallop.

\h\hthe f-100 super sabre was the first supersonic fighter.

\hother aircraft had exceeded the speed of sound on a dive,

but only the f-100 \h\hhad the muscle

to do it in level flight.

The height of their service was during the Vietnam war.

In 1969, hundreds of f-100s \h\h\h\h\h\h\hwere operating

from south Vietnam bases.

That’s where John shatz first worked with them.

Spent 20 years \hin the air force.

\h\hsix and a half of that, almost seven, was enlisted,

\h\h\h\haircraft maintenance on the f-100 predominantly.

- Back off just a little bit. - \h\hi need to square you up.

We’re very fortunate \h\h\h\hin that John shatz,

the lead restoration \htechnician on it,

was a crew chief on f-100s,

so there is nobody \h\hon this planet

that knows more about an f-100 than John, so that’s perfect.

This plane \h\hhas seen it all.

During the Vietnam war it spent three years at bien hoa,

\ha major U.S. air base 20 miles outside Saigon

and the first target

\hof north vietnam’s 1968 tet offensive.

These high performance fighters

earned their stripes \h\h\h\hin battle...

But also required a lot of care between missions.

I don’t know, it was kind of a love affair

with the airplane,

although it can be doggy

with some of the maintenance \h\h\h\h\hthat you do on it.

The f-100’s glory days may be over,

but it hasn’t been forgotten.

\h\hit’s headed for a new arena, and one with a sizable fan base.

\h\h\heach year some seven million people

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hvisit the iconic national air and space museum

in downtown Washington...

How did that one get up?

...And the newest member of the aviation family,

the Steven f. Udvar-hazy center in suburban Virginia.

\h\h\htoday’s destination for the oversized artifact

is the udvar-hazy center’s

\h\h\hstate-of-the-art restoration facility,

40 miles away.

And the man who’s job it is \h\hto get it there safely,

museum specialist \hanthony Wallace.

I was always interested in aviation since I was a child.

Stand on it.

Stand on it. I got to watch this truck.

And when I was in college I conducted an internship

down at the air and space museum downtown

in the curatorial department.

But came out here to Garber \h\h\h\h\h\hone day to work

\hand knew that this was where I wanted to work.

Anthony’s been planning the trip for weeks.

He has to.

He’s not simply hauling \h\h\h\h\ha heavy load.

\hhe’s transporting a piece of history.

We are using \h\h\hthe drop center,

which is this guy right here,

which helps us with taller loads

\h\hlike the one we have on the truck right now.

Do we need to go left?

Go left.

Stand by.

Everything \hthat comes to us,

once it crosses through \h\h\h\h\hour threshold,

it is no longer a working piece of equipment, it is an artifact.

And once it comes through our doors

\hwe are not going to be treating it

like you can still take it \h\h\h\h\hout for a ride.

Anthony has to contend with the 200,000 cars

that clog the capital beltway \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\heach day.

I’m sorry, you ain’t getting near my airplane.

One of my main concerns always moving stuff around here

is other people on the road.

Good job.

I know what i’m going to do \h\h\hand what I want to do.

\h\h\h\hi don’t know what they want to do

or what they’re going to do.

Got the flashers on, \h\h\h\h\h\hslowing down.

Our exit.

Got it.

We’re good.

Udvar-hazy’s \hrestoration facility

will be the crew’s home for the next two months

while they reassemble the f-100.

The glossy shop is a far cry

from the early days \h\h\hof the museum.

\hit stands as a testament to the vision and tenacity

of the museum’s first curator, \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hpaul Garber.

Paul Garber created \hthe air and space museum,

plain and simple.

He loved airplanes and aviation,

\h\h\h\h\hand he also realized that this brand new technology

\h\hwas going to be extremely important,

but no one was attempting \h\h\h\h\hto preserve it.

Soon after world war ii

Garber began collecting \h\hat a feverish pace.

\hhe had the vision and he had the will.

What he didn’t have \h\h\hwas the money.

He managed to secure \h\h21 acres of land

in silver hill, Maryland.

He picked up the buildings \h\hfrom military surplus.

He got local concrete trucks \hto pour the building pads

with their jobsite leftovers.

He was a scrounger.

\hhe called in favors, and i’ll guarantee it,

all the really, really important stuff he got.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hthe original Wright brothers 1903 flyer,

charles lindbergh’s \h\hrecord-breaking

spirit of St. Louis,

and the b-29 superfortress \h\h\h\hbomber enola gay,

\h\h\hthe first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb.

For these icons of history,

the first stop on the road \h\hto permanent celebrity

was the mysterious cluster \h\h\hof pastel buildings

in suitland, Maryland.

