Update: Historic Aircraft Museum

Readers of this blog may remember Al Stix, our crusty tour guide at our recent visit to the Creve Coeur Aircraft Museum. See: http://edpitts.blogspot.com/2009/11/historic-aircraft-restoration-museum.html Sunday afternoon, 11/22/09, Al crashed his yellow mid-1930s Stearman biplane on take-off when the engine lost power. Neither Stix nor his passanger were seriously injured. Stix had started to turn back toward the landing field when a wing caught a tree. According the the Monday edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Stix told reporters, "When you fly these old planes, you're bound to have some exciting moments, hopefully, they don't get any more exciting than this." You can read the entire story here: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/0114B28EB0DCCAC0862576760078BC49?OpenDocument

Historic Aircraft Restoration Museum

Our friend, Jim Leiter from Syracuse, visited us in St. Louis the first weekend of November. His hobby is photographing airplanes. Over the years he has amassed quite a collection, all neatly organized in binders. While I'm sure Jim was pleased to visit us in the big city by the big muddy, he was also really, really pleased to be able to visit the aircraft museum at the Creve Coeur airport.

Not many people even know there is a world-class museum along the flats of the Missouri River on the western edge of St. Louis at the end of an unmarked dead-end road past a farm stand offering hayrides the day after Halloween. http://www.historicaircraftrestorationmuseum.org/ As luck would have it Butch O'Blennis, an ALJ with the office next to mine, is taking flying lessons at the Creve Coeur airport and could give us directions. He knew the place is loaded with old planes, but had not had time to tour the museum. Butch kindly offered to accompany us on our tour. He had a lesson scheduled the day we planned to visit, so we agreed to get there in time to see if he had learned to land safely, yet.

Creve Couer airport is a private, non-profit created out of farm fields in 1983 by three vintage airplane fanatics, Al Stix, John Cournoyer and John Mullen. The field has evolved to include a paved runway, a grass runway and about 100 privately-owned hangers. Most of the hangers are used to house, restore or build small planes. It turned out Butch's instructor was ill the day we visited so he did not get to fly. While waiting for the museum to open we decided to wander through the rows of hangers to see what we might discover.

The place is crawling with small planes. We encountered a man wheeling a very small plane singlehandedly out of his hanger. He was happy to show us the homemade craft built around a VW engine. He claimed it was simple to build. I have no idea how he defines “simple.” I asked him how it flies. He raved about how much fun it is, the only problem is that it pulls pretty hard to the right on takeoff. He only figured that out while taking off in it for the first time. He's obviously a quick study.

At 10 am the three of us bought tickets to the museum [a bargain at $10 per person] and met our guide. It was airport owner, Al Stix. Stix knows virtually every detail of every plane in the collection. He knows where it came from, its complete history and how it flies. He has personally flown almost all of the planes in the collection and lived to tell the tale.

The airport's museum is comprised of three large hangars packed with about 50 vintage airplanes. Many of the planes are one of a kind. There's a 1916 Sopwith Pup with the original 80-horsepower engine, a Taylor E-2 [father of the Piper Cub], and the only flying de Havilland Dragon Rapide in the country. The collection also includes a rare restored 1930 St. Louis Cardinal. According to Stix all but a couple of the aircraft are flyable except for "the two or three that no one has yet had the nerve to try." Stix loves these old planes, but is not at all sentimental. "If these airplanes were really any good, planes would still look like this." Al and the collection were recently featured in the Simthsonian Air & Space magazine. You can read the whole article here: http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/coeur.html

To be honest I got tired of looking at old planes pretty quickly; it's not really a big interest of mine. We wandered through rows of shining biplanes, old monoplanes and some scary small vintage passenger planes with wicker seats. Al kept things pretty interesting with his tales of smuggling an old WWII Soviet flying boat out of Russia labeled as tractor parts or about how Lindbergh was tricked into falsifying parts of his own autobiography.

Perhaps Al's best stories have to do some serious daredevil flying. It is a very good thing that almost all of this priceless collection can be flown since the airport is located on the flood plain of the mighty Missouri. During the great flood of 1993 the entire airport was under 20 feet of water. The historic planes had to be flown to higher ground, many by Stix. One little two cylinder plane that Stix particularly hates hardly generated enough power to get off the ground. He flew it at treetop level looking for places to crash land all the way. While scoping out driveways to use as a makeshift runway he claims to have flown right by a guy brushing his teeth in a second story window.

