130 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1953 



ress or to fill in historical and technical gaps, most of the inquiries 

 and negotiations can be conducted by mail, but in many cases personal 

 visits by members of the staff are desirable to learn the story behind 

 the material under consideration and attend to the many details in- 

 volved in securing it for the Museum. The following trips were made 

 in this connection. 



July 8, by the head curator, to the Glenn L, Martin Aircraft Co. at Middle 

 River, Md., to inspect models of the PBM and JBM aircraft. 



August 11-15, by the associate curator, Robert Strobell, to Wright-Patterson 

 Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio, to determine progress being made on models of 

 Wright Brothers' aircraft and examine data on the aerial torpedo of World 

 War I. 



October 5-7, by Mr. StrobeU ,to Great Neck, L. I., N. T., and Wood-Ridge, N. J., 

 to obtain data on guided missiles, determine progress on instrument exhibit, and 

 examine and select photographs of Curtlss aircraft. 



May 4-6, by the head curator, to Langley Field, Va., to attend an inspection 

 of the laboratory of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and de- 

 termine the availability to the Museum of displayed material. 



June 26-27, by the senior exhibits worker, Stanley Potter, to Indianapolis, 

 Ind., to discuss methods of delivering and disassembling the Boeing 247-D air- 

 plane being considered for transfer to the Museum by the Civil Aeronautics 

 Administration. 



ADDITIONS TO THE COLLECTION AND IMPROVEMENT OF EXHIBITS 



New material received this year covers a wide range — from items 

 representative of past accomplishments to objects showing recent de- 

 velopments. These form a permanent record of progress and 

 outstanding achievement. 



Of the full-sized aircraft received, an impressive gift is the Douglas 

 DC-3 transport airplane presented by Eastern Air Lines through its 

 president, Edward V. Rickenbacker, with the helpful assistance of 

 Beverly Griffith. Before World War II the DC-3 was used on airlines 

 throughout the world. During that war this type, appropriately 

 named the Sky Train and known as C-47 to the Air Force, R4D to 

 the Navy, Dakota to the British, was used in every theater of opera- 

 tions and is still giving the same reliable passenger service. The air- 

 plane presented by Eastern Air Lines has flown 8,517,000 miles, and 

 carried 213,000 passengers. Since its purchase in 1937 and until its 

 retirement, it had been in operation on an average of 10l^ hours per 

 day. 



The Excalibur III airplane in which a series of remarkable flights 

 were made, was presented to the Museum by Pan American Airways. 

 This is the P-51 Mustang, made by North American Aviation, Inc., 

 and powered with a Packard Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. Trans- 

 continental records were made in it by Paul Mantz in 1946 and 1947, 

 and in 1951 Charles Blair flew it nonstop from New York to London 

 at a record speed averaging 446 miles an hour, and made the first solo 