\h\h\h\h\hal bachmeier was a local motorhead

when Paul Garber hired him \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hin 1971.

I was hired as a welder,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hbut I worked for the collections department here

at the time.

This was a cardex system.

I decided that collections is probably where I wanted to be.

Al worked with Garber for 40 years

\hdocumenting and storing artifacts.

He was a hardcore-type collector.

He didn’t turn anything down

because he knew that he may not get another chance for it,

that if it was offered to him, \hhe’d find a place to put it.

But in those early days

little was known about artifact storage and conservation.

In the meantime the collection \h\h\h\h\h\hcontinued to grow.

Now, over 60 years later,

\h\h\h\h40,000 objects are still at the Paul e. Garber facility.

And the retrofitted \hsurplus buildings

are bursting at the seams.

The Garber facility \h\h\h\h\his very challenging

to have proper artifact storage.

I mean, when Paul Garber got the land for the Garber facility,

he was already collecting,

so so many things had to live \h\h\houtside for a long time

under tarps and whatever else, \h\h\h\hwhatever he could do.

But at least he had \h\h\hthe artifacts,

at least they were \hbeing collected.

We’ve known for years

\h\h\hthat we need to get out of the Garber facility

\h\hbecause the buildings have outlived their lives.

\h\h\h\h\hit is time, we are past our time,

we have got to get out.

Today the air and space museum’s three locations

house over 70,000 objects.

\h\h\h\h\hand with the Garber and downtown buildings packed,

it’s up to the hazy center’s \h\h\hthree enormous hangars

\h\h\h\h\hto help make the growing collection

available to the public.

All the artifacts

we were never able to display downtown because of their size

we’re able to display here.

And we can store the artifacts \h\hproperly out here as well.

The udvar-hazy center

has over 58,000 square feet \h\h\hdedicated to storage.

\h\h\h\hthe team’s master plan must account for a wide range

of special-needs objects.

Everything requires \h\hproper handling.

Hardware has to be up and ready,

and some tough decisions have to be made about what goes first.

For some objects still at Garber,

\hthe trip to udvar-hazy can’t come soon enough.

\h\hi took a look at where the artifacts are currently stored

and which are the artifacts \h\hthat are most threatened

and in the worst levels of deterioration today.

And I looked at those \h\h\h\hand determined

\h\hthat these are the ones that need to come out first,

so they’re in the first section of the new storage area,

and then I just went from there.

There’s a lot of logistics

\h\hthat go into preparing these things to come out.

One of udvar-hazy’s \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hhidden gems

\his its pristine space suit vault.

But getting the suits \h\hto their new digs

required some creative \h\h\hproblem solving.

When we started the planning

for bringing the small artifacts

out to the hazy center \h\h\h\h\hfor storage,

the biggest collection that we \hstarted working with really

was the space suit collection.

We have a collection \hof about 280 space suits.

The suits had been stored \h\h\hat Garber initially

under very crowded conditions.

Transporting \h\h\h280 space suits

\h\h\h\h\hout the door and over to udvar-hazy

posed a rather unusual \h\h\h\h\h\hchallenge.

Well, we wanted to have them on trays,

\h\h\hbut going on trays, how do you transport them?

Do you strap them down?

If you strap them down \h\h\h\h\htoo tightly,

you’re going to damage \h\h\h\h\h\hthe suits.

\hso the move team came up with an unusual solution--

coffin boxes.

A coffin is far bigger \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hthan a human.

\hso you could get a suit with very large shoulders

into a coffin box.

And they were \h\h\habsolutely perfect

for moving spacesuits

because some of the spacesuits \h\h\h\h\h\hare fairly heavy.

So this was a way to move them \haround safely, support them,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hkeep them on their handling trays

\h\h\hand then put it directly into storage.

\hthousands of objects later, the move team is still at it.

The Garber move team

are my boots on the ground \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hevery day.

I’m in contact with them \h\h\hon a daily basis,

usually multiple times a day.

These are gloves from the royal air force.

\h\h\h\hso these would go into our rubber space suit storage.

But packing is only part of the job.

\h\hthis team is trained to spot damage and decay

and take steps to protect \hthe priceless artifacts.

I would lean towards at least putting tissue down.

These gloves have a rubber material on the lining.

And that rubber off-gases \h\h\h\hvarious chemicals.

So it’s best if those materials are kept together in storage.

\hbut sometimes, even under optimal storage conditions,

things can go wrong.

The problem \hwith space suits

is that they’re made of complex materials

\hthat were not created to last for a very long period of time.

I’m going to \h\h\hstep off the Lem now.

That’s one small step for man,

one giant leap for mankind.

