Controlling Air Traffic and Managing Airports: How He Built a Museum Winged Victory Ep 37

Rob and Scott sit down with Board member Mark Earle.  Mark talks about his origins with the museum as well as his role in getting the Silent Wings glider museum established in Lubbock and the importance of the glider roles in WWII.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hello everyone and welcome to Winged Victory with Rob and Scott, a podcast by the National Museum of World War II Aviation here in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Hello and welcome to our next edition of Winged Victory with Rob, me being Rob, and Scott. That's me. And you'll notice the matching ensembles that uh We coordinate. Yeah, yeah. Planned months ahead of time.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

I don't know how I learned the uniform was this. I just happened to show up this way.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

And uh a repeat customer from long ago, um Mark Earl, who has his fingers in nearly everything in this museum. A lot, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

A lot of different things.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Well, I mean, from education to bricklaying. Uh yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

I managed to get out of the bricklaying. You did? I did.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

You did, and finally got out of the blacklay. I was one of the people who got flicked with that booger. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Well, I think we could we could run down your credentials, but maybe you could it'd be easier if you just kind of how do you even get involved in the in the museum here?

SPEAKER_03 1:15

Well, I I go all the way to the very beginning. Uh I was the airport director here, came here in 2003. And uh one of the very first things I was asked to do as the director was to go talk to a guy that was trying to s establish a museum on airport property. Uh so I went out and uh got involved with it. It turned out there was a lot of head bumping going on between the airport staff and this guy. And uh personalities. Yeah, and I think a lot of it was the airport didn't have uh at that time didn't have any experience with the museum on the on the airport property itself. But I'd had that history. Uh the airports that I'd managed prior to this one, um, uh every one of them had a museum, uh, an aviation museum, um, because almost every airport in the country has a World War II aviation history, and they like to preserve that history on the airport. As they should. Yeah. So I was involved in uh in just ongoing relationships with uh several museums uh throughout my career, but then actually built one completely and stood it up from uh the very beginning. And that was Silent Wings. Silent Wings Museum in Lubbock. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Yeah. And I it's it's on the list, and it's actually on the list well ahead of Dayton and and a bunch of others.

SPEAKER_03 2:29

Um it's an amazing museum. We do I'm sure we'll talk about it a little bit and in a little bit. Uh but anyway, the here, but you know, just back to the start of this. So we've ended up negotiating the lease. The guy that uh was developing the museum originally had the concept for a small museum, uh several collectors bringing in a few airplanes and uh probably gonna be a private museum. But the discussions as we went on turned into uh the potential for growing it into something much bigger. Um so we put clauses in there that the a provision in there that said that if they if the museum became a nonprofit at some point and decided to expand, uh that we would allow uh the museum's leasehold to expand so they could build more. Uh so the uh all those provisions were in the lease, that actually the current lease that we have right now. Uh over time, uh the original developer of that museum um uh left uh but a nonprofit was stood up uh and actually took ownership of the museum and responsibility for the lease. And from that point forward it started developing. And uh with probably the biggest boost we got was when Westpac moved uh the business from California, the aircraft restoration business from California, uh that really gave us the opportunity to opportunity to develop something really special.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Yeah, it's definitely unique to have a museum where you can walk into the working shop and actually see you know flying airplanes being restored.

SPEAKER_02 3:57

It's it's a big attraction when people come through the door. You know, you see some guy who looks like a gearhead, it's like, so you want to go into the shop?

SPEAKER_03 4:07

Yeah. It's in and it's not only just the restoration shop itself. That's uh for the tour that really makes it special. But you can't run a flying museum. If you look at all the other museums that are flying museums, uh the difficult part is actually maintaining the aircraft, managing the aircraft, marshalling them around just uh for events and other things. Uh uh this would be Marshall Dillon. Yeah, exactly. Because of the uh the relationship we have with Westpac and all the experience uh and the resources, uh it it allows this museum to really have a uh probably one of the best flying museums in the world.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Yeah, it's pretty unique. It's unique to have the uh personalities over there and the people that you know, like a bill-deed or somebody that can procure all the parts that you need, you know, because it's just a constant battle with these things. You know, we went through with the F3A before the fly day, you know, had generator issues, and you know, it's a freshly restored airplane, but it's it's a freshly restored 85-year-old airplane. Oh, airplane, yeah. You know, and the parts are all old, and even when they're you know restored or rebuilt, they they still have issues. So to pre able to procure that, yeah, you know, for a regular museum would be something that'd be pretty monumental. And yet we're able to handle it on a daily basis here.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

Yeah, it's it was uh sort of an accidental thing. Uh you know, the museum was just going to be another aviation museum, um uh which are it's nice. Uh I love going to every all these small pocket museums, but with it with Westpac coming out, it gave us the opportunity to really expand and do something more. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

So what is your role with the museum now? Uh yeah. I mean, you you you're a part of it on the on the led, you know, on the airport side, but then you became involved.

SPEAKER_03 5:52

So when after we ended up putting the lease in place, um uh several years later, uh 2009 or so, I ended up going on the board. Um for the museum. For the museum, yeah. And actually we had to go through city attorney's office. I had to recuse myself from anything to do with the lease on the airport side because I was on the board. Yeah. Um but after going on the board, uh it seems like every time I came out to the museum, I ended up picking up another job. Another job. Yep. Which is kind of how it works around here.

