San Diego Air and Space Museum
Balboa Park
November 12, 2018
We took advantage of the Veterans Day Monday holiday, which Bob had off work, to visit the special exhibition at the Air and Space Museum, Speed: Science in Motion. We had been alerted by a Union Tribune article to the fact that the original Bullitt Mustang would be on display there, just from November 4-19. Meredith is an avid Mustang fan, so this was a “must see” for us.
Two different Mustangs were used in filming the 1968 Steve McQueen movie. The one used in the stunt jumps was damaged in filming and sent to a salvage yard. The “hero” Mustang used in other scenes was purchased by a private party and only recently rediscovered. We found a bonus when we arrived at the museum. Next to the Bullitt Mustang was displayed a beautifully restored Dodge Charger of the same vintage as the one seen in the movie’s chase scene. We had not actually seen Bullitt until that weekend; we made a point of streaming the movie a few days before our visit, so we would appreciate what we saw.
Although Steve McQueen’s Mustang has moved on and is no longer on display at the museum, the Speed exhibit remains. It is displays what the museum describes as “an exciting lineup of the fastest planes, jets, rockets, cars, motorcycles, boats, bicycles in the world.” We saw the land speed record setting bicycle ridden by Denise Mueller-Korenek behind a pace car to a world record of 183.9 miles per hour, and a Formula One race car, among other high speed vehicles. There are hands-on displays, such as a model differential, a video timing reflexes, and model cars that can be sent down tracks. The school kids who were enjoying the day off were entranced by the hands-on activities and could not have cared less about the Bullitt car.
After leaving the Speed exhibit, we walked through the rest of the museum. The PSA area brought back memories for Meredith, who used to fly PSA between the Bay Area and Los Angeles in the 1970’s.
We were wearing our memorial Veterans Day poppies, as we had been for several days. When we were in Canada for Remembrance Day four years ago we were struck by how poppies were everywhere, on every lapel. Since then we have tried to do our bit to revive the poppy wearing custom in our country, distributing Buddy Poppies obtained from the VFW to our friends and acquaintances.
We lingered in the World War I area, reading about the primitive planes used in that war and the men that flew them, then moved on to the World War II displays.
Our Balboa Park Explorer passes were sufficient for museum admission, but we had to pay an extra $5 for admission to the Speed exhibit.