- Today on Pilots, Props and Planes, we're at the fantastic Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, California.

This museum is loaded, literally, to the rafters with every kind of flying machine ever made.

This is a free ticket to a trip to the Hiller Aviation Museum.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) We're at the Hiller Aviation Museum, Santa Clara, California, where you can find everything from a replica 1869 steam powered flying machine, to a modern day, super secret, robotic spy plane.

(upbeat music) I'm with Willie Turner, the vice president of operations here at the Hiller Aviation Museum and Willie, good morning and welcome to the show.

Tell us a little bit about the museum and how it came to be.

- Well, it is the brainchild of Stanley Hiller Jr., who was a helicopter pioneer, and he built his first helicopter at the tender age of 19 years old back in 1944.

- [Bill] Wow.

- And flew the first helicopter on the west coast, but he had always wanted to do a museum and he collected a lot of aircraft, a lot of his own aircraft and other aircraft.

And he kept it in a private facilities that only he showed his friends for many, many years, but he always wanted to do a first class museum.

And that became reality in 1998.

We first opened our doors, June 5th, 1998.

- Originally this museum was envisioned as being a museum that collected the aviation history of the Northern California, San Francisco bay area.

- Well, it really did start as a Northern California focus and it went all the way back to the avatar homes junior and which flew in 1883 and then on from there with the John Montgomery gliders and building up and so forth.

And so a lot happened here in the bay area.

And so that's where it started, but then we found that it, we expand from there.

- Above us, you were talking about unmanned aerial vehicles and drones.

Tell us a little bit about the airplane hanging right over our heads.

- Well, if you wanna see a real drone, that is the Boeing Condor, which is hanging, it may be one of the largest aircraft hanging in a museum.

It's a 201 foot wing span and it was completely robotic.

It was autonomous aircraft built in 1985.

So, that's an early example of a real drone that completely flew on its own.

It was programmed to fly, take off, fly its mission and come back and land in the same spot.

Not no- - No connection.

- [Bill] Not remotely controlled.

- [Willie] Not remotely controlled, exactly.

- Fascinating.

Now you do have examples of remotely controlled aircraft here in the museum.

So you cover the complete spectrum of aviation.

What is the oldest aircraft in the museum?

- Well, I'm gonna have to probably go with the Avatar.

- [Bill] Okay.

- Because that was a powered aircraft that had a one horsepower steam engine.

It did have a large bag that was developed with hydrogen.

So people think it was a blend, but it needed forward motion over its Delta shape wings to achieve lift.

So it was a kind of a hybrid type of aircraft.

They ran under it with ropes and guided it on the ground.

But on its first flight, it flew for over a mile.

The Wright brothers first flight was only 120 feet.

- [Bill] Right, exactly.

- So, it was amazing.

- So of the many wonderful airplanes here at the Hiller Aviation Museum that encompass a wide spectrum of aviation history, there's one in particular that is all always fascinated me because I have had a background to some extent with this particular airplane.

And that is this replica of the Lincoln Beachey Little Looper.

This particular airplane was featured in the air show circuit on the west coast, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was flown by an airshow pilot by the name of Vern Dallman.

Vern recreated this aircraft.

It's an exact replica of Lincoln Beachey's Little Looper.

And you'll notice when you look at the airplane that the pilot's feet are on a set of rudder pedals, but that steers the rudder, but not the nose wheel.

So whenever Vern would land, he would have to get out of his seat, bend over, pick up the nose of the airplane and then scoot the airplane to the side, to get it from the runway to the taxiway.

One of the other interesting features about the airplane, as we said, is its rotary engine.

So when you look at the engine from the background here, you see a very, very short propeller, a wide cord that is the distance from the front of the propeller blade to the rear and you'll see that engine with its seven cylinders up there, that whole engine and propeller rotated at the same time.

This is called a rotary engine.

Vern would perform air shows in this airplane.

He would maneuver through a series of aerobatics and come down and land and represent some of the earliest type of flying that took place prior to the first World War, that by the famous air show pilot, Lincoln Beachey.

- He was the local hero, if you will.

The international council of airshow actually recognized him as the grandfather of aerobatics.

He was the first to real, in this country, especially, he was the first to loop the loop in this country.

And he's credited for the invention of the spin recovery.

That's an important determination there because lots of people were spinning and dying.

He invented spin recovery.

And so he was known for all of those type of things in the early aviation, which helped people who were building the aircraft, then learn what aircraft can do.

Then we have the Wright flyer, which is a replica of it in 1903.

