Carolinas Aviation Museum: Cactus 1549 'Miracle On The Hudson' (15 Pix)
Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 07:24PM 
(15 pix - click pic to enlarge)
My wife and I recently made a short and fast road trip from Indiana to Charlotte North Carolina to visit our daughter and her husband. We traveled on Friday and Monday, so we had just the weekend to visit. Fortunately we packed quite a bit into those two days, including a hot air balloon ride for me (son-in-law runs High Life Ballooning - ride post coming soon), and a stop at the Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte to see the Miracle on the Hudson, the US Airways Airbus A320 made famous by Sully Sullenberger and crew. As it turns out, the crew was based in Charlotte, the airplane was headed there when they ingested the geese that shut down both engines, and over 100 of the 150 passengers were from Charlotte. Charlotte seems the perfect place for the airplane to be on display.
The successful ditching of the aircraft in the Hudson River not only kept everyone on board alive, but it really captured the attention of the nation. Being able to see the airframe in person and imagine what the experience was like for those involved was very cool. The display currently has just the fuselage, but plans include re-attaching the wings to bring the airplane back to pretty much the condition it was in right after the water landing. The exhibit is planned to be officially opened on January 15, 2012 - exactly three years after the incident.
The largish A320 has replaced a lot of the aircraft that were on display inside the Carolinas Aviation Museum. Hopefully they'll be able to enlarge the facility at some point in the future to make room for a lot more of the other aircraft. They do have many interesting aircraft still on display, including the beautiful Piedmont DC-3, you just don't see much of them in these pictures.
As you can see in the first pic above, they have a small seating area with a continuous presentation of the ditching event. It's important to remember that this is really just a temporary display as work is being carried out preparing the airframe for a more complete and thorough presentation. There's no doubt tho, even in this temporary configuration, seeing the Miracle on the Hudson aircraft in person is a great experience - I highly recommend it.
(click pic to enlarge)
It's no surprise that the wings had been cut off the airplane for both the initial transport as well as what would be the eventual trip to Charlotte. I immediately gravitated to the wing attach area because this was a great opportunity to see the design and engineering of this critical and complex area of the airframe. More pix on this farther down (on my second trip around)
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This is the area right behind and below the rear spar of the wing. You can see a wide range of systems and the associated plumbing and wiring to go with it. When I see insanely complex systems like this (that work properly 99.999% of the time) I get really frustrated with the pretty people, the hollow people, and the politicians of the world who can't make anything work to save their life... yet somehow they have lots of power and influence over how we're supposed to live our lives. This may be harsh, but if you can't make stuff work, please just shut up and leave those of who can alone. (sidebar rant is now complete)
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Moving farther aft to the tail section. There was quite a bit of work going on in this area, tho I'm not really sure what they'd be doing to it, but regardless, a lot of the tail section was opened up.
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What caught my eye in the tail section area was the vertical fin attach fittings and pins. You can just imagine that large aircraft can have some massive side loads applied to the vertical fin, and I've never really paid attention to how it's attached to the fuselage. This view at least gives a pretty good idea of how it's done on the Airbus A320.
(click pic to enlarge)
Moving around the rear to the right side of the fuselage. There's a large compressed area in the lower fuselage, I assume from the ditching impact, tho possibly from the recovery effort. This is a good time to mention that I wasn't smart enough to read the various displays that they had set up around the airplane. I knew we wouldn't be spending a lot of time at the museum so I was really soaking up the visuals... but I probably should have done the reading too - I might have learned sometime important to share!
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Right side view of the some of the wing attach area. The rear spar is pretty easy to spot. While the entire display was roped off, you were actually able to get pretty close.
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I did some research and I've come to the conclusion that the broken window and fuselage damage above it must have come from the rescue or recovery effort. You can see in this large pic of 1549 in the Hudson that there doesn't appear to be any window damage... so this isn't from the geese.
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More visible nose damage that didn't come from the ditching. I assume this is the kind of stuff that they'll be repairing to return the airframe to the condition it was in when first in the water.
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More window damage and a hand written message on the door: Do Not Open Hinge Removed.
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My second trip around the airframe had me looking even closer at the wing attach. Here's a pretty good view of the main spar area.
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...And a closer look at the rear spar.
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Here's a nice wide view of the left side of the display. It's quite a contrast seeing the A320 and an Ercoupe together!
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Wide view but up closer of the left rear of the fuselage. There's quite a bit of lower fuselage damage visible here.
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And lastly, a view of the open aft fuselage section. You can also see a few of the other aircraft on display at the Carolinas Aviation Museum. If you're ever in Charlotte North Carolina, I suggest you make the effort to stop by Charlotte Douglas International Airport and spend some time at the museum with the Miracle on the Hudson!
Reader Comments (5)
Many thanks for sharing this, with fantastic photos and really nice text. I'm a big fan from your blog!
Viele Grüße aus Berlin! :)
Great work as usual! Another museum for my bucket list...
Great photos. I am a volunteer at the museum. It's still a work in progress.
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Thank you for sharing the captivating story of the Miracle on the Hudson at the Carolinas Aviation Museum. Your blog provides a fascinating insight into this remarkable event.