collaboration

Leadership support has been provided by MetLife Foundation through Blue Star Families.

This year, more than 1,800 (and counting) museums in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and American Samoa are taking part in the initiative, including more than 450 new museums this year. Museums are welcome to join Blue Star Museums throughout the summer.

“Given our collection and who we are, this was a no brainer for us,” says Strategic Air & Space Museum CEO Dr. Scott Tarry. “We are proud to be a Blue Star Museum.  Service men and women and their families will not only be able to enjoy our historical collection of aircraft, missiles, and spacecraft, but they will also be able to experience our science and technology programs.  We’re thrilled to be able to thank them for their service and provide a fun-filled experience for their families.”

The effort to recruit museums has involved partnerships with the American Association of Museums, the Association of Art Museum Directors, the Association of Children’s Museums, the American Association of State and Local History, and the Association of Science-Technology Centers.

This year’s Blue Star Museums represents not just fine arts museums, but also science museums, history museums, nature centers, and 75 children’s museums. Among this year’s new participants are the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California, Grand Traverse Lighthouse Museum in Northport, Michigan, the Totem Heritage Center in Ketchikan, Alaska, and the World Museum of Mining in Butte, Montana.

The program runs from Memorial Day, May 27, 2013 through Labor Day, September 2, 2013.

The free admission program is available to any bearer of a Geneva Convention common access card (CAC), a DD Form 1173 ID card, or a DD Form 1173-1 ID card, which includes active duty U.S. military – Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, as well as members of the National Guard and Reserves, U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, NOAA Commissioned Corps – and up to five family members.

The kids in attendance of Robotics Camp at the North Platte Children’s Museum, Monday, got a first-hand experience with the futuristic and fascinating machines

“Robots can go forward and backwards,” says Ken Schroeder, Strategic Air & Space Museum Deputy Dir.

And Monday at the North Platte Children’s Museum, kids got the chance to learn what else robots can do during Robotics Camp.

“With the young kids here today, the idea that we want them to get is that robots will only be able to do things that we teach them to do, so programming. That they have to have energy, they have to have many different factors all working together,” says Schroeder.

Kids participated in three different robotic building stations, allowing them to experience all aspects of the way robots work.

“We’ve got some kids working on circuitry and electronics. We’ve got some other kids just working with basic parts and assembling things and the other kids are actually making a specific part of a robot called an end effector, that will show them the concept of being able to lift,” says Schroeder.

Schroeder’s hope is that the kids get to experience robots and learn more about them through the program, regardless of which part of robotics they show the most interest in.

“I go all over the state doing programs like this and the reality is, no matter what the subject is somebody will always, some people have a natural bend to one piece. Some will have it bent to the other. Some of these kids will be great at designing and building. Some of ‘em are going to be great at the electronics. Everybody will find a niche today that they find celebration and a good day where they had a lot of fun, a lot of education and promoting and fostering this whole idea curiosity, which is absolutely important,” says Schroeder.

It’s a sight many children love to watch but don’t often get to see, a helicopter taking off. “When you’re 9-and-a-half you don’t see four helicopters land near each other every day,” said Daniel Steinhauser.

“It was pretty cool,” said his twin brother, Andrew.

The Steinhausers have always been interested in helicopters, so when their dad David heard about Helicopter Day at the Strategic Air and Space Museum he knew he had to take them. “Nice opportunity to talk to the pilots and how the helicopters land and learn all they can.”

That’s just what organizers were hoping for, to allow people to learn about aviation and spark their interest in it. “One of the things we are trying to do is make sure that we are providing experiences for young people and not so young people to learn new things.”

“It’s especially important to have this event this year after Offutt’s show was canceled. Parents were glad Helicopter Day was still on. “We’ve done the air show in the past and the kids love it, so that was disappointing, but this has been great because the kids can play around on the helicopters, take pictures and stay outside,” said mom Jenny Minino.

The children seemed to love it, some so much we might even have some future pilots on our hands. And what was the favorite helicopter of the day? “The Huskers,” said Christian Livsay.

“The Huskers,” said Caden Livsay.

Also at the SAC Museum Saturday was Wings Under The Wings. After watching the helicopters, families could go and enjoy the tasty dish sponsored by Buffalo Wild Wings. Other restaurants including the Crescent Moon and Ryan’s Bistro also participated.