- So then we go forward a little bit in history and we see the Pepsi Skywriter.

That airplane's been around for a long time.

And not only does the airplane itself have an incredible history, but so do its pilots.

Tell us a little bit about that one.

- [Willie] That is a very interesting aircraft because it's actually an old one too, as well, in the 1920s, but it was first flown by Louise Thaden and she was a very famous Aviatrix that set all kinds of endurance records and racing records and the races across the country, that type of thing.

So she flew that airplane very successfully for many years.

And then it was flown by Suzanne Oliver Asbury, who was the Pepsi Skywriter.

And so she would go around to air shows and other events, and she would make smiley faces and write the word Pepsi all over, all over the country.

- I see that you have a display here that is directed towards women in aviation.

And certainly one of the most well known names of women in aviation is Amelia Earhart.

- [Willie] Yes.

- [Bill] There's a story behind Amelia Earhart, as it directly relates to the Grumman Albatross to our left.

- Most people know the story of Amelia Earhart, was attempting to be the first woman to fly around the world.

Didn't make it.

But in 1997, a woman named Linda Finch wanted to recreate in the exact same kind of airplane and finish the flight successfully, but she wanted a little insurance.

And so she got with a gentleman named Reid Dennis, he had an Albatross.

And so she hired him to be the chase support plane to fly around the world with her.

So if she met the same fate as Amelia, she'd have someone there to pick him up, pick her up.

She successfully made the entire flight and they never had to land the Albatross behind us in the water.

But it is, I believe one of, if not the only Albatross ever completely circumnavigate the entire planet.

- And I see that there are a number of exhibits that are geared to young people to get them involved in aviation and engineering and some of the scientific and technical aspects of that.

Tell us a little bit about how this museum really focuses on kids.

- Well, absolutely, and I'm sure it's cliche to say that, you know, the children are our future of aviation, but they really are.

- [Bill] It's true, that's- - And Stan Hiller knew that, too.

And he, what he wanted to inspire was not only everybody be a pilot, you know, we need pilots.

And if you wanna be a pilot, we really need pilots these days.

He wanted to inspire not only pilots, but engineers, both in aeronautical engineering, but also the Silicon valley side of it, the electronics that go into it, that help aircraft fly the avionics, all those type of things that are developed right here.

So we have those type of things.

And then we bring it on to things like our invention lab, where every weekend we're open and kids can come in and it's a different program each weekend.

And they're building things.

- We're making paper helicopters.

They come in a different assorted colors.

We have blue, gray, what appears to be a variation of green and even bright yellow.

And when you fold this, this is gonna be the end product.

It's gonna look something like this.

And what we normally do, is we have the kids hold the bottom of the paper helicopter using their thumb and finger, and they wanna hold it up as high as they can and then let it go.

And it simulates a helicopter landing.

How about that?

- It's, we have our flight simulation lab where you can go up and fly and Microsoft flight SIM now has come so far.

You know, I remember it back when we were younger, where it was stick figures, right?

- [Bill] That's right.

- Now you can't tell the difference if a real aircraft or if it's a flight SIM.

And so we have these flight SIMs that are up there, that you can actually fly in the flight simulators and get, and it's not a game.

I mean, you're really learning how to fly.

We have instructors up there.

And then we have aviation camp, which is huge for us.

So I wish we'd have had that, something like that when I was a kid.

- [Bill] You and me both.

- But this aviation camp are week long programs, everything from space and science camps to experimental test pilot camps, all kinds of different camps that we have that range from kindergarten through eighth grade.

And we have kids that come back every, every year and then the kids turn into volunteers and then the ones who really got it, then they become assistant instructors and then they become instructors.

And we're very happy to say that our resume of kids that have graduated all the way through, from instructors and gone on become engineers, air traffic controllers, airline pilots, fighter pilots in the air force, all kinds of, and they all were at one time instructors here in our camps and that thing, so.

- [Bill] That's great.

- It's been around long enough that we can have that claim that we have a really nice- - [Bill] That is great.

How often do you do these camps?

- Every summer are full camps with almost 1500 to 2000 kids.

- [Bill] Really?

- Throughout the entire summer.

And they they're week long programs.

So when you sign up, you're here for a week and they're every day for the week and all day long.

- Can I be a kid again?

- I know, yeah, that's right.

Maybe instructor, yes, yeah.

(laughs) - Well, wonderful.

Let's go.

Let's go take a look around the museum.

- [Willie] Absolutely.