When Neil Armstrong \hwalked on the moon in 1969,

he wore custom-made gloves

featuring stainless steel fabric and blue silicone fingertips.

When the gear was put on display to commemorate armstrong’s life,

\h\h\h\h\hone glove developed mysterious spots on the cuff.

They seemed to be spots

\h\hwhere something had been painted on.

The interesting thing

\h\h\h\his that in the case of Neil armstrong’s gloves,

it’s only on the right glove.

So this is what I think \hthe clean weave looks like.

Ok, so...

What we’re working on \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hright now

is trying to determine \h\hwhat was applied,

\h\h\hwho applied it, and when it happened;

and it’s part of documenting \h\hthe history of the suit.

Today, Cathy is meeting

with conservator Lisa young \h\h\h\h\h\hand bill ayrey,

a rep from the suit’s \h\h\h\hmanufacturer,

to look for an answer.

So today we’re looking \h\h\h\h\h\hat the coatings

on the surface of the glove.

I mean, it is whiter \h\h\hin that area.

Like, you can see like even \h\h\haround that abrasion.

It’s like it almost flowed \h\h\haway from the tear.

\h\hthe white material is called beta cloth.

And we’re using a new piece \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hof equipment

that we actually got in the lab, a 3-d microscope.

- Is that the.... - Yeah, that’s the tear.

That’s just gonna be \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hthe teflon.

This is the edge of the coating right there.

Now what we’re thinking

is that these spot repairs \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hwere done

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hto freeze snags that had occurred in the cuff

and what we think we see-- \h\h\h\h\hwe’re not sure--

is lunar dust that has been \h\h\h\h\hcaught underneath.

This is where i’m seeing

\h\h\h\h\h\hlike the swipes of the moon dust underneath

that got on the fibers.

That would tell me \h\h\hthat this coating

was added after, post mission,

not anticipating it would have come right to the Smithsonian.

Lunar dust \his very sticky,

very sharp, very aggressive.

It will attack materials that we just never even thought about.

You can see \hthe woven fibers

crisscrossing each other \h\h\h\h\h\h\hin there,

which is really pretty cool.

As it turns out, \h\hthe impacted materials

were metal fibers in the space suits

\h\h\h\hwhich acted as magnets for the iron-based lunar dust.

So, we’ve discovered \h\h\h\h\h\h\ha new history

that we didn’t even know about.

But it looks very angular and...

I mean, it doesn’t look like normal dust to me.

And these are things \hthat might seem very small

\h\hbut are very important to missions to the moon, to Mars.

So we’re contributing \h\h\h\hto the history

\h\h\hand contributing to the future as well,

which is really exciting.

Back at Garber, \h\h\h\h\hjohn and Anthony

\hhave been waiting a week for a break in the weather

to move the next part \h\h\h\hof the f-100.

It’s about 10:15 at night.

So each stack, the strap itself.

This is just the excess tie-off, ’cause this is the actual.

So this one goes up, over, \h\hand to the other side.

I got two of those.

And then i’ve got two coming \h\h\h\hfrom the other side

to pull the wing back that way.

\h\h\hwhat we’re doing is we’re getting ready

\h\h\h\hto move this wing for our f-100 super sabre.

Anthony has the wing \h\h\h\h\hstrapped down tight.

But the major point of contact \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hto the truck

is a pair of 32-year-old tires.

If there’s a blowout,

the straps securing the wing \h\h\h\h\h\hwill loosen up.

It goes up and around

and takes it straight back \h\h\h\hto the other side.

Yeah, one on each.

Overkill is good.

Because of the overall size of the wing,

we’re actually gonna need \h\h\hto move it at night.

The advantage of a night move is there’s a lot less traffic.

\h\h\h\h\h\hbut the downside is that you really can’t see

as well as you can \hduring the day.

\h\h\hthe weight on the wing is only about 7,000 pounds.

But we get into size issues, \hso 12’8" high, 19’8" wide,

this is just a shade \hunder 20 feet wide

\h\has we have it rigged on the truck right now.

I’ve got glow sticks \h\h\h\hon each one,

so we’ll crack ’em \hbefore we leave.

It’s the widest thing \h\h\hi’ve ever moved.

Little nervous, but exciting \h\h\h\h\hat the same time.

\h\hwhat i’m looking for is you’re on the right.

\hi need you to watch for any merging traffic from my side.

Roger that.

Ideally what we would want to do

\h\h\his minimal personnel and equipment as possible,

\h\h\h\h\hto keep lines of communication clear,

and make sure everyone has \h\h\htheir specific duty.

...Swings around, he can open up the exit gate.