SPEAKER_04 6:20

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

You're in the line of sight when questions are being asked. Hey, you're the man.

SPEAKER_03 6:27

Yeah. So if you know, one of the first things I picked up was the education program. Uh, we had a a really good uh K-12 program that had just been established, but we were trying to figure out what to do with it and to expand it. Um, so I ended up uh weighing in with the folks that were running the K-12 program and trying to find ways. What do you do after? We know if you get a kid inspired to get them to where they're really excited about uh aviation, you know, what do you do next? What can you hand to them? So uh uh we started working and uh looking at ways to get a college-bound track and get an also to get a career technical training track. And so the education program was a big focus when I first got here.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

And how important is that for the museum to have this program? I mean I mean, when you think about an air museum, you just think, well, okay, we're just gonna have an air museum, if you have flying airplanes, that's gonna be the attraction. But I mean Well what is the significance of to have an uh an education program to go through those motions and to have that importance?

SPEAKER_03 7:33

I mean, yeah, I think this museum museum, the leadership, even before I came on the board, they got it right from the start. Uh the museum is an education institution. It's all about education. If you think about it, the history piece that we do with adults uh or adults and kids about the the World War II history piece and learning about the airplanes, that's education. And if you so the entire museum, uh the experience coming through, the exhibits, uh, the tours, uh, we're educating the public about a very special uh time in our history and something that we all care about, airplanes, yeah, being around them. Uh so uh that that part is the core of the education piece. But we realized that we really needed to uh partner with schools, partner with uh the other education institutions around to get kids involved, get get kids involved as early as possible uh to where they're aware of aviation. Um uh not only just the cool part of it and the flying part and what and looking at the airplanes, but also aware of aviation as a possible career.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

Yeah, the technical part is is vital because you know the the work the available workforce is kind of shrinking, and you know, you want to get that your share of the of the good the good ones. And you know, to in to inspire the kids, I mean old as I am, World War II was you know on TV and Yeah, we grew up with it, yeah. But now uh especially given you know some uh curriculum managers, it's it's downplayed uh or even ignored.

SPEAKER_03 9:10

Yeah, if you really look at it, so you know part of it is um um time, just simply time. If you look at the the length of time between now and looking back to World War II, it's it's uh it's just really expanded. I mean, when when we were going to school, it was maybe 10 years, 15 years before uh we were going to school, so it was a major focus. But a lot has happened since then. So the things that are being taught in history, the thing uh there's another uh you know, there's another probably 60 years uh of history that's thrown in there.

SPEAKER_04 9:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

And so it's it's getting edged out, or was getting edged edged out. So uh this museum, the board, uh even before I came on, uh they focused on uh establishing a program, a K-12 program, to where we could get kids uh and cooperate with schools to get kids out to the museum and learn about World War II history. Uh of course, uh uh anytime that you s establish an education program, especially aviation is the focus of it, uh it's natural to make that a STEM program. So the very first program that was all the uh modules that we set up for the K-12 program were initially all STEM modules.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Well, and just even as a history major, as you get deeper into it, you get deeper into the technology and the science of it. Uh I still don't understand three percent of what Ashby was telling us about being a test pilot and the physics involved there, but I I'm working at it. And there's you said test pilot, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

That's the way Ashby presents it.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

So I mean uh yeah, that's all it's good to have that influence on kids and everything, but uh as far as the museum goes and having this program, what are the the benefits of you seeing? I mean, for the museum in the community, like the outreach to the community, having this education program, bringing these people in, but being able to what kind of effect, positive effect would I would you say that that has on a museum like this to have a program like that beyond just you know obviously shaping and helping put that in kids' minds and stuff? I mean yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:27

Well, uh this is a military community. Yeah. Uh it's a and when you look at preserving a piece of this this this really important piece of history, of military history, um uh it's something that's just really it it's a it's a good fit for the community. So in addition to having a place that's where there's uh there's um a heritage being preserved, it's a heritage that that most of the people in this town have some tie to. So it's it's their history in a way. Yeah, so or at least something that they have an affinity for. So that's a natural fit. And because of that, we have tremendous support from the community. Uh but uh over over time, when you look at this this story that we're telling, uh this is an this is a story that's owned by everyone in the nation. So we've seen from the or tried from the very beginning to make this a national museum. Uh, and it is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

Okay, to get back to it, I'm actually looking at one of the uh benefits that we see in this museum, in the number three of four kids who have grown up in this museum. Oh, yeah. We we see uh young volunteers back at the N3N, you know, who have to wait till mom get them in.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

And well, we got pilots that have come out of here. I mean, you know, Ian, little Ian, Corbett, you know, pilots there, and so I mean it, you know, it's a great program for sure.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