- I'm, I'd really like to share with our audience, the fascinating collection of aircraft that you have on display.

- [Willie] Let's take a look.

(upbeat music) - So this is the cockpit of a Boeing 747, amazing such a small area for such a huge aircraft.

This is an early 747.

And obviously, because of all of the original gauges that are in the airplane, they've long since been replaced by what we call glass cock pits But how old exactly is this particular airplane?

- This is early, this is 1970, a 747 100 series.

And we were lucky enough to get it from a salvage.

It was a British Airways airliner, prior, that's what it flew under.

And so we were lucky enough to get it from a salvage from Roswell, New Mexico.

But it's a unique exhibit because people can actually come in and sit in the cockpit and touch and fly and use the instruments and all the buttons.

But we thought it was important that people get in and see what it's like to be in the cockpit of one of these giant aircraft.

And so that's what this is.

(slow music) - So Willie, this is a fun airplane to talk about, the Fokker DR.I Triplane.

And this is a replica airplane that you built for the museum, but it's a full scale replica of a World War I fighter.

How did this airplane come about for the museum?

- Well, in our planning, 'cause we're always trying to grow with the museum, we wanted something that kids could get in, but we wanted something old that kids could get in and feel what a tail dragger's like and what it in fabric airplane, the old feel.

So that's why kept Restoration Shop got involved and was able to build it.

And then we painted it, the Red Baron because it's recognizable.

Probably outta World War I, the most recognizable airplane there is, is the Red Barons.

- Absolutely.

- Trip plane.

So that's why we chose it.

And the fact that technology advanced so much in aviation from the beginning of World War I to something like this at the end of World War I.

And so that was the reasoning behind doing our Fokker, but it's just a lot of fun and kids love to get in it, sit there and pretend they're the Red Baron.

- So the one question I wonder if they ask a lot of, is why three wings?

- It had to be a lift answer, you know, the maneuverability, because obviously it wasn't as fast, had more drag, but it could outturn everybody.

And in those early dog fights, it really was it your ability to be able to outturn your opponent to get behind them, to be able to shoot them.

And this certainly had an amazing turning radius.

You also notice that it's shooting right at its own propeller, but they were able to figure that one out by putting a stop in there, right?

Those guns wouldn't shoot when the propeller was in that position.

- [Bill] The interrupter gear.

- The interrupter.

I don't know how they figured that out 'cause that's amazing.

But that was the idea behind it.

- And that was one of the first technological advancements of the war, which led into finer developments of aircraft towards the latter part of the war and into World War II.

Which they were still flying propeller driven, piston engine airplanes.

- That's right.

- A wonderful recreation and a full scale.

- Full scale.

- It's surprising how small these airplanes actually were.

- Very small, even though this a full size, they were small.

- They were tiny airplanes during that time period.

(gentle music) Earlier in the interview, you and I were talking about drones.

And we talked about that Condor, the Boeing Condor, but now we're in a different area that represents the future of aviation.

And really the term drone does apply to everything that we're gonna talk about here.

So, let's start from the smallest aircraft up to some of the airplanes that are hanging up.

We've got these drones that are on the floor in here and what do they represent and what are they used for?

- Well, you're exactly right.

Is we wanted to do something in the future of aviation and it really is drones and unmanned aircraft, unmanned air mobility, those type of aircraft is the future.

And surprisingly, a lot of aviation museums still don't really want to touch it.

They're not, they just, it's not an airplane.

But we realize, especially being here in Silicon valley, that this is the future and this is the wave of where we're gonna go.

And so, we want to jump on it early.

So we built this Drone Plex, we call it, which is a cage and kids can come in and like you see, those are like trainer type drones, mostly on the ground there, where they can really come in and remote control with the control modules there and the rate of control, and fly the drones and learn how to fly, but in a safe environment, you know, so they don't go banging in you know, as a round museum.

- [Bill] Sure.

- But if they want to come in into what it was like in the old days, you know, five years ago, to fly an actual drone, they could do that.

And then we take 'em through the history of drones, even though it seems like it's short lived, there is a history that it is going so quickly.

It's changing so fast.

Everything from that Boeing Condor, that really large aircraft we have hanging in the museum from 1985.

Then we have examples of the Intel drones, the ones that go up and do the shows in the sky.

And there's, you know, a thousand drones and they do pictures and they're all just coordinated autonomously.

We have a few examples of those.

We have examples of drones that can fly out and fly medical supplies.

Some of 'em are actually working in Africa right now, where they take blood out to tribes and so forth that are, that need it.