So what we’re going \h\h\h\h\h\h\hto have set up

is we’re gonna have our tractor in the middle.

Anthony and I can only see one at a time.

We have to go back and forth \h\h\h\h\hwith that mirror.

And then we’re gonna have

one of our escort vehicles \h\h\h\h\hout in the front

and two in the back.

\h\h\hone on the left and one on the right.

That’s what’s required \h\h\hby our permits.

\h\h\h\hwe’re gonna have a Maryland state trooper

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hescort us to the woodrow Wilson bridge.

Where is it \h\h\hyou’re going?

Our museum \h\h\hout at Dulles.

Ok.

The Maryland trooper did a walkaround of the vehicle.

He’s now calling in all our information,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hthe permit and my driver’s license

to verify everything’s legit \h\h\h\h\h\hand ready to go.

When his overhead lights \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hturn on,

\h\hthat means that the check came back

\h\h\hand we’re fine and we’re gonna go.

This is great.

This is great!

Pretty cool?

This is great.

Ok, all the way \h\h\h\hto the through lanes.

Come on over.

Pull up past them, \h\hthen plenty of room.

You’re clear of the lanes.

We are just east of the woodrow Wilson bridge.

We’re still in Maryland.

This is where we switch \h\h\h\h\h\h\hour escort

from Maryland to Virginia.

Everything’s going \h\h\h\h\h\h\has advertised!

\hwe’ll have nothing happen to the taxpayer’s artifact.

Crossing the potomac river means crossing state lines

and a midstream handoff from the Maryland trooper escort

to his Virginia counterparts.

Virginia’s giving us \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hthree escorts

\h\hwho will come with us all the way to the museum.

So far we’ve only gone \h\h\h\habout 7 miles.

We’ve got about 32 to go, and then we’ll get to the museum.

Should be about a 35-40 minute \h\h\h\hdrive from this point.

Go, go, go!

Ok, Carl, let them control the traffic, all right?

They’re blocking.

Escort vehicle is twofold:

\h\h\h\h\hone is to keep people away from my truck and my load,

but it’s also to assist me \hwith what I need to do.

- You’re clear left. - Thank you all.

They can spot things \h\h\hfor me that I can’t see.

To the right.

If I need to move over,

\h\h\h\h\hthey can go out ahead and get me the Lane that I need

before I actually physically \h\h\h\h\hstart moving over.

Everything looks good.

So they’re a way to keep traffic away from me

and also to help me move around if I need it.

You are good. Block the road, blue.

That’s a negative.

Everything looks good, blue.

Right side’s good.

At the entrance to hazy,

the escort departs, and the team heads for the hangar.

Actually it was a lot easier

having the state trooper \h\h\h\h\h\h\hthan not.

So that ended up being \h\h\ha very big help.

I never had that before,

i kind of wish I had that \h\h\h\h\h\h\hfrom now on.

\h\h\h\hand they were a great group of guys.

It’s two in the morning

when hazy’s hangar door \h\h\h\hfinally closes.

\h\h\h\h\hanthony posted a personal best tonight,

but the job’s not over yet.

The national air and space \h\h\hmuseum’s 22 curators

keep the Garber team busy

\h\h\h\hmanaging the flow of newly acquired objects.

Everything that comes in the collection gets catalogued.

And everything gets \ha catalog number,

it gets photographed.

Curators are responsible

for choosing what comes \h\hinto the collection,

\h\hand we’re responsible for taking care of it after that.

But sometimes curators face a familiar dilemma.

They’ve got too many \h\h\h\hof one thing

and need to do a bit \h\hof housekeeping.

Museum specialist Jen levasseur has come to Garber

to make some tough decisions \h\h\habout her collection.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hshe specializes in the everyday personal items

used by astronauts.

One of the things that’s interesting about my job

is that the items \hin my collection

\h\h\hare the things that astronauts use

\h\h\h\hthat are very much like the things we use here on earth.

We’ve got our hot dogs.

They seem to still be vacuum sealed,

but I wouldn’t want to try.

Essentially astronaut diets \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hconsisted

of about 2,500 calories, \h\h\h\hsometimes more,

based on the level of activity

the astronaut would need \h\h\h\hto do that day.

Just because the food \h\h\h\hwas available

did not always mean \h\h\h\hthey ate it.

All of our drinks.

These items don’t have nearly \h\has many in our collection,

and that’s when we need \h\h\h\h\h\hto determine

just the right number of things

that make sense for us \h\h\h\h\hto maintain.

\h\hyou can actually tell with some of the coffee--

this one does not have \h\h\hany cream in it,

but that one does have cream.

Some of the things we consider

\h\h\h\h\hare how likely it is something might go on display.

