Field Trip -- Loud Flying Things

The bombers are in town! This is a very exciting event for my husband, a huge WWII buff. Every year some WWII bomber planes come to Moffet Air Field. My husband finally got around to going yesterday, but was too late, and they were not allowed onto the field. So today we took a little field trip out to Moffet so that we could have a chance to see them on their very last day here this year. Ot was a very fun fieldtrip for both Josephine and Iain.

On the way there I told them both about how my grandfathers had all been soldiers in World War II. Josephines reply was, "Wow! That's a great responsibility for your grandpas!" Yes, it definitely was.

The major plane on display was a B-24 called Witchcraft. After we got home, Iain and I did some Internet research and found some old photos of this very same plane. Here's a link to the page we found most informative:

http://www.467bg.com/witchcraft.html

The plane was absolutely beautiful. We got to look at it very closely, both inside and out. Here's the plane in its entirety:

Here are Josephine and Iain admiring the graphics on the plane (by the way . . . it's "Pirate Day" at Jo's preschool this afternoon, which will explain her bandana and stuffed parrot on her shoulder).




Here is the original flight crew after the very first mission:





Original ground crew:



This is the other side of the plane.


Flight and ground crew after 120th mission:


Josephine and Iain under the propeller:



Next we got to actually go inside the plane.




Jo and Iain were both most excited about the machine guns (no ammunition, of course--which I had to thoroughly explain before they would even attempt to go near them). After a complete examination, they were much more comfortable, each took their places, and they repeatedly exclaimed, "Ready, aim, fire!"



Here they are inside . . . their heads barely stick up above the window.

From there we all walked across the catwalk through the bomb bay . . .







. . . up to the cockpit.

From there we exited the plane and then admired the machine gun turret ball below.

Now from one loud flying thing to another . . . mockingbirds! For the last few weeks we have been plagued throughout the nights by the loudest and most annoying (though, I will admit, thoroughly fascinating) bird calls I've ever heard. Josephine even woke up one night at 2:30 a.m. and yelled from her bed, "Why are there birds chirping at night???!!!" So I did some Internet research and learned that these are none other than mockingbirds. During the mating season, unmated male birds are notorious for chirping all through the night. And they are LOUD. In addition to that, they don't have just one constant sound that you can eventually tune out. Every few seconds they switch to a completely different tune. Some tunes sound like car alarms, some like other birds, some like angry squirrels. I learned that they have repertoires of between 50 and 200 different songs, and that they have completely different repertoires of fall versus spring songs.

Then today I spotted one outside and got a couple photos of the culprit. It is so very plain and innocent looking.