Friday, April 19. 8:00-11:00PM. Strategic Air & Space Museum front sidewalk

To observe Astronomy Day, the Strategic Air & Space Museum will be hosting our biggest “Star Party” of the year on Friday, April 19.  Starting at 8:00PM, our friends with the Omaha Astronomical Society will be setting up dozens of large telescopes to observe the wonders of the night sky. Here’s your chance to see the beautiful Orion Nebula before it bids adieu for the season, and even an opportunity to see up-close the largest planet in our solar system- Jupiter. Dozens of other celestial objects will also be visible throughout the evening.

This event is sponsored by the Omaha Astronomical Society, and the Strategic Air & Space Museum. Open to everyone who loves the night sky. No admission charge.

The North Platte Area Children’s Museum partnered with the Strategic Air & Space Museum to bring a day full of discovery. “Education is so important. I think our schools have so many budget cuts anymore and there are a lot of programming that lacks in the school system so it’s always important to try to add to what the children may or may not be getting to do it in a really fun environment children really thrive in a learning environment when they don’t realize they are learning,” says Heather Halligan, NP Childrens Area Museum.  It’s also a chance to explore without rules with the Strategic Air & Space Museum traveling science outreach program.

“Everybody thinks of scientists as being in a white lab coat and glasses and they sit over a lab and do boring calculations, that’s some part of science but a lot of the other parts can be a lot of fun,” says John Thompson , Strategic Air & Space Museum Outreach Education Specialist.  Friday’s lesson; chemistry. “And it’s super messy chemistry at that so we had some experiments with dry ice, liquid nitrogen, mixtures and measurements, and they get to put all of that knowledge and make some fun slime for them to take home,” says Thompson. Organizers hope today’s lesson will ignite enthusiasm and curiosity. “Maybe they will tell some kids at school about this really cool event that happened at the museum and it just takes off. They start getting excited about science and it spreads and becomes contagious. With the reaction I got today they seemed pretty excited but time will tell,” says Thompson.

Our rain date is scheduled for Wednesday, March 13.  Please follow us on Facebook for the latest updates and announcements.

The overall focus was learning that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics can be fascinating.

Although students were primarily from the Omaha and Lincoln area, there were participants from a number of other states including: Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming.  Bruxelles, Belgium took the award for traveling the farthest to attend camp at the Strategic Air & Space Museum.

This past year, the museum has provided educational programs to 13,000 students and teachers from 53 Nebraska counties.

The Strategic Air & Space Museum offers a variety of upcoming education opportunities for 2012-2013 including overnights.  Overnight Programs are an exciting way for kids to have fun and learn about aviation, space exploration, or astronomy. Participants will tour the museum collection, experience hands-on activities, and maybe even sleep in a C-119 aircraft!

If you are the leader of an organized youth group and would like more information on the overnight programs, please call 1-402-944-3100 ext. 209.

First, though, Roger Ihle has a few stories to share.

Like how he ended up above Italy, and what happened along the way.

Ihle is 94 now, long retired from the Army, long retired from his career as an electrical engineer. Twice a week, he hires a driver to carry him to the Strategic Air and Space Museum, where he gives new life — and shine — to the planes that served when he did.

He starts at the beginning: when he was drafted, 10 months before Pearl Harbor.

He was working for Union Electric in St. Louis, the son of a country doctor from Iowa’s northwest corner and a recent electrical engineering grad from Iowa State.

In 1940, with tension growing in Europe, and in Washington, the United States reinstated the draft, requiring unmarried men to register.

“That made a lot of married men,” he says, “trying to get out of the draft.”

Ihle was still single. And he was told to report for infantry duty in late February 1941. He was sent to Little Rock, Ark., where he joined an anti-tank company, lived in a dirt-floor tent and trained with wooden guns.

“We didn’t have weapons,” he wrote years later, when he put his memories on paper for his family. “No rifles or side arms and some did not even have a complete uniform. We were not ready by any means to think about going to war.”

But the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the soldiers in Arkansas climbed into railcars — so old they had kerosene lanterns and wicker seats — for a seven-day trip west to guard the California coast against Japanese attackers.

