As mentioned in a previous article, I recently had a chance to visit the Hiller Aviation Museum. It’s an interesting place. The museum is housed within a former industrial building.
In the main entrance hall, the visitor can view a sizable restoration shop with its menagerie of old equipment and tools. The shop is bigger than some machine shops. There are also many scaled airplane models dangling from the ceiling. Let’s not forget the rather sizable souvenir shop. As I mentioned before, I bought the t-shirt. 🙂
The main viewing room is the entire right side of the building. It houses many full scale and scaled air machines, with some original airplanes mixed with replicas. Where there’s space to fill, you’ll find an airplane or parts thereof.
One of the more interesting facts promoted at this museum is that there where successful attempts at powered flight long before the Wright Brothers. The Herman Avitor Jr. (or just Avitor) was powered by a 1-hp steam engine that drove twin propellers. It was was the first successfully flown heavier-than-air aircraft to employ a three-axis control system. It was built in San Francisco, CA. In 1869 it took flight near the modern day SF Int’l Airport. Sometime after its first flight, the contraption was destroyed when it caught fire.
Another interesting exhibit was the Pepsi Skywriter, used by Pepsi to promote their product for a few decades starting in the late 1920’s. I’m not sure if this is a replica, but it is interesting to see the old Pepsi logo and figure how long ago companies where using inventive new marketing techniques to promote their products.
about VARs doing anything, but this event stands out. Where other VARs are holding events at their offices or even just doing webinars, Hawk Ridge Systems went all out. Despite the 
also happy about being able to take a free tour of the Hiller Aviation Museum, which has been on my todo list for a long time. The museum was a little smaller than I expected, though every cubic inch has some aeroplane or other sky contraption and wonderment. I bought the t-shirt (as I always do). One complaint I have about using this location for events like SolidWorks Rollouts is that the museum remained open during the presentations. Once in awhile, arriving patrons did get a bit noisy which made it hard to focus on the presenter.