With a few days off from work, a planned trip to Pennsylvania for a missions conference, and absolutely no desire to be on the road for eight hours straight, I made the command decision to split the trip in two and stop in Akron, Ohio. Akron is a city forever etched into aviation history as the birthplace of several of the U.S. Navy's airships from ages past. Now, though, Akron is home to a different kind of Navy aircraft, several, actually. I made it a point before heading on my way to PA to visit the aircraft and glean a little of their history.

Whenever I get around airplanes, I tend to get distracted. I have a tendency to get distracted from what is really on display, what the aircraft stand for or represent. In some cases, it is engineering tenacity. In others, there is a story of a particular pilot or mechanic. Or, there is a tale of camaraderie or nostalgia. As a case in point, there are many aircraft and artifacts found at the MAPS Air Museum on the western edge of the Akron-Canton Airport (KCAK).

Perhaps you don't see the oddity at first, but that Sopwith has one more wing than most people expect on an airplane. Sure, the Red Baron had his triplane, but we don't look for the third wing if it ain't red. The surprising story here is that the Red Baron requested a triplane only after seeing a Sopwith Triplane! The second photo is The Martin Glider. It may surprise you that this isn't a hair-brained flight of fancy. This aircraft actually flew... many times! But there is another story behind both of these planes. They are homebuilt, both of them. The triplane was built from the original drawings. The owner tells a tale of contacting the British company and ordering copies of the original documentation and blueprints from 1916. Then amassing knowledge through various connections, he had to learn how to even begin building an airplane using early aircraft materials and building methods. The monoplane glider was also built by an Ohio native who went aloft by virtue of one horsepower; "Billy" the horse, that is. But he wasn't aboard for the maiden voyage. According to the museum folks, Mrs. Martin was deemed the ideal pilot since she weighed less than her husband. The owner eventually upgraded to being towed aloft by a Ford car, giving plenty of power for his added weight.

As I strolled through the Gallery of Heroes, dutifully reading the displays and learning a bit of history, a machine gun caught my eye. Guns and artillery are another keen interest of mine, but what grabbed my attention was that a German gun was displayed with Israel's flag. This seemed odd since Jewish forced labor was used to manufacture the weapons of the Third Reich. But in the irony of war, there was strange justice that this same weapon was eventually used in Israel in her fight for independence, a gun which was initially built to tear down the Jewish population and all who would come to their defense.

These two aircraft have something in common. They are both missing something! The Spirit of Akron was a military demonstrator airship before it began flying as a Goodyear blimp at major events. After an accident that left the airship grounded, the gondola came to the MAPS Museum for restoration and display. The BT-13 Valiant is also missing something. The ghostly aircraft skeleton is a slightly eerie sight when seen through the parachute covering the canopy. But that's not X-ray vision or a partially completed restoration. If you look on the mapsairmuseum.org website, you can see that this airplane has plexiglass side panels in place of much of the aluminum on the fuselage. Perhaps this addition was from the BT-13's days as a crop-duster or just an extra for display purposes. But either way, it gives a truly unique view of how an airplane works and is held together.

You'll learn one bit of trivia if you go to the MAPS Air Museum because there were actually two, count 'em, two B-26 bombers. And then the military figured out that there was a good deal of confusion to be had when you have a Martin B-26 and a Douglas B-26. Like the one shown here, the Douglas was re-designated the much less confusing (I suppose) Douglas A-26 Invader.

In the span of a two-hour stroll around the MAPS Air Museum campus, you wouldn't think you'd have time to do much more than peer in a few cockpit windows and read a handful of displays. There is much to see and do. They recommend a three-hour visit if you plan on reading much at all. But if you are willing to listen, the staff and volunteers, like Carl, might just regale you with stories of the aircraft they maintain and restore. A couple of Carl's aircraft have some real deusys of tales. The Grumman F-14 is a spectacular aircraft, even with the engines yanked to render it useless thanks to bureaucracy. But this Tomcat has a better and more uplifting tale to tell. This fighter jet's pilot overcame a severe injury to eventually achieve his childhood dream and become a fighter pilot, not just a pilot but also a fighter pilot in an F-14 Tomcat; this F-14 Tomcat.

Remember, I said Carl had stories on a couple of his aircraft? As it turns out, there once was a young kid who decided he wanted to join the Navy and fly fighter jets (seems to be a running theme). He ended up training, but since there wasn't (technically) a war going on, he ended up flying a fighter jet with no weapons. I can see the raised eyebrows. In the absence of war, you need intelligence to know when the next war is coming. Enter the Grumman "number soup" Cougar. Okay, I made up the number soup bit. But seriously, Grumman F9F-8P? Anyway, this airplane was a rip-roaring fighter jet that had lost the will to fight; instead, it had cameras pointing every which way out of its nose. The young fella survived some hair-raising experiences of being shot at with guns and returning fire with a camera, instead of the other kind of canon. Once he retired from military service, he found an F9F-8P sitting on an airfield through a series of extraordinary events. Examining the airplane more closely, he found out of the 110 such aircraft built, and the fewer that survived being shot at, the Grumman Cougar he was staring at was his Cougar. With his name still under the canopy!

Perhaps I went a little overboard on the article this time, but it is well worth the effort to write and read if you, dear reader, realize that there is more to an aircraft than metal and plastic. Every aircraft has a story to tell, whether it is brand new and has only the assembly crew's tales or a hundred years old and flew only when being towed by a Model-T. Behind each aircraft are a hundred lives, from pilot to mechanic, painter to assembler, and everyone else who ensures that the aircraft is funded to fly and capable of doing so. There aren't enough hours in a lifetime to hear all of the stories of the aircraft listed on Barnstormers.com. But perhaps you can learn the story of one if you're looking to purchase your own piece of nostalgia. And if you already have one, then maybe you can take a trip over the KCAK and visit the MAPS Air Museum. This is their 30th year, and they've not been able to celebrate it properly with the social restrictions. So go for the airplanes but stay for the stories. I'm sure they'd be more than happy to share as many as you're glad to hear.