One Giant Leap - Collectible presentation of artifacts from the Wright Flyer and Apollo 11

It was our desire to produce a collectible presentation celebrating the two most significant accomplishments of flight: the first powered flight by the Wright Brothers, and Apollo 11, the first flight to land a man on the surface of the moon. Each acrylic contains a piece of material from the outer flying surface from each of those two flights. The swatch of Wing Fabric is from the original Wright Brothers aeroplane “Flyer 1″ that undertook the first ever manned powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17 1903. This artifact was originally supplied by the Wright Brothers Estate. The swatch of gold “Kapton Foil” that formed the outer skin of an Apollo Command Module spacecraft is from “Columbia” which carried the Apollo 11 astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins to the moon, from where Armstrong and Aldrin landed to undertake the first ever moonlanding and moonwalk by humans. This artifact was originally supplied by the Mascoutah Aerospace Museum.

The pieces of artifact are approximately 5 millimetres in length, mainly triangular or polygonal in shape, and are encapsulated for posterity within a crystal clear acrylic block, measuring 9.5 x 3 x 1.5 inches in size (24.5 x 7.5 x 4 cm). The acrylic material is a non-yellowing, scratch-resistant, high quality lucite. Presentation Case Also encapsulated within the acrylic itself are two historic images pertaining to these flights: the Wright Brothers first moment of flight and the Apollo 11 “first footprint”. The acrylic block is free-standing, and attractively shaped with chamfered sides, it is supplied within a high quality black presentation case with a black Satin inner liner and the “one giant leap” title embossed in silver on the front cover of the presentation case. Each of our acrylic presentations is accompanied by an attractive (printed on canvas) hand signed and numbered Certificate of Authenticity, issued by Historic Space as your assurance of authenticity. The originals of the documented certificates of authenticity pertaining to the source artifacts are lodged within our files.

This acrylic was produced in 2003 in a very small edition of just 20 pieces in total, and sold out within days of us originally offering it. Since then we have never seen one in the secondary market. We now have just ONE available.

Yeah, that’s pretty cool   And yes, I know I don’t need it, but I sure wouldn’t mind having it

Sandys in hot at Aviation Nation 2007

Yeah, it was a busy weekend, but it was worth it all around ! This is a bit of a long post, so hit the jump for the whole story and pics I do have video, but that’s going to take a while to get all together so it’ll have to wait for a future post

Friday saw me leave Las Vegas at about 1300 (had to stop for gas, snacks, and caffeine ) and arrive at Adrienne’s place in Fontana at about 1700 which included a stop in Baker, CA and traffic due to bad weather in the Cajon Pass.

Christmas gifts were exchanged (I got a P-61 Black Widow plastic model kit !) and we headed on down to Bass Pro Shops and the Islamadora Fish Company for dinner – and what a dinner it was!!! Hanging out with my friends, checking out the huge aquarium, eating good food (grilled blackened mahi mahi, grouper, and conch fritters YUM!), with excellent steel drum music and some of my favorite obscure Jimmy Buffett tracks on the soundtrack… it just don’t get too much better than that

We closed the night back at Adrienne’s where we opened the bottle of Jeremiah Weed I gave her last year. Adrienne and Jose both expressed some apprehension, but eventually agreed that they liked it and that it was as sweet as I had said, but that it wasn’t the easiest stuff going down. About how I figured they’d take it

Saturday saw Adrienne’s sister Haven show up with her 14-month-old son Locke at about 0800. Funny – we were all still in bed ! After we made ourselves presentable, we headed out for some food and then off to the Planes of Fame museum !

We arrived at the museum at about 1045 and after listening to some of the presentation, I decided to explore the museum with Adrienne, Haven, and Locke as I figured they wouldn’t really be all that interested and I wanted to spend time with them after so long apart – it had been quite a while since I’d seen Adrienne and Haven and I had never seen Locke before.

So is the museum worth a three to four hour drive? You bet it is !

Walking into the first hangar from the gift shop, we were greeted by several planes including the P-38 “23 Skidoo” and a very rare Boeing P-26 Peashooter! The adjoining hangar included a P-36 Airacobra, the last remaining “razorback” P-47 Thunderbolt, the Laird-Turner Special, and a few other planes. Outside on the front side of the hangar (facing the street and parking) we found “Piccadilly Lilly” – the museum’s B-17 Flying Fortress which is undergoing a slow restoration to flying status. I pointed out a few things and pictures were taken before returning to the hangar. Going into the next adjoining hangar found us on a balcony over a restoration workshop where we found an F-4F Wildcat, an F-4U Corsair, F-9F Panther, and though I could only see the wingtips (the wings were folded and the rest of the plane was behind other planes), there was even a Ryan Fireball!