Yeah, so it's you know, the K-12 program, uh, where most of these kids get their start that they end up growing up with the museum. The K-12 program uh is all about inspiration. Uh there's only so much you can do in a essentially a two-week program teaching a STEM course and then coming into the museum for one day for hands-on stuff. Uh you you can impart some uh some information, but there's not a lot that's going to be that's gonna be taught. Yeah, I mean it's a good idea. But the idea is to get them aware make them aware of it, uh to inspire them, to make them excited about it. Plant the seed. Go talk to their parents about it, uh, get the parents involved. Uh that inspiration piece was the first thing that was stood up in our overall education program. Uh, but then we realized, as I mentioned earlier, we realized we have to have something for the kids to hand off to. And the first thing we had an opportunity to work on was uh the UCCS Engineering Program. Uh initially that was a senior level engineering program. They had a program where they would, the kids would uh put a project together, uh, and the project uh after they finished it, they would present it uh at an assembly. Um that program uh we ended up being one of the places, one of the many places where uh uh a team of UCCS students, the engineering students, would come out and put together a project. Um over time, though, we ended up getting more and more of those projects in the same semester. So we'd have two or three projects going on at once. Ultimately, though, that grew into uh the idea of putting different engineering disciplines together from UCCS from different different um lines, um, everything from electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, uh IT uh folks, uh, to put them together in multi multidisciplinary teams to build interactive displays.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

We saw that when we talked to Jennifer and Lydia.

SPEAKER_03 14:56

Yeah. Yeah. So uh over time uh we started looking for funding for that. Uh we found the Kane Foundation who was able to provide a grant so that we could make it a paid internship, which made it a lot easier to get the students in, of course. And get the right students. Get the right students too, yeah. Uh the real motivated ones. And that program has been terrific. Uh it's ongoing now. They're working on three different interactive displays over there uh currently. Uh, and we have uh, of course, constantly improving the uh interactive display on the N3N, uh the fly the flying simulator. Uh and all the interactive displays, they're not rides. It's not intended to be the type of simulators where you come out and you're bucking around inside a you know a dark box with a video in front of you. It's more about learning. Uh it's actually taking uh a uh Norden bomb site and having it set up to where you can actually learn how it works through uh going through a mission of sorts. Uh it's uh learning the physics that are associated with firing uh a 50-caliber machine gun out of the waist uh position of a of a B-17. Uh it's it's just it's not what you think it is when you fire a gun from a moving airplane at a moving target. Wait, it's over there. Yeah, it's currently everything's going over there. We have a number of guys who've done that. And they'll tell you. Yeah. But the science of it is in the opportunity for kids to learn and understand something more about science, even if they're not interested in aviation. But that's what the interactive uh uh displays that are being developed over there in the UCCS engineering program here, that's what it's all about. Um so the college track, we got an opportunity to do that first. Um, but uh ultimately we really were focused on trying to find a technical training track. And a natural one for us because of Westpac being here, is to stand up an A and P program. Yeah. Uh initially we looked at uh let's just build one, uh let's go out and get it licensed. And we had a conversation with the FAA, and uh it was really discouraging. It was gonna be a lot to learn, a steep learning curve plus uh five to six years at a minimum to get that in place. And that's if we're lucky, if we're really lucky and successful in doing it. Uh then we started looking for partners, looking for existing AMP programs uh and having a partnership. Uh, and we ran into Spartan uh college uh up in Broomfield. Uh at least that's one of their locations. Um and Spartan, we worked with them for for two or three years uh and developed uh uh started work working with Spartan and some of the school districts on a high school level curriculum to get kids in high school interested and aware, make them aware of AMP. Uh and that later became a statewide curriculum that's being used in a lot of schools now. Um Spartan became more focused uh just from a corporate level on uh flight training and some other uh activities they had and putting their energies there. Uh so they kind of drifted out of the picture and uh we started looking for other partners. Uh and uh now we're talking to Ames Community College about the possibility of having a one of their locations. They have a huge AP school up in um in Loveland. And we're looking at having an auxiliary location uh down here in the museum. Um, and so that's the conversation we're having now about standing up uh an AP school. Yeah, it's super exciting. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

It is. I'm ready for it. Uh that's all you've ever heard from anybody here is like, how do you do this? Well, you gotta go to school. We'll already do that. We're not here. Not here yet. So you personally, you you didn't plan on in life, I guess, being a part of a museum or or being passionate about the education program. You kind of, you know, fell into it, I guess. Yeah, I kind of fell into everything I did. So how? So why? I mean, why would you decide to like I'm gonna, you know, devote, you know, so much of your time, especially now that you know you're we basically retired, right? Yeah. So you're retired and you're like, hey, I'm gonna go enjoy my life, and but no, instead I'm gonna suffer sometimes at this museum.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

Well, I started off as an air traffic controller and uh right out of high school. Uh I was I was a jazz musician in high school, played in big band jazz in San Antonio, and uh was looking at a music career and there wasn't really a a path forward for that for me at the time. I was actually looking at uh going the route of going into the Air Force and uh heading for the Band of the West and then ultimately for their national jazz band program, which was really amazing. Uh and I qualified for it, but uh it was like a year and a half waiting list at the time, and so that was out. Uh my dad was an air traffic controller at San Antonio Tower uh and used to go out there and hang out on midshifts and uh was really loved the whole airport thing and the air traffic thing. So uh I ended up going into the Air Force air traffic controller for four years. Uh came out and went to the FAA, worked at Fort Worth Center. So that's how it started. And then uh over time with the GI Bill, I transitioned uh over to the airport management side. Um Richmond, Virginia, uh airport there, and that was the first aviation museum I ran into. They used to have the state aviation museum on the Richmond Airport.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 20:21