\h\h\h\h\hwhat an astronaut could actually do with this

is they could squirt hot water \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hinto this,

in this case, spaghetti.

If we want to have \h\hsome available

for loan to other museums,

but also if there \hwere any reason

that someone might want to come and study the item.

I think this ongoing fascination with astronauts in particular

\h\h\his that they are these representatives

who’ve had this experience.

They represent all of humanity in these exploration projects.

Everything that’s on the table

should have a condition survey \h\hthat they’ve already done.

- Great. Thank you so much. - Thank you.

Earthbound humans \h\htake a lot for granted.

In space, daily duties can turn into the stuff of nightmares.

What we have here on the table now are what,

at least according to the label on the package here,

\h\hsays "defecation collection device."

This was nasa’s solution

\h\hto how an astronaut would collect their bowel movements.

\h\h\h\hessentially its construction is

it’s fairly simple, plastic bag.

At the top of the bag is a circular portion,

and there’s an adhesive \h\h\h\h\h\h\hthat goes

around the circular \h\h\hportion here.

This paper would be peeled off,

\h\h\hand the astronaut could literally stick it

to their backside.

The major problem is the fact \h\h\hthat there’s no gravity,

no gravity or any kind \h\h\h\hof assistance

\hto keep the fecal matter at the bottom of the bag.

It wasn’t uncommon for some \hto escape the bag as well.

If you poop in that,

the poop doesn’t just go \h\h\h\h\hto the bottom.

It floats in there.

And so it did sometimes get loose

and float around the cabin.

- Ooh! - Ooh!

Astronauts were not keen \h\hon a lot of these things.

It’s highly personal,

so some of the difficulties that they had during the missions

weren’t often talked about \h\h\h\huntil years later

when astronauts started writing their memoirs

\h\h\hand talking about really the nitty-gritty

of being in space.

Curators acquire to help interpret the past.

But they also want to help \h\hkeep future astronauts

\h\h\h\halive and healthy a hundred years from now.

We may never really \h\h\h\h\h\hget to know

\hwhat that sense of weightlessness

\h\h\h\hand awe and wonder at seeing earth from afar,

what that’s really about.

But they’re the ones \h\hthat are willing

to take that incredible risk

that I think is always \h\h\h\hgoing to exist

\h\h\hin this process of space exploration.

Back at the restoration shop, \h\h\hjohn shatz and his team

\h\h\h\hhave three days to reassemble the f-100.

The goal today is to try to install the engine,

and before we can do that \h\h\hi have to make sure

\hthat these railing systems are cleared through here and smooth.

I’m going to try to make it so that it’s straight enough

that we can actually \h\h\h\hslide it in,

because this is going to be \h\h\h\h\h\h\han obstruction

the way it’s set up right now.

I’m getting all of this stuff out of the way

so when the engine goes in,

we don’t have electrical cables and hydraulic lines snarling.

John’s prepared \h\h\hfor a few glitches.

The f-100’s been idle for the past 32 years.

The installation itself \h\his pretty straightforward.

It’s the little stuff \h\h\h\hthat gets you.

\hbasically the next step is to get the engine over there

lined up with the engine bay,

and the Dolly that it’s on here right now is adjustable,

\h\h\h\h\h\hso it contains a certain amount of roll,

\ha certain amount of left and right.

So if you’re well within \h\h\h\h\hthe ballpark,

then there’s no problems

with getting it lined up \h\h\h\h\hand moving in.

I pick things up.

Ja?

It’s slightly heavy.

On 19.

5...6...7...8.

Alright, ramming speed.

This is ramming speed.

The engine is lined up and ready to go.

\h\h\hwill’s job is to adjust the Dolly

\hso it can slide into the fuselage.

Ok, let’s see \hwhere we are here.

How are you lookin’?

About another inch.

Another inch?

Am I going the right way?

The other way.

Is it working?

Yeah.

Bringin’ her in.

Well, as you can see, \hmoving up on it, aligning,

trying to keep everything \h\h\h\h\hout of the way,

unfortunately in a couple \hof cases, we had a snag.

Give me a quarter-inch \h\h\h\h\h\h\hdrive ratchet.

Well, you’ve got a lot of hoses in there that become stiff

as certain things have gotten \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hinto position

from sitting around \h\hall those years.

Is that lined up over there?

Bring the aft up?

Yeah.

Coming up.

Ok.

I feel i’m just going around in circles.

\h\hevery time I start putting pressure on it

and try to push the engine \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hin there,

it skips, like a tooth.

It’s going as hard as it can,

\hand i’m putting a lot of pressure,

spinning this thing up,

and i’m stripping the gear, \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hso to speak.