He patrolled through the rain and fog of that Christmas and New Year’s, slept on the wet ground. Then his division headed north, to the Aleutian Islands, but the Army sent Ihle back to the Midwest for communications school.

He struggled with Morse code.

“I had difficulty distinguishing the differences between the dots and dashes,” he wrote, “but I did graduate.”

The young lieutenant from Cleghorn, Iowa, was one of several men sent to Boston to study radar at Harvard and MIT. This was new, breakthrough but cumbersome technology: the ability to see the enemy without ever seeing the enemy.

Even the word radar, he said, was top-secret at the time.

And then he was off to Florida to learn radar countermeasures — how to jam and find and record the enemy’s radar. It was more new ground for students and teachers.

“The nice thing about this school is that nobody knew what they were teaching. We were pioneers, and our instructors had no idea what we’d be doing.”

He remembers testing his skills, flying up and out on anti-submarine patrol. German subs were lurking in the waters off the eastern coast of Florida at the time.

“Every once in a while, we’d see a ship burning up on the horizon. They’d shoot at them with their torpedoes — civilian, military, anything.”

He and his training partner, Matt Slavin, were in Florida three months when an officer approached with orders to go to the Mediterranean: They were going to be the first to conduct electronic reconnaissance missions over enemy territory. And something else.

“They also told us our mortality rate was three out of five.”

They needed equipment. They stopped at the secret Radio Research Laboratory at Harvard to pick up their new — and unreliable — receivers. They flew to a base in Ohio to outfit their B17 and meet their flight crew.

“We had one of the last enlisted crews to come from the courts who had given them the choice of the Air Force or jail,” he wrote. “One of this flight crew’s adventures was flying under a Missouri River bridge which cut the telephone lines, wrapped around one of their props and totaled the aircraft on landing.”

They had to fly to Salina, Kan., to be processed for overseas deployment before beginning their long hopscotch to North Africa — via Miami, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, Brazil and a tiny volcanic island in the Atlantic.

But first, a little sight-seeing in New Orleans. None of the crew had been there, so they claimed “engine trouble” and made an unscheduled overnight visit to Bourbon Street.

In Africa, they landed in Liberia, at Roberts Air Field, right across a river from a village. A business-savvy local charged them each 50 cents to ferry them across to tour the village, with its mud-walled, thatch-roofed huts. And then he charged them $5 to take them back.

Final destination: Blida, Algeria, just off the southern Mediterranean coast and across the sea from Italy, and German troops.

His memories of everyday life on the base are as vivid as the work he did at night.

They shared a runway with British troops, each occupying one end. The Brits preferred the food in the American mess hall, so they would wander over in the afternoon to visit — hoping they would be invited to stay for dinner.

He remembers fashioning a sun-heated shower from a 55-gallon barrel and tubing from an old German Luftwaffe aircraft. It became so popular he built a second. And he was more than happy to let a group of visiting flight nurses use it.

“As long as they were with us,” he wrote, “they did not lack for escorts to the Officer’s Club functions.”

He worked in the dark, in the air, bundled up in the cold and howl of a B-17, searching for signs — and sounds — of the Germans inside his headphones.

He didn’t have a directional antenna, so he had no way of quickly zeroing in on the source of the enemy radar signal. Instead, the pilot flew a pattern, and Ihle would record the beep’s strength and frequency and then plot when and where he heard it.

It was slow, but with enough information — by logging enough German radar beeps — Ihle could point to a radar station on the map.

“We got them close enough so that it paid for them to send out a photographing plane … and they could pick up the thing.”

And then, in some cases, bomb it to pieces.

They would fly low — sometimes just 500 feet — to shake the German fighter planes from behind and below their tail. In the dark, the Germans would try to take aim at the flames from the big plane’s exhaust, but the enemy was wary of flying, and possibly crashing, so close to the water.

“They’d get their feet wet, and they had no air-sea rescue unit.”

The Army required Ihle and his friend, Slavin — the pair was codenamed Ferret 3 — to fly separate missions. A plane and its crew could be replaced.

“But they said it would take a year to replace you guys.”

After his 25 missions, Ihle was sent across the Mediterranean and stationed in Bari, Italy, to continue more radar countermeasures.

“It was top-secret. We never talked about it until after the war.”