And uh uh I worked in the the director's office, and one of the things I was assigned to is helping with that project. Uh that project was uh uh it was just a general aviation museum overall, but Virginia aviation history. Um and uh I learned through that working with them about how the FAA encourages museums on airports. Uh they actually have a program where Congress uh actually mandated that the FAA establish a program to uh lease, yeah, to support museums by giving them low end low-cost leases on airports, all the way down to, in some cases, uh zero dollar leases to support. So but anyway, that was the first was uh I started picking up the bug when I was there at uh Richmond. Um uh from after Richmond I went to McAllen, Texas, and got involved in a history project down there that was actually off airport, it was a closed Air Force base that was nearby uh from World War II. And then um from there I went to Lubbock. And Lubbock is really it really set, yeah, with the glider program.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

So let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

What was this program of yours down there?

SPEAKER_03 21:34

Yeah, so the um the the first day I walked in on the job in Lubbock, there was uh this little old guy he was sitting on the just on the couches in the reception area, and he had this notebook on his knees. And I just walked by Hi, how you doing? Doing fine, sir. I just walked on by, went back to the office, and doing all the stuff you do when you first show up, arranging your desk and uh trying to figure out what's next. And uh well, this went on for about a week. And the guy's still there every morning was sitting out there with his little notebook on his on his knees. So I went to staff, one of the staff, and said, Who's the guy out front? Is anybody helping this guy? He's been here for a week. For a week. He's been here every morning for a customer service.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

It's not the best.

SPEAKER_03 22:17

And we did fix that. But uh they said he's one of those glider pilots. And I had no idea. I didn't know anything about the World War II glider pilot program. So I went over and said, hey, come on into the office, let's have a conversation. So we sat down and he uh this guy had trained at that airport at Lubbock International Airport. Um at the time, Lubbock had Reese Air Force Base, which was on the other side of town, but during World War II, Lubbock International was a glider training base. Um it was South Plains Army Airfield. And this guy had trained there. Uh he had trained on the CG-4A um section of the training. Uh the glider pilots would go through uh similar to the power pilots that would go through primary. All the primary and the basic. And but they would get up to after they got through basic, they would then go to dead stick school. And there were dedicated schools all over West Texas and New Mexico, up into Oklahoma, where they had uh uh training for dead stick landing. So they just take them up, cut the engine off, and tell them to land. Yep. Well, every airplane is potentially a glider.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Every airplane is a glider if you shut it off. Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

Yeah, so the dead stick landing, they would just yeah, take them up and cut it off and they'd land. They have to land.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

The good thing about being out in Texas is there's nothing to hit.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

That was a big part of it. But then the main thing was out in West Texas and New Mexico was isolation. Because when they were developing the glider program and the tactics they were developing, it was a secret. Uh or at least trying to guard it as much as possible. And that was a very, very isolated area back then. But after Dead Stick Landing, they would go to uh training in the actual uh CG-4A, and that's where Lubbock uh International Airport came in, South Plains Army Airfield. The CG-4A training uh was in several airports initially, but then they consolidated everything into Lubbock by the end of the war.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Yeah. The the Germans executed one of the most classic special operations ever. Abe and a mail. Abe and mail. Yeah. The the glider attack there, and it it became the focus of uh the book Special Spec Ops.

SPEAKER_03 24:35

Oh, okay. And I'm not familiar with it.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

Uh Bill McCraven wrote it, and um he listed criteria, you know, using new technology and mission specific and rehearsals and all that stuff. I don't want to get into that too much, but I've been to Abe and Mail. Yeah, and the only way they were gonna take that was was gliders. They were prepared for paratroops, yeah, and it was brilliantly executed. It uh kind of led them down the path to a couple of tragedies later.

SPEAKER_03 25:08

But uh Yeah. So the the Germans really got involved uh in the glider program. Uh they'd actually gone to Russia and seen some of the stuff that they were doing uh back in the 30s. Yeah. Uh and they were looking for ways to train military pilots, and they were restricted after the Treaty of Versailles from training military pilots. So uh there was a guy's name was Student, it was his last name. Kurt Student. Yeah, there you go. And he went uh he he established the glider program. Uh Wasserkupa uh is the name of the mountain. Uh we're in is in East Germany now, I believe. But it's uh or or what was East Germany. Uh but Wasserkupa is where they would train uh uh really young uh kids to to fly. And uh they started off with the youth corps and they had uh and and started establishing a broader and broader training program. And a lot of the early pilots, uh German pilots in uh World War II came out of the glider program.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

And so, I mean, as you said, the glider program wanted that we wanted it to be secure and that's the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

So this guy shows us in your office. He he presents that he flew gliders back in World War II on this place, but what is his goal?