And can't get it quick enough.

And they're in operation today.

So we have those type of examples that we talk about all the way to the UAM, which is the big stuff, Urban Air Mobility.

The next step after that is autonomous aircraft.

And that will be where you summon up an aircraft and it comes and lands in a certain area.

And then you get in it and then you fly to your point that you want to go to and you get out and then you don't own it.

You don't, you just pay for the time you're in it.

And then more likely what it's gonna get into, is like the one hanging, which is our Opener Blackfly.

And they are going in production on these currently where people can buy them and you can fly those.

But they also have robotic features to them.

But they're so simple to fly that people say, well, what do you get yourself into a bad situation?

They fix it.

You know, the computer already knows, oh, wait a minute.

We're not gonna do that.

You know, we're not gonna point straight at the ground and try to pull up a last second.

It will stop you first.

We're not gonna go fly by San Francisco International Airport because it has a zone around it.

So you can't go fly by an airliner and be a problem.

Though, even though eventually all the airliners will be autonomous, too.

I mean, eventually we're heading that way and probably faster than most people think.

You know, it's like, oh, that'll be 50 years from now.

No, that's more like 10 years from now.

- [Bill] Historically drones go back to the days preceding World War II.

- [Willie] They do.

- [Bill] They were test flying vehicles.

- [Willie] Yes.

- [Bill] And then came along radio control, which guys like you and I learned to do as kids.

That's how we got to fly airplanes, but they really begin to advance and look less like the cruciform shape of an airplane.

And more into the multi rotor.

Yeah.

It depends on what its mission is, right.

The quad copters are the ones, the multi rotors like that, they're more for short distance.

I want to come in.

I wanna land in a certain spot and then, and/or drop things, but they want to hover.

So you have different versions of what they're trying to accomplish with their mission.

So some look kind of, hey, that looks like an airplane, but it's light and it, and that, or the other looks, wow, that's futurist looking.

Look at all those weird looking rotors involved with it.

- Driven by design.

- Driven by design.

(gentle music) - [Bill] In today's Scrapbook Segment, we discover a rare Danish built KZ7.

- I bought this aircraft in 1998 and had a two and a half year restoration of it.

It had been flying in Kiel, in Germany, hauling up gliders in 40 years and it was very tired and nobody has really cared about the exterior and the interior, but it was flyable.

And it got into the air again in June two thousand and one.

And that was about the time I was actually looking on moving to America.

So I got a 20 feet container, took off the wings, the tail and the fin and everything could actually just go into a 20 feet container and have their wings at the side.

The wing is NACA 23012.

That actually came out in 1938.

It has a very abrupt stall, but comment saw it and find out to put on fixed slats.

Then you are having a very gentle stall.

And actually this aircraft is able to go very slow.

(engine roars) It came on a Casey 3 first in 1944, and it was painted as an ambulance aircraft and they got a mission for flight.

And that is the biggest number of aircraft that actually made of all the different models.

That is the KZ3.

The Danish army actually bought 10 of these.

And some of them are still flying.

This aircraft is the only of its kind in America.

And there was built 56 of them.

There's in the neighborhood of 37, 38 left in the world.

And about those, about 20, 23 are actually sitting in Denmark.

There are a few in Finland, one in Switzerland, one on Iceland.

And that is about it.

There's just a few of them left in the world.

The panel was actually changed because I wanted to have a modern avionics and also a new radio and GPS put in.

The engine mount is original.

And the fuselage of course, and the tail that is cantilever built is having plywood skin and then fabric on top of it.

And so has the wings.

What I'm going with half full tanks and alone, I would normally close 120.

When I'm full with gas, that is 38 gallons.

And my wife is with me, also.

And well for a trip, it will be 115.

(engine roars) The funny thing, is that you are having full control on the ailerons ones, even during a stall.

When you are full loaded, you can go down to 38 to 40 miles.

When you are a little lighter, you can easily go down to 30 before you are having any kind of stall.

When you are two people and full tanks and get on in for having to test the stall, it is not really stalling.

It is actually starting to, what do you call it, mush down.

So you can see that you are sinking and you have to avoid going into a mode of tail gliding.

It can actually do it, but the tail is not built for doing it.

So you can actually go, I would say, nearly flying backwards.

(upbeat music) (engine roars) - I wanna say thank you to Willie Turner, the vice president of operations, here at the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, California, and from the cockpit of the Boeing 747, so long.

And we'll see you next time on Pilots, Props and Planes.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music)