What was that?

It just got real easy \h\h\hall of a sudden.

This morning at the udvar-hazy center,

sam’s team jumps into go mode

when their truckload \h\h\h\hof artifacts

reaches the loading dock.

Well, it’s 8:55 \h\h\h\h\hin the morning.

\h\h\h\hwe are off-loading our penske straight truck

\h\h\hwith textiles from our collection

back at the Garber facility.

In total, it’s probably \habout a hundred items

that are going to be coming out.

A hundred textile items

\h\h\h\h\hmight fit easily on the discount rack at the mall.

\h\hbut here, that number fills up a freight truck.

That’s because this batch \hof clothing was designed

for a different runway.

\h\h\hjackets, trousers, overcoats, flight suits,

\h\hdresses, hats, long underwear...

It’s all here, and it’s all been individually packaged

and prepped for storage.

Exposure to dirt and humidity \h\h\h\h\hcan harm artifacts,

so Sam and the team \h\h\hmove quickly.

And in the spirit \hof Paul Garber,

they’re still improvising.

\h\h\hthey’ve resurrected the original coffin boxes

they used to move \hthe space suits.

Many of the items \hin this shipment

\h\hfall under the watch of curator Alex Spencer.

He’s here to check out a few of the uniforms

\hin his collection of 15,000 artifacts.

The material here \h\h\h\h\h\hthat you see

is the little barrier \h\h\h\hthat they put

so that there’s not a reaction

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hbetween the wool and the brass of the insignias

to help preserve them and prevent corrosion.

Maintaining a 60-year-old overcoat

\h\h\h\hisn’t easy under the best circumstances.

\h\h\h\h\hthe storage facility at udvar-hazy must protect it

for future generations to research and enjoy.

For Alex, the mission \h\h\h\h\his critical.

It’s hard for an individual, a visitor,

to relate to an aircraft \h\h\h\h\h\h\hsometimes.

\h\h\hit’s something they don’t encounter

in their everyday life, \h\h\h\h\h\h\hof course.

\hso if you can bring in the personal objects...

\h\hit humanizes the story, this is how they go to war.

\h\h...we’ve been dealing with at Garber for all these years.

The f-100’s fuselage \his in position and secured.

Next step is to place \h\h\hthe aft section.

But John shatz doesn’t like \h\h\h\h\h\h\hwhat he sees.

The afterburner that’s \hon the airplane right now,

it’s in the full afterburner \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hposition

or the maximum thrust position.

Afterburner gives the f-100 the thrust needed

for quick takeoffs

and supersonic flight.

To look authentic on display,

\h\h\h\h\h\hit should be completely closed down.

We’re trying to close \h\h\hthis constrictor off.

So it actually...It closes up \h\h\h\h\h\hlike a clamshell.

\hall this closes up into a smaller hole.

With these cylinders here,

we’re trying to activate \h\h\h\hthese cylinders

\hto push against these leaves here

and actually close off \h\h\hthe constrictor.

But the cylinders haven’t moved for over 32 years.

Basically the piston seals have dried out.

You can see where they started \h\h\h\h\h\hto move out there.

\h\h\h\h\hsee, like down here it hasn’t moved all that much,

so what we’ve got is a situation where they’ve started to bind.

The dried-out seals have locked up the cylinders.

John decides to pump \h\h\h\hnitrogen gas

directly into the afterburner \h\h\h\hto try and free them.

It’s a long shot at best,

and he’ll need a special fitting to hook up the gas.

Well, we’ve got to make \h\h\h\h\ha pneumatic fitting

that will fit on this end here

so that we can use that nitrogen tank

\h\h\h\h\hto charge up these cylinders here.

So we want to close it off here.

We don’t have a fitting for it,

\h\h\h\h\hso we’re gonna have the machinist make a fitting.

The shop’s machinist, Gary Gordon,

is equal parts mechanic, \h\hinventor and artist.

Well, we’re just trying \h\h\h\hto get a smaller piece

to make this fitting for John.

During restoration,

John keeps the artifact’s \h\h\hcurator in the loop

on the team’s progress.

During a restoration, \h\h\h\hit’s a give and take.

A lot of discussion goes back and forth

between the restorer \h\hand the curator

as to what we can and cannot do,

and sometimes you make \h\h\h\h\h\ha decision

where it’s just too expensive \h\hor we can’t find the parts

or we can’t manufacture \h\h\h\h\h\h\hthe parts.

This is why we have \h\h\h\h\hflexible hoses.

That’s exactly \h\hwhat I thought.

We curators know a good deal about the aircraft,

\h\h\hbut when it comes from the technical side,

\hi understand John knows far more about it than I.