SPEAKER_03 26:26

Well, he was he wanted to um he wanted to establish a museum in Lubbock. Um and it was something that he said right away, he said, I can't do this. He said, but this is the place where we ought to be doing this. And he told me about a museum um that had been established uh in Terrell, Texas, out to the east of Dallas for the World War II glider program. It was called the Silent Wings Museum. Uh there was an organization that was established back in the early 70s, the National World War II Glider Pilots Association. Um and uh the very first thing they wanted to do was to build a museum. So they uh they started collecting artifacts and just appealing and growing as they grew the organization. They started uh just reaching out to everybody for just about anything related to the program that they could put it in the museum. Uh and then there was another there was one group of them that started building a CG4A glider to restore it. Uh they found a CG4 uh frame. It was on top of uh, I think a used car dealership in Fresno. And it was just kind of a hood ornament up on top of it, and they just keep in the wind and everything else and uh and the sun is just it was just falling apart. Uh but the frame was in perfect shape and had a lot of the parts to it. So they got that, gathered a bunch of other parts, and they over time restored, fully restored the CG4A glider. They put that in the Terrell Museum, along with about every artifact that's associated with the program. Everything that the gliders carried, the the mini bulldozer, the all the stuff that they carried, um, the uh the Jeep, of course. It was the glider was actually designed to build to take a Jeep into combat. Uh, all that was, they were able to collect that in Terrell and they put it in that museum. Well, he wanted to that that museum, um, he was his feeling was the guy that was visiting me, uh, that that should be in Lubbock. And he was really pushing for that. Eventually I met uh the president of the association, the National World War II Glider Pilots Association, a guy named Michael Samick. Uh Michael was uh Swiss, uh I believe. Uh Swiss or Austrian. Uh but Michael was an immigrant.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Uh he was not an American citizen when he joined the glider program at 29 Palms in California, uh, in the early I mean another place where you're not going to run into anything and it's like it's Joshua Trees.

SPEAKER_03 28:52

Yeah, he did, but he did his training there and the very early part of the glider program, uh, and went on to fly in Sicily and southern France and missions there. But Michael became later in life, became very successful. He was just a one of these brilliant guys uh and worked for a major corporation uh out of Germany, uh international business. And uh and he was one of these guys also who had vision. Uh and when I met Michael, he realized that they were getting to the age uh where they needed to take the small museum they built in Terrell and put it into a place that made more sense, a place that would permanently take care of it.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Well, where people could access it.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

I mean so this is all perfect timing. Yeah, it was, it was. Yeah, so from the guy that showed up on the you know in the office there, ended up meeting Michael Samick, who runs that organization. They were looking for a place to put the museum permanently, a community that cared about it, and so off we went. Um so we started working with the organization. There were about four or five different uh uh groups in the organization and the glider pilots association that had different ideas about where to put the museum. Always. There was one that was talking to Pima and he wanted to bring it to Pima. Uh, but Pima was only going to give them a little small corner in one of their hangars. There was another guy talking to the U.S. Air Force Museum, and uh and it was kind of the same thing there. They just said they wanted to display the glider, but they didn't want to dedicate uh a section of the museum to a story of the glider program. So our pitch was that we would build a standalone museum. Uh we'd raise the funds for it. Um we would um uh dedicate the old terminal building that we had moved out of several years before that, uh we'd dedicate that to the museum. Uh we'd hire an architect and put the funds into building a world-class museum. Uh after uh about a year uh pretty intense discussions, I was invited to uh in to in Florida to go to one of their meetings, and uh I was supposed to give a presentation on what we were proposing to build in Lubbock. Uh and I'm sitting with Michael at the table uh right before I'm supposed to go up and speak about this, and he turned on the PowerPoint. And he goes, by the way, as soon as you finish your presentation, they're going to vote on whether to take this museum to Lubbock or not. No pressure. No pressure at all. Uh so but the How convincing can you be? Exactly. Presentation went well, and uh and the decision was made to take it to Lubbock, and so off we went. Uh after that, it was just a lot of really bad chicken dinners raising funds from about every group that would listen to us talk about the museum. Uh we got a six million dollar uh uh congressional insert uh grant. Uh long story there, but uh another day. But uh and then the terminal building, we got the city council to to donate that to the museum. And we hired HOK architects. There's a specialty HOK practice that was at the time was in St. Louis, and all they did was museum work. Oh wow. Yeah, and so and they designed it. Uh and HOK was uh they designed the original Air and Space Smithsonian.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Uh so at the beginning of this, you know nothing about gliders. No. So by the time you get through this whole process, you build a museum, you get this thing moved over. How would you what is something that you learned about what happened in World War II with the gliders that you know everybody else thinks one thing, but you know that there is a truth to it?

SPEAKER_03 32:28

Yeah, I think uh the the the thing that you that most people have the impression is that the gliders were just all crashed. It was a suicide mission. And uh most of the glider pilots bridled at that. Um it was you know, there are a lot of missions, every mission had its dangers. And any flying mission in combat has really uh a much higher level of danger.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

Well, and it kind of because just to go on that point, like it just always felt like the story was that they just decided we're gonna go into you know D-Day, we're just gonna throw a bunch of grunts in the back of this, you know, and we're just gonna tow it and then let it go, and then whatever happens, happens. But did you know that you're actually telling me that I mean they got primary training, basic, you know, training, the whole regiment.

