Recently I was in Washington DC (capital of USA) on an official visit and managed to take some time to visit two museums that I love to visit every time I am there, National Air & Space Museum and Natural History Museum.
I have an attachment to National Air & Space Museum owing to my love for aeroplanes that started in 1970's when my parents started taking me to Lahore airport, one of the family outing spots of Lahore. At that time anyone could visit the airport for watching jets taking off, landing and taxing. My dad had just got his brand new Vespa scooter and it had become a routine to cruise towards the airport....... my tiny hands resting on the scooter's handle and my eyes navigating a couple of inches above the head light. Something has really gone wrong with my Pakistan. During those days there were limited security arrangements at the airport... just a fence between me and the aircrafts in action.
That movie is still playing in my eyes. An announcement for the arrival of a flight from Karachi knocks my ear drums. I am more attentive, my eyes exploring the sky and here comes PIA Boeing 707. It lands and disappears behind the aviation offices. Then comes the moment I am anxiously waiting for, 707 is getting closer, its Vertical Stabilizer first appears above the office buildings with PIA logo..... a world class logo of that time..... then a glimpse of fuselage. Ice cream is dripping on my clothes, my mom is shouting, wanting to take me to the comfort room for cleaning my clothes but I will not go. GOLDEN MOMENTS.... .!!!!!!
With passage of time, I started collecting photos of commercial jets on the internet. In due course, I refined my hobby and started collecting 1:400 scale die cast aeroplane models in following categories:
1. Airlines I have traveled with
2. Cargo aircrafts
3. Special aircrafts like Concorde, Airbus Beluga, Antonov Volga etc
4. Trijets, getting obsolete but for me these look masculine (like Boeing 747) with the third engine attached to Vertical Stabilizer.
My die cast plane collection was incomplete until I received model of PIA 707....my first love. This model was released by Aeroclassics after 20 years.
Virtual visit to National Air & Space Museum is starting that will be followed by a visit to Natural History Meuseum.... so stay tuned.<o:p></o:p>