Two hours later, we emerged into the sunlight, but Al had detected Jim was a truly dedicated fan and Butch was also seriously captivated. The three of them took off in Al's van to visit some treasures in more remote parts of the airport. I stayed behind to meet up with Merry. We waited for Jim in the little administration building where a cup of coffee costs $0.50 on the honor system and pilots sit around trading stories.

I wasn't sure we would ever see Jim again, but about a hour later he returned tired, hungry and very happy. As we got up to leave a snappy little biplane called a “Pitts Special” taxied up and posed for us. Then we headed off for a late lunch and the rest of Jim's tour of St. Louis.

Dr. Who at the Pulitzer

On Wednesday evening Merry and I set out for the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in the teeth of a threating thunderstorm to hear a New Music concert in that wonderful space. The Pulitzer was created especially to exhibit contemporary art but the current exhibit is a selection of old masters. The unique twist is that the art is hung without exhibition lighting. The Pulitzer has lots of natural light so the effect is eerie, somewhat like seeing the art in a contemporary cathedral. The overall effect is one of profound dislocation. See for yourself at www.pulitzerarts.org.

The Pulitzer has a contemporary chamber concert series designed by David Robertson, the music director of the St. Louis Symphony. Robertson is a devotee of contemporary classical music and programs it often for the Symphony. We wanted to attend this concert because it featured Andrew Russo, the talented young Syracuse pianist I know from my work with the Society for New Music.

There is no other art space like the Pulitzer. It's built entirely of polished concrete with soaring open spaces as well as wonderful quiet corners. The main hall is two stories high ending in a set of steps leading to a lower level. The far end of this space, now three stories tall, is dominated by Blue Black by Ellsworth Kelly. As we sat down on clear plastic folding chairs near the top of the steps Blue Black set the mood by echoing the early evening near darkness with the impending storm.

About 100 people arrived. At the bottom of the steps was a grand piano, a tangle of computer equipment and about six guys dressed entirely in black wandering around with no obvious purpose. Six loud speakers ringed the space. When the well-dressed patrons of the series took the front row of reserved seats we knew the concert was about to begin.

Matthias Waschek, director of the museum, and Robertson appeared at the base of the steps. Dr. Waschek talked for a few minutes about how the old masters in the exhibit represented the tension between an emerging technology (oil painting) and an old technology (egg tempura painting). He claimed the artist's task is to find a way to preserve what is best of the old while adapting what is best of the new. Maestro Robertson explained he chose Pluton, the piece of the evening, because it represents how the older technology of the piano was preserved and transformed by electronics. This entire introduction seemed unnecessary and strained to me, but it did demonstrate just how silly serious people can be when trying to justify their entertainment.

Robertson introduced world-famous electronic music composer, Philippe Manoury. Manoury is a small, unprepossessing Frenchman with shoulder length wild white hair. He explained that all of the sounds in the piece would be produced and modulated by the performer at the piano, but would then be manipulated by the computer to produce an improvisational interaction unique to each performance. I instantly liked him.

Andrew Russo came on stage without introduction and sat down at the piano. Pluton was composed in 1988 making it a pretty early piece of electronica. Unfortunately, it shows its age. The music is utterly atonal, loud and difficult to listen to as it lacks any obvious rhythmic or melodic structure. The five movements with titles that suggest theme and development are utterly indistinguishable. In the midst of all this sound and fury Russo's piano technique was incredible. He put on his usual virtuoso show, but after ten minutes I longed for it all to end.

When trapped in circumstances like this I often close my eyes and try to imagine what movie would have this music as its score. At once I saw Dr. Who [http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/] emerge from his Tardus and sweep around the room accompanied by electronic squeaks and whooshes. His archenemies the Daliks armed with toy pianos assault him from every angle. Their tinkling shots bounce off his hat, coat and long scarf and scatter everywhere. The music gets louder and more dissonant as the battle rages, then . . .

I couldn't keep going. There was no sequence to the sounds or the progressions. It fell back in a rain of academically driven technical experiments with no obvious regard for the sensibility of the listeners. I started counting page turns and hoped it would end soon. Finally, after about 50 minutes the lights dimmed, Russo rose from the piano, but even then the computer was not finished. Finally, and mercifully, it died.

Believe it or not, a question and answer period followed. It was respectful and fairly short.

I went back stage to briefly talk to Andy Russo. I'm not sure he really remembered me, but he greeted me warmly. He agreed the piece showed its age. I asked him how he got the call to do this concert and he noted he is perhaps the only person who has rehearsed this piece enough to perform it in concert. He came to St. Louis at Robertson's invitation and was headed back to Syracuse the next morning.

On later reflection I realize I had enjoyed the experience, if not the music.