SPEAKER_02 33:12

So well, and the infantry got special training too.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Yeah, so they thought that this was just like something that like you know, a month before, oh we need to get all these troops over there.

SPEAKER_03 33:21

No, the whole idea was uh of a glider program. The Germans actually did it first. Um uh was that the gliders uh the early use in Aben Amil was a was a uh uh textbook. Yeah, but but that was special forces. Yeah. But the main use of the gliders was to bring equipment into combat for the airborne parachute, well, for the parachute airborne troops. Yeah, and so the Germans started using the gliders to bring the equipment in that they couldn't parachute in effectively. Uh the Americans and the British uh picked up on that and developed gliders for the same purpose. In fact, the CG-4A was designed specifically to carry a Jeep. Um one of the one of the uh when they did all the planning for uh not only Normandy but all the invasions in World War II, uh they uh the plannings uh showed that lightly uh armored airborne troops could only last for two to three days. Yep uh and uh before armor would be brought up and and they'd be pushed off the beachhead. So they needed to get to five to six days to where they could get the buildup enough to withstand an attack from armor, uh counter a counterattack. Uh and the way they did that, the way that what they came up with was is the glider because they needed a standoff weapon, uh, anti-tank weapons, uh they needed artillery, uh, they needed better medical facilities going in, uh, and they needed communications. And so for communications, it was the Jeep. Uh radios were not that reliable, uh, especially in in the handheld radios, and then the one on the back that you know, that's the guy you shoot first. Yeah, it was better to get the word from the person. Okay, messenger. Yeah. Well the main thing was Jeep Jeeps, yeah. The Jeeps, they were runners, yeah, essentially. And then about and of course they could haul trailers around with equipment as well. So the Jeep was the communication piece that solved that. The the other weapons were the uh there was a World War I 75mm pack callitzer that was just the right size for the glider. So they'd put the pack caller in one glider, and they put a trailer full of of uh 75 millimeter ammo in another glider, and they would land side by side. And jeeps to tow them. Yep, and the jeeps would pull up and tow them. Um and then they had a 37 millimeter straight line shot weapon for uh anti-tank. Anti-tank, yeah. So that equipment uh the planners determined that that would allow the airborne to last from five to seven days, and they could have the beachhead built up by them and get the tanks and the other heavy equipment off the ships. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 36:00

Yeah. Well, and so you've you've now been associated with your first world-class from the ground up museum. Yes. Now you get involved in this one.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

Yeah. So uh the Lubbock Museum, uh, and I encourage everybody to go see it, the Silent Wings Museum. It's right on I-27, just north of Lubbock, uh, on the airport property. It's got a big C-47 on a stick out front of it. Uh uh, so you you can't miss it. But uh that museum uh uh is world class. Uh, HOK did an incredible job uh with the we it's it's got all the world-class cases and uh equipment, uh the graphics, uh to save money and spend our money and focus on getting those high-end graphics and and uh exhibits. Uh we did not spend a lot of money on research. Uh I did most of the research myself. Uh it was vetted through Texas Tech as a museum sciences program, so we they were vetting everything that the research that I did. And then I wrote every word in the museum, uh, all the exhibits. So I was the Gene Pfeffer. Yeah, I was gonna say that's a lot of work. Yeah. Uh and it's and on top of having a normal job. But it's running the airport. It's a lot of late nights. Yeah. But it was it was about um oh gosh, um it probably saved us about three million dollars uh on the project of the page.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

So really it became a passion project. I mean, so we went from like I'm the manager of this place, I'm gonna come in here and run this airport. Now you've got this giant passion project that you're just ascended.

SPEAKER_02 37:41

When the hook set.

SPEAKER_03 37:42

Yeah. And the people that I met. Uh Michael Samick, uh just an amazing guy. He ended up on his glider going into Sicily, the very first mission. It was a British operation, and the Brits had pilots, but they didn't have the horse yet. It hadn't been developed. Oh. Uh, it wasn't ready. Uh, but the Americans had the CG-4s, but they didn't have all their pilots over and trained yet. So uh the British part of the airborne, uh it was Ladbroke was the name of the operation. The British part of the airborne uh invasion of Sicily uh was CG-4As flown by the British the British glider pilots. There were 20 American volunteers who volunteered to also fly with that to get experience, and Michael Samick was one of those, so one of the very first to go in on a mission. Uh sadly, a lot of those aircraft, because they were just learning how to use the glider, a lot of those aircraft coming in over the water to head to the beach. They were supposed to go in and take some bridges. Uh, a lot of them uh were released too far away from uh land, and they ended up in water. And Michael's glider ended up in the water. Um he said he was a strong swimmer, he was about five to six miles out, he thought he could make it into the beach. He started swimming and realized after about a mile that he was gonna get worn out in the waves and everything. And he luckily came across another glider that was floating. He crawled up on the wing and waited for a ship to pick him up. So he made it in. But but Michael Samick was amazing. There was a guy named Otto Lyons, uh, who was uh uh leader in the organization. Otto, I think, flew the Normandy mission and the Market Garden mission. But so he was stationed in Europe. In between missions, Otto was a drummer and he played in a big band. And so Otto and I would talk jazz in big band music all the time. But Otto's favorite story, uh, he was a pastor in his church in Memphis uh for the second half of his life. But uh Otto would tell the story about he was a drummer. The drummer and the band are sitting on the stage and they were playing music for a fan dancer that was brought in to entertain the troops. And it was a really famous fan dancer, it was a big deal, it was in uh in the London area somewhere. The fan dancers out there and dancing, and of course the troops don't get to say anything because the fan dancer is skillfully shielding everything between the dancer and the troops, however, but the band got a knife in Otto. He used to light up every time he would tell that story. But he also flew the Normandy and the Holland missions. Uh just amazing heroes and tremendous people that I got to meet through the program now.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