So was that a two- or four-burrito job you just did?

I’ll settle for one \h\h\h\h\h\h\htoday, John.

Ok, you’re on. \h\h\h\hyou’re easy.

Good. I try to be.

Yeah, we’ll go from there.

About 100.

Gary Gordon did \hthe initial fitting,

and we applied pressure,

and of course we had a bypass, \hwhich gave us back pressure,

and nothing was happening.

More?

Yeah.

Rats!

Well, there goes \h\h\h\h\hmy burrito.

I can’t feel \hanything on top.

That’s the afterburner \h\h\h\h\h\h\hcontrol valve.

There’s no air coming out of this.

Aw, man.

I was counting on this thing being closed.

It’s right around \h\h\h\h\hthe ring here.

How about if we block \h\h\hthis one off up here?

Well, were back against the same thing, Gary.

It’s called another fitting.

Well, it don’t matter.

So he made another piece that allowed the meter to flow.

Give it a try again?

Yep.

And we applied about 800 psi.

Shut it down.

It ain’t going.

Nope.

\hbut it was leaking so badly that we had to discontinue it.

We might have to try and \h\h\hmanually close it,

and that’s not going to be easy.

While John and his crew wrestle with the f-100,

Sam and the Garber move team

\h\h\hcheck the uniforms into their new quarters.

We’ve already received the barcodes

for all the drawers \h\h\hin this one...

Sam brings Alex Spencer up to speed

on the new system.

We can go through \h\h\h\hand start labeling,

get ready to accept the next collection.

Great, ok, good.

1989-0-0-6-5.

The collection is continually growing;

it’s not a static collection.

There is the occasion \h\h\hthat does happen

where you get a phone call \h\h\h\h\hout of the blue

\hfrom somebody that says they have something and...

And it’s something, you know, \h\h\h\hfrom world war I or...

\h\hor world war ii that you don’t have,

and you go after those,

\h\h\h\hbut you can’t plan for those kind of things.

As i’m doing my job

i have to kind of keep up \h\h\hwith current events

and where things are happening

and what’s going on in the world

that’s particularly relating \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hto aviation.

A donation offer from a former marine corps officer

has caught alex’s eye.

This is actually \h\h\hthe first e-mail

that I got from captain dwyer

concerning the potential \h\h\h\hof his donation.

He included a couple \h\h\hof photographs

as well as a short bio

\hof his flying career with the marine corps.

\h\hwith this collection of Matt dwyer’s things,

he was an osprey pilot,

\h\h\hso an osprey is a fairly new aircraft;

it hasn’t been in use \h\h\h\hfor that long.

We have a prototype example \h\hof it in the collection,

but we don’t have an osprey itself.

The v-22 osprey landed on the scene in 2007,

designed to get troops \hand their equipment

in and out of combat zones.

It has unique rotors \h\h\hthat allow it

to take off, hover

and land like a helicopter,

then tilt forward \hlike propellers,

to fly as fast as an airplane.

Its innovative technology

\h\h\hand involvement in the post 9/11 wars

made objects related to it

of particular interest \h\h\hto Alex Spencer.

He included his standard \hpair of desert flying boots.

\h\h\h\hhere he also included his leather shoulder holster.

\h\h\hso what we have here is captain dwyer’s flying helmet.

Everything Matt dwyer has donated

will help Alex tell the osprey’s story.

This provides him oxygen.

It also has a microphone \h\h\h\h\hon the inside

so he can do his communications and talk to people.

First off it personalizes \h\h\h\h\h\h\hthe events,

and they can tell you \h\h\h\hwhat they did,

and where they were at

what kind of actions were taking place--

what it was like to be in combat,

what was the sound of combat.

Those are always a bonus to have

that bring the story

of what they’re living \h\h\h\h\h\hand doing

to life for me personally,

but then hopefully it can be \h\h\h\h\htranslated as well

onto our exhibits down on the floor.

These are the manuals \h\h\hand checklists.

\h\h\h\h\h\hwe want to be able to convey that to our visitor.

In this pocket it looks like he included a small memoranda book

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hwith notes for flying organization,

places that he was flying \h\h\h\h\h\hin and out of.

With what i’m doing now,

i can actually plan with my collecting.

I know what’s out there, I know what’s going on.

\hi know these are important events that we’re living in

in this day and age,

so why don’t we get it now

and then we’re not having \h\h\h\h\h\h\hto scramble

at a later date and time.

They’ll have to wait \h\h\h\h\h\h\hfor the osprey.

But in the meantime, captain dwyer’s gear

will head to Garber \h\hfor processing.

I can’t hear a thing you’re saying.

