AverageJoe and I tugged on our leashes and got our handlers to take us to the Evergreen Aerospace Museum yesterday (an hour drive from our place). 'Twas a fabulously clear and lovely day, sparse clouds floating by, temp maxing at 84 degrees, great brunch before hand. We got to see the new part of the museum that includes a Titan II, and soon the rest of (parts are already there) a 174 foot tall Titan IV missile, Mercury space capsule, etc. etc. Both of us are aircraft and space afficionados.
While there we took in a 3-D movie at the IMAX theater in between the two main Museum buildings. We saw
SEA MONSTERS 3D: A Prehistoric Adventure "When strange bones were discovered in a muddy Kansas river bank, paleontologists set out to investigate a mystery 'buried in time'.
Through ultra-realistic 3-D computer animation, the viewer travels back to the Late Cretaceous, when the sea was dominated by giant marine reptiles, some as large as present-day whales. The film follows a female Dolichorhynchops (a seal-like reptile) and her offspring through adventures that illustrate life in the sea during the Age of Dinosaurs. Live-action recreations of actual paleontological digs are intercut throughout, revealing the scientific basis for each animated episode. In the end, the bones in Kansas turn out to be those of the featured Dolichorhynchops."
This is a terrifically produced and written semi-documentary on Cretaceous Period species paleontology. The CG in 3-D was absolutely incredible to all of us. (Made you wanna duck, sometimes.
) The audio was equally superb. This was my first visit to an IMAX theater, and while I know they vary in specific equipment, we were also all duly impressed by the audio presentation. I couldn't get specific speaker information, but I did manage to snap a pick of the rear surrounds. Here is one. I don't know the manufacturer, perhaps JBL (it has that look about it), but it was potent, as were the subs and all the speakers! Overall, I'd have to say that this theater provided the cleanest and most dynamic audio I've ever heard in a movie (short of AverageJoe's HT
).
While in the museum, we had hoped to experience the simulated launch of the Titan II. They had some equipment malfunction and the liftoff was delayed until after we left. The equipment room is completely lifted from Vandenberg AF Base in California...including all the ancient computers, control devices, even the flooring. To help simulate the launch, Evergreen had "some company in California (JBL?)" set up the subwoofers that give ambiance to the launch and shake the room pretty well. We were also told the sub setup cost in excess of $40,000. (They should have consulted us, eh?!) I asked and was allowed into the room to photo (the best I could) the subs. One was what appeared to be a dual 15" or 18" standard sub, turned off its castors and laid on its side, presumedly laying the drivers against the sub-flooring. The other "sub" was one of those fan-blade VLF drivers powered by a decent sized TRW-17 motor. Or maybe it was just there to blow air around. Dunno. The pictures don't do justice to the relative sizes.
Finally, and just for Majorloser, here is a rare-as-a-hen's-tooth D-21 the rode atop an SR-71 Blackbird prototype. This guy is, I think, the fastest unmanned drone in the world, going Mach 4+. By the way, if you look below that, you can see a lovely Blackbird in the distance...the fastest manned jet in the world.
