Aviation History & the Air and Space Museum

On 31 October 1943 the Budd RB-1 Conestoga, a twin-engine Navy cargo plane built of stainless steel by Philadelphia's Budd Company, flew for the first time. Wartime fear of an aluminum shortage drove the design, and Budd applied the shotweld resistance-welding technique from its stainless railcars to the airframe, which carried a high wing, tricycle gear and a humped flight deck over a cargo hold sized for 24 paratroopers or a light truck. The Navy ordered 200 and the Army 600 as the C-93, but cost and fabrication problems cut production to 20, none of which saw combat. The sole survivor, BuNo 39307, sits unrestored at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson.

The National Air and Space Museum has opened "At Home in Space," a new gallery on how astronauts have lived and worked in microgravity on risky, arduous missions in pursuit of science and exploration, Smithsonian Magazine reports. collectSPACE describes the opening as capping the museum's renovation of its National Mall building. Neither report could be read, so the gallery's artifacts are not confirmed here.

An AstroRad radiation-protection vest worn by astronauts aboard the International Space Station is going on display at the National Air and Space Museum, according to a release carried by StreetInsider and a JNS report that calls the vest Israeli-American made. Neither piece could be read, so the gallery and display date are not confirmed here.

The volunteer Nimrod Preservation Group is preparing to dismantle Nimrod MR.2 XV232 at Coventry Airport, which is closing, and move it by road to the RAF Manston History Museum in Kent after assessments ruled out a ferry flight. The four Rolls-Royce Spey engines, the tail and then the wings must come off, and the work needs cradles, cranes and specialist contractors; supporters have given more than £2,300 so far, well short of the cost. Built in 1969, XV232 flew an 18-hour-50-minute, air-refueled reconnaissance mission of 8,453 miles in the 1982 Falklands War.

The Italian Air Force Museum at Vigna di Valle, on Lake Bracciano near Rome, is showing Michael Schumacher's Ferrari F2003-GA in "Rosso Corsa," an exhibition on speed that runs until 15 November. The car recalls its December 2003 acceleration race at Grosseto against a Eurofighter Typhoon flown by test pilot Maurizio Cheli, and the show opened on 23 October, the anniversary of Francesco Agello's 1934 flight of 709.2 km/h in the Macchi-Castoldi M.C.72, still the piston seaplane record; the M.C.72 is preserved there. The 14-stop route also takes in Schneider Trophy seaplanes, the Campini-Caproni CC.2, the S.79 and the F-104.

Vintage Aviation News recounts how the Imperial Japanese Navy secretly bought Douglas's sole DC-4E prototype in 1939, passed it through Japan Air Lines to Nakajima for study, and used it as the basis of the four-engine G5N Shinzan long-range bomber. The first prototype flew on 8 April 1941 but proved overweight and underpowered, and re-engined G5N2s fared no better; six were built, four ending as transports under the Allied code name "Liz."