We decided to sit back in the folding chairs which had been vacated following the presentation and eat some lunch while waiting for the P-40 to fly. Of course, we also checked out the P-40, pictures were taken, and more was learned.

Finally it was time and the pilot and lucky passenger (chosen by raffle from among the attending museum members) kicked the tires, lit the fires, and took to the wild gray yonder It was a rare treat to hear that Allison V-12 come to life, to see the aircraft shake, to feel the prop wash as she taxied out for takeoff. The flight was several passes over the museum at a somewhat high altitude, but there was no waiver so this couldn’t be helped.

This particular P-40 also has a true war record and an aerial victory in WWII ! Back then, the Japanese launched long range balloons with incendiary bombs which rode the jet stream to North America and the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) pilot flying the aircraft managed to shoot down one of those balloons which makes this aircraft even more special. I don’t think Adrienne or Haven had ever seen a P-40 fly in person before, but I think they’d both seen this one on screen before as it flew in the movie Pearl Harbor. Both of them had a good time and even Locke enjoyed the events Many pictures were again taken, video recorded, and much more learned.

We checked out several more hangars where we discovered such treats as a Hawker Hurricane, Spitfire Mk XIV, the sole surviving Japanese Zero which still flies with its original engine, a German Me-163 Komet and V1 “Buzz Bomb,” MiGs, Sabre Jets, T-Birds, a Heinkel He-162A, OV-1 Mohawk, F-7F Tigercat, QF-100 Super Sabre, and several P-51 Mustangs along with too much more to list.

The last hangar we went through housed a Japanese plane (I’m not sure what it was as I’m not as good with Japanese aircraft), the B-25 “Photo Fanny,” the last Northrop flying wing “N9M” and a P-59 Airacomet – the first type of U.S. jet airplane ! All were undergoing work with the P-59 on its way back to flying status where it will be the only flying example in the world!

There was still more to see, but Locke was getting cold, Adrienne and Haven were getting tired, and it was getting late (I still had to drive back to Las Vegas) so we took our leave after I dropped a couple of dollars in the gift shop .

This will most certainly not be my last trip to Planes of Fame and I can guarantee that I will do everything I can to be at their airshow (with plenty of film ) in May and I’ll probably make the trip just for the day in the not too distant future

The trip back was very quick and uneventful It was non-stop, took about a half a tank of gas, and only about three hours. Time passed quickly partly because I had a wonderful chat with Kerry for about an hour or so. She had just returned from three weeks in Scotland and we had lots to talk about

Sunday was spent getting film developed, pictures loaded onto the computer and edited, and some time was spent vegetating and recovering. I would have gone fishing, but the temperature was down and the wind was gusting to 40 miles per hour.

The whole weekend was wonderful and I can’t wait to do it all again before too long

Here’s some more pics from the museum – enjoy ! Click here to go to the gallery album for this trip

The ultimate Apollo presentation in 20” x 25” poster size covering all manned Apollo missions Apollo 7 – 17 -
including an exclusive Apollo 15 lunar dust covered betacloth swatch…

We are happy to present the ultimate Apollo presentation – a centerpiece for your home or office – bearing a flown artifact from each manned Apollo mission including authentic moondust from the landing sites of two missions : Apollo 15 and 16.

• Apollo 7 : Flown rope fragment from Wally Schirra
• Apollo 8 : Flown heatshield fragment
• Apollo 9 : Flown wiring fragment
• Apollo 10 : Flown coldplate fragment
• Apollo 11 : Flown kapton foil
• Apollo 12 : Flown kapton foil
• Apollo 13 : Flown strap fragment from
• Apollo 14 : Flown lunar surface film
• Apollo 15 : Flown beta cloth fragment with moondust
• Apollo 16 : Flown lunar surface cue card fragment
• Apollo 17 : Flown heatshield foil fragment

Anyone who wishes to be in my good graces for life or who wishes to never again worry about ever having to buy me anything else as long as I live – here’s your solution. There’s only one of these left now and while the $2,595 price tag is a bit much for me right now, it’s a small price to pay for all that goodwill and to avoid ever having to buy me anything else . Really, it’s a darn good investment if you look at it that way !