Very under uh desert or not dessert, under what is the word I'm looking for? This group of people that did all these missions all the time. Like you don't exemplary. They're not really, you know, out there in the spotlight. No, they're not something that you know you you hear about the paratroopers, you hear about the pilots, you hear but these guys that did these uh glider missions and stuff were pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 40:39

I guess un unsung is unsung, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:43

And it was it wasn't a suicide mission, but it was a one-way mission. Yeah. Because you went in, you landed the glider, and then you you became infantry. Exactly. Then you picked up, and usually those guys, a lot of those guys carried the Thompson submachine gun because it was shorter, they could carry it with them. Um and a lot of them just thought it was cool, you know, because a gangster gun. Because it is cool.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

So our time's getting a little short, but I got one more question for you. Um I know that we had a couple of gliders donated to the museum. So when are you gonna head up the restoration on these gliders? Uh got a couple other projects working on. One or two.

SPEAKER_03 41:21

Uh those came from did those come from Lobick? Uh no. I think those came uh from up here somewhere. Okay. Uh but the the frames that we have.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

I know that we were gonna maybe talk to them about getting the plans or whatever. They had a bunch of information on the phone. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:35

So the Solomon Wings Museum has agreed to to cooperate as as much as they can. Uh uh plans and uh they've already we already have all the plans. Uh they had them microfished and they digitized them and we have those up here. Now we just need a volunteer team that knows how to weld. Yeah, exactly. Fabricate and weld. But beyond that, there's a lot of bits and pieces, as you can imagine, uh, that the Silent Wings has. Yeah. Museum has. It was all the stuff that was in the original Terrell Museum that was moved to Lubbock. And the stuff that they don't need or that are duplicated, they've offered to provide that for a project up here. So that's great.

SPEAKER_02 42:11

Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I'm excited. Excited to see that. You want all the artifacts you can get to really tell the story. Yeah. I mean, so many of our cases are labeled the story through artifacts. And just to you know, you can't touch the stuff, but well, we're we're gonna these parts will go on the plane.

SPEAKER_03 42:31

Yeah, so this is stuff that you can't really fabricate. Right. So, you know, that's one thing about Westpac, we can fabricate a lot of things, but this is a steel tubes uh frame, but everything else is wood and cloth and and resin, you know, all the little pulleys. And Scott, you've seen all those pulleys up in your pulleys and everything. Yeah, it's just all that kind of stuff that you can't find anymore, you can't duplicate.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

So, what I'm hearing we need is a is a DC3. And then we need to have a team that's we need to build one of these C47, you need a team that builds one of these things, and we'll hang it up on the ceiling and then make it look like the the C47's towing it.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

Or we could we're a flying museum. Tow the thing, flying. I'll let you go ahead and volunteer for that.

SPEAKER_03 43:13

Yeah, it's funny. Uh the restoration, the silent wings restoration is first static. Uh, you know, it wasn't going to be a flying one. But there was two or three of those guys that wanted they wanted to do it. Oh sure.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

Yeah. Well, it's the same thing, you know. We you know, talked to Frank Royal when he came out, and he was he was ready to hop in that P38 and fly that thing, and you know, and he could have done it. I think he could have done it. You know, if he physically could have done it, I think he could have he was sharp enough, he would have been known how to do it. Well, Mark, figured out a way. Thank you very much. We really appreciate you sitting down with us and uh once again, and uh it brings back memories. Yeah, and it's great that you know that you were able to share all you know, yeah. And hopefully people can get out, you know, after the course they come and see our museum, they get down to Lubbock and see another world class uh museum.

SPEAKER_03 43:57

Yeah, and I think there's some potential for the Two museums cooperating over time. That's an amazing story, the Glider program down there. Something I'd love to see them do. They have this incredible film that we developed for the Silent Wings Museum. It's when you first go in. It's a theater piece where you sit in and I think it's about 12 minutes or something and it gives an overview of the program. To promote the Silent Wings Museum here, I'd like to see that film up here running on a loop. Sure, why? In a small theater somewhere in the corner of the museum. So people become more familiar with the program.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

If only you had a little bit of influence somewhere. Somewhere. Board member Mark Earl. I understand. All right, Mark. Well, thank you very much. We really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

Thank you. Thanks for your time, Mark. Thanks. Well, we've been meaning to get Mark back in front of the camera. He, as I said, has got his hands in so much around here. Um that he does.

SPEAKER_01 44:53

That he does. Man's the man is always doing something.

SPEAKER_02 44:58

But um I'm glad we got to talk about the Silent Wings Museum because uh I really would like to see us with a C-47 and uh and unheralded.