We’re gonna come in \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\htwo feet.

Alright.

Coming in.

Coming in.

The f-100’s stubborn \h\h\hafterburner won’t close,

but they’ve got just enough room to slip the aft section over it.

John wants up, \h\h\h\hfront and back.

Coming up, front and back.

Stopping!

Bring her in again.

Front end up.

Front end coming up.

- Hold. - Holding.

Well, we were \h\h\hkind of hoping

that the afterburner actuators \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hwould work

so that we could close \h\h\hthe afterburner

down to a normal position.

Coming forward.

Coming forward. We’re hanging up on something.

We’re hanging up \h\h\h\hon something else.

The problem is now, \hof course, the aircraft

will appear with the afterburner in full-power position,

full open position.

Something’s holding up. \h\hit’s hung up on something.

Which, for anybody who’s worked on the airplane

\h\h\hor has flown the airplane, will recognize that right away.

I hate to tell \h\h\hyou guys this,

but i’m about getting close \h\h\h\h\hto bottoming out.

At this point in time

there’s not really much \h\hwe can do about it.

After the f-100 \h\his fully reassembled,

the team will add the final \htouches to its appearance,

traces of an era gone \h\hbut not forgotten.

The decision on how an airplane appears

is the responsibility \h\h\hof the curator.

Now the curator will work with the restoration staff

to make sure that it works,

but basically we want \h\h\h\h\hthe airplane

to look as it did truthfully at a certain point in its career.

In our case with the f-100 \h\h\hwe’re very fortunate

in that the paint that’s on it

when we got it from the Michigan air guard in the mid ’70s

is the same camouflage paint \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hit had on it

when it was serving in Vietnam.

All we had to do was change \h\h\ha few of the markings

to bring it back to where it was

when it was flying during the tet offensive in 1968.

So, what we’ve done \h\h\h\hwith the airplane

is changed it to appear \has it did at bien hoa.

Specifically in the garb \hof the 19th squadron.

It’s designated by, you know,

\h\h\hthe tail paint and the tail numbers

\hand the pair of dice on the nose gear door.

Hand me that.

Calibrated bar.

Come out of there, you rascal!

It’s fantastic,

\h\h\hbut they’re like a well-oiled machine,

all these guys working together,

and they’ve been doing this \h\h\h\h\h\hfor a long time.

\h\h\h\h\h\hthey can do a lot without using a lot of words,

and everybody’s paying attention

and being as careful \h\h\h\has they can.

Carriage is out, John.

We made it.

The f-100 is on the final leg

of its journey to udvar-hazy.

It’s a half-mile tow

from the restoration lab \hto the museum hangar.

For John and his crew, \h\hthe job isn’t over

Well, hopefully this thing and its 40-year-old tires

will make it from here to the north entrance

where we can park it.

That’s the plan for the day.

There’s a feeling of relief \hwrapped up with nostalgia.

Mostly it’s just relief.

You know, it doesn’t look \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hlike much

sitting out here as one airplane

with all the bits and pieces,

\h\h\h\h\h\hbut you’ve seen some of the struggle we went through

getting some of that stuff \h\h\h\h\h\h\hreassembled.

I’m relieved.

I think i’ll celebrate

\h\hwith a doughnut and a cup of coffee.

It’s been a long ride for the hun, as it was called.

It’s logged thousands of miles \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hin service,

endured a war on the other side of the world,

and all the while setting \h\h\h\h\h\ha new standard

for aviation innovation.

For now, John shatz and his team will take a moment to celebrate.

Then they’ll get to work on the next assignment.

The group that’s here \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hright now,

i think it’s all one mind.

We’ve got something to present. We care about what we do.

\hsome of it can be extremely sensitive

\hwhere you think, "do I touch this?"

And that’s, that’s really what makes it interesting.

You take a look \h\h\hat this stuff

and you wonder, geez, \h\h\hhow in the world

\hcan something that big just get up in the air?

What holds it up? How does it work?

I got to understand ’em, \hi got to work on ’em,

i had the best life I could ever think of because of it.

It’s a collective effort, \h\h\hit’s a team effort.

It’s downtown, it’s Garber,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hit’s hazy, it’s every department, you know,

\h\h\h\hworking together to make a final product,

to share with the people \h\h\h\hof this country

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hand people from all over the world.

\hpaul Garber lived to see the national air and space museum

become one of the most popular \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hin the world.

\h\hhis prophecy, that this new and evolving technology

would touch each of our lives,

inspires the millions \hwho visit each year.

And for those behind the scenes,

dedicated to preserving \h\h\h\h\h\h\hand caring

for these national treasurers,

\h\hgarber’s vision still burns bright.