But the young man from Iowa had helped change how global powers fought each other.

“It’s crucial to know where radars are. Absolutely crucial,” said Pete Maslowski, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor emeritus and military historian. “If you know where their radars are, it gives you some possibility of evading them or trying to destroy them.”

After Ihle returned, he married Marilyn Hendersen, a woman he had met while stationed in Arkansas. He had a long career with the Rural Electric Administration. He lives in Omaha with one of his two sons.

He keeps up a little with developments in electronic surveillance, but he has a hard time believing what those who came after him are capable of.

Unmanned drones. Satellite reconnaissance. War by remote control.

Nothing requiring a young lieutenant to strain into his headphones, searching for sounds, flying low and dark over enemy territory.

“It wasn’t cutting-edge by any means, but it was all we had available. The stuff they got now is way over my head.”

And soon, a little musty — once they find the proper prepackaged scent.

And maybe even a little frightening, with a 12,000-pound thermonuclear bomb, a wall-sized photo of a mushroom cloud, a Minuteman missile launcher and other authentic reminders of the tense times when the country lived under the threat of nuclear war.

“It’s that feeling you’re in a fallout shelter,” Michael Sibbernsen, the museum’s interim curator, said Thursday, racing to finish the exhibit before Saturday’s unveiling.

The traveling exhibit, “Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow: Living with the Atomic Bomb,” examines the height of the atomic age — 1945-65.

Its dozens of displays — books on surviving the atomic bomb, instructions for building bomb shelters, Geiger counters, toy rocket-launchers — recall how Americans lived with, planned for and played with the threat.

But that wasn’t enough for the museum.

Staffers first saw the exhibit at a Kansas City library. Interesting, they thought, but a little formal.

They decided to make it “more visceral.”

Sibbernsen designed the exhibit to mirror an underground bomb shelter, with a tunnel-like entrance, exposed pipes, faux brick walls and the sound of sirens in the background. He eliminated an exit to give it a closed-in feeling.

“We wanted to provoke an emotional response, to elicit memories from some of our guests and to create new ones with our younger guests.”

So the museum drew from its own collections to round out the exhibit — vintage toilet paper and penicillin and canned water to stock the bomb shelter shelves, the actual red telephone the world hoped would never ring, next to the button the world hoped would never be pushed.

Walking through the front entrance, you find yourself standing nose-to-nose with a SR-71 hanging from the ceiling in the vast atrium of the facility. Two gigantic hangar wings stretch on either side, big enough to house the largest of aircraft.  How big? How about 10-engine B-36 bomber, a B-52, or a C-97, the military version of the Boeing Stratocruiser?

The museum is very proud of its B-29 that just finished a multi-year refurbishment in its restoration shop, and visitors can view the progress on current projects, a Douglas C-54 (DC-4) and a T-29 (Convair 240), from the viewing area in the atrium.

When you walk under the wings of these huge transports and bombers, you feel diminished by the sheer size of them. The B-36 Peacemaker is absolutely massive. Weighing 410,000 pounds at takeoff, it was the largest production airplane ever built at that time. Powered by a combination of old-school radial engines and jets, it was designed to bomb European targets from bases in the continental United States. The bomb bays seem as if they could engulf a bus. The cockpit looks like the eyes of a bug with its multifaceted panes of glass. It is amazing to think that such a plane first flew only 43 years afte rthe Wright brothers.

The B-52 Stratofortress is more familiar to today’s pilots because it is still in Air Force operational status after five decades. No better aircraft for the mission has been developed. Its eight jet engines hang from its severely swept wings and its wrinkled skin foretells its age. The museum’s B-52 is the first assigned to the Strategic Air Command.

Close by, a B-47 Stratojet shows its rakish lines and a B-2 bomber looks almost out of place with its modern black fuselage and wings. Many more aircraft round out the collection, as well as exhibits that bring to life the aviators who flew these aircraft.

For our Midwest members looking for a fly-out opportunity, you can land at nearby Millard Ariport in western Omaha and rent a car for the final 20 miles. The Strategic Air & Space Museum stands apart in a crowded world of facilities dedicated to aeronautical preservation. Make sure that you have the opporutnity to experience it. EAA – By Jeff Skiles, Vice President Of Chapters and Youth Education