SPEAKER_01 45:09

That was a word I was kind of looking for. That yeah, you know, these glider guys, you know, they're not a huge part of the story that you always hear. At least for me. I mean, personally, I don't I don't I didn't really know anything about them too much.

SPEAKER_02 45:21

Well, William suggested underappreciated too, and that certainly fits.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:26

Um I being a history nerd was familiar with it, but uh when Mark started rattling off, you know, the the casualty figures, or that I was surpr I was surprised that they were as low as they were, because that was always the reputation, and you see these photographs of gliders strewn everywhere, especially Market Garden, well, and after D-Day too. And they're all broken. And you think, well, how did anybody get out of that?

SPEAKER_01 45:58

Well, that's one of the things about the lore of war, I guess, is that once something gets kind of going in a direction, as far as the story goes, it it's really hard to stop that. It's kind of like taking the F3A Brewster Corsair. Yeah, and that's what's the lore about that? They're all pieces of crap, that's why they didn't go into service, and that's not that is couldn't be farther from the truth. But that's what everybody believes, and that's what they've heard, and that's the way it is.

SPEAKER_02 46:23

Well, and that's our job is to fix that. Yeah, we know that uh the the CEO of the of the one of the marine air groups specifically wanted a brewster to fly so he could convince his guys that it was, in fact, a really good airplane, and it really is. Yeah, it really is. Um and so yeah, we we wind up doing a little bit of corrective surgery now and again.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

But you know, getting back to the glider aspect, I mean, can you imagine having a Jeep strapped behind you and a tube frame, and you're hooked to a C47, and then as soon as they let that thing go, okay, this is all I got. There's no there's no putting the throttle in to get a little bit more out of it.

SPEAKER_02 47:11

Well, except that Jeep, you know, that Jeep can add some velocity. Um, but that would be the time when you would have made bloody sure that that thing is griped down properly.

SPEAKER_01 47:25

Yeah, so I mean that's just amazing. There's some great stories. It's really good to hear. Uh, you know, I mean it's you know, it's not even our museum that we're gonna promote it.

SPEAKER_02 47:33

Well, and it's something that's at some point there is likely to become uh a closer cooperation.

SPEAKER_01 47:41

Well, even if there isn't, I mean it we're all a part of this, you know, trying to keep this heritage alive and the stories alive, and and they're doing it in their way, and we do it in our way. So it's just fantastic. And it's great, you know, to have Mark who who did that with that museum and to be a part of this museum, obviously from the ground up, you know, have the benefit of that experience. Yeah, yeah. Something that you gotta have is a is a if you want to be a successful museum, is you gotta have those people with that experience. So we're lucky to have them.

SPEAKER_02 48:10

Truly. But uh we've got a lot of people we're lucky to have.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

Yeah, it's a great place, it's a great place to volunteer. It's uh if you anybody's interested in trying to help out the museum, um, you can even if you're local and you want to volunteer, you know, we have all kinds of opportunities. We might have a glider team assembly team assembling here, who knows?

SPEAKER_02 48:32

Yeah, I don't I don't think you want me welding those tubes, but but if not, if you're not local but you'd still like to help support the museum, there's ways to do it.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

You can just go to our description page where you found the podcast. Yep. We have several different ways to do it. You can donate directly or you can go on the Kroger app and if you if you shop at Kroger stores and that's a good idea. They're everywhere, they're everywhere, they're all over the United States. Even if you don't know it's a Kroger, it's probably a Kroger.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

Might be. Uh they're called King Supers here. But um yeah, that's that's a great way. But we're always happy to uh to get whatever help we can get.

SPEAKER_01 49:11

Another great way is if you're interested in seeing any of our fly days, um, we have them monthly. Um as of this is recording, I think we'll be getting ready for the June fly day.

SPEAKER_02 49:21

That's gonna be very special.

SPEAKER_01 49:23

It's gonna it has the potential to be pretty amazing fly day, and I'll kind of leave it at that as we're I'm not really allowed to to speculate yet or no talk, but I think it's something if you if you were gonna try to make a fly day, it's gonna be the fly day try the June for sure. So we're really pretty excited about that.

SPEAKER_02 49:45

Um other than that. Well, wait a minute, the July fly day is gonna be pretty special too.

SPEAKER_01 49:51

Well, I'd like to think so. I mean, I know that that's your you're doing the presentation on that, and then I get to fly right seat in the B-25. So yeah, we'll be heavily heavily involved in the July one. But yeah, uh putting that aside, the June one is gonna be pretty good. Come out to all of them. Come out to all of them. I mean, if you become a member, it's all free. Yep. And it's pretty cheap. I mean, cheap.

SPEAKER_02 50:13

Oh, you'll you'll amortize that membership in about two or three visits, depending. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:19

So you got anything else here, partner?

SPEAKER_02 50:21

No, sir. We've uh exhausted another one. Well, and we're in the middle of the museum after opening hours, which we usually aren't, so we probably ought to just get out of here. Bit of shocks and get out.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

So for Mark Earl, our producer William Stevenson, my esteemed partner, Rob Gale, and myself, Scott Claire's, stay safe out there.

SPEAKER_02 50:43

Please do.