 Watching
History
When you think about it nearly all of us
working in and around air cargo are aviation buffs.
Even if you hate your job, working at an
airport or someplace near the big birds has to raise some hearts every
time one of those airplanes rolls down a runway departing from the familiar
to places yet to be discovered.
For me it has also been about airport terminals
so I have tried to do something about saving a couple of earlier generation
buildings in the belief that the future will benefit from being able to
see and touch passenger terminals from the 1930s and ’40s.
But aviation history less preserved also
is finding some ways back to public recognition as well.
In California at Los Angeles International
Airport is the Flight Path Center. Flight Path is the finest example of
what an airport and local community can do to build appreciation of commercial
and all of aviation history.
Flight Path operates in some space at a
great international gateway while generating an aggressive program to
relive the old days and celebrate aviation ahead at the same time. It
is not unusual for example to have a display of newer aircraft including
the coming B787s and A380s intermingled with discussions and remembrances
of early female aviation heroes such as is going on this month at Flight
Path.
Junkers
And Bauhaus
  When
Walter Gropius, who created the Bauhaus School of coordinated design
in Germany in 1919, found himself and his school confronted with
being asked to vacate Weimar, he had immediate offers from other
cities to sponsor Bauhaus but decided on Dessau.
So was born “Bauhaus School
of Design Dessau” and the building that appeared in 1925 (now
restored) changed architecture around the world forever.
Dessau was also the home of the Junkers
aircraft factory.
Hugo Junkers, the visionary company
founder and leader was passionate in his support of The Bauhaus
and from that, Junkers and Bauhaus people formed relationships.
Professor Junkers who almost always
shunned the spotlight even showed up on December 4, 1926 when the
Bauhaus Building was formally dedicated and reportedly stayed at
the party past midnight.
It wasn’t long before the impact
of Bauhaus was felt and seen by millions aboard Junkers aircraft.
 The
Bauhaus designer, Friedrich Peter Drömmer created the stylized
“flying man,” the elegant, timelessly beautiful logo
of the Junkers factory.
Advertising and sales brochures and
even the posters seen here for Junkers airplanes were created utilizing
typeface and a new kind of visual impact created by masters and
students at the Bauhaus School during a time when no one dreamed
the movement would become one of the most prolific forces in design
of the 20th Century.
Junkers, in fact formed a symbiotic
relationship with Bauhaus that was not limited to airplanes, but
always came back to them.
Hugo Junkers wanted modern, functional
design not only for the exterior of his airplanes, but also in the
interior appointments.
As a result, starting in 1925, Bauhaus
designer Marcel Breuer was able to develop his first steel tube
furniture, which in a modified form was later installed in Junkers
commercial airplanes.
The special spirit of those Dessau
years, the Bauhaus values combined with the distinct corporate culture
of Junkers, continues in 2008.
Bauhaus Luftfahrt was founded in Munich on November 17, 2005.
Founding fathers of this think tank,
unique in Europe, include the high tech companies EADS, MTU Aero
Engines, and Liebherr-Aerospace, together with the Free State of
Bavaria.
Bauhaus Luftfahrt theme and vision
is practical, interdisciplinary aviation research for the benefit
of mankind
Two core topics are at the center
of Bauhaus Luftfahrt's research activities: "Forward-looking
Systems Engineering" and "Future Trends and the Economy".
Today, as mentioned, Bauhaus in Dessau
is still there 82 years later.
Also there is a wonderful Technik
Museum “Hugo Junkers” in Dessau with displays and papers.
Still in evidence are the Junkers
Administration Building (1934-36), xJunkers the wind tunnel (1934/35)
and a runway of the former Junkers factory airfield.
The JU52 Junkers that Lufthansa has
restored appears in the skies regularly and can be booked for flights
via the Junkers website.
Walter Gropius who lived until 1969
moved to Lincoln, Massachusetts in 1938 and later designed many
buildings in USA including The Pan Am Building in New York City.
Forward thinking and moments in history
that come back in time from a wristwatch.
Works for me.
|
 Another
way history is alive in aviation is at hand, in fact as close as your
wrist.
In Germany there is a watch company that
is turning out some very nice and considering the quality, inexpensive
time pieces that are reviving the name Junkers, the legendary aircraft
builder and also Zeppelin, the people that created the greatest large
airships including the Graf Zeppelin and the Hindenburg.
POINT tec Electronic GmbH was founded in
1987 in Ismaning / Munich, Germany, calling itself a specialist company
in the design, special technical creation, manufacture and marketing of
wristwatches under the brand names Junkers, Zeppelin and Maximilian München
MM.
The company slogan reads every watch is
"Made in Germany” and POINTtec says that it closely cooperates,
with the watch fabricator Gardé, Ruhla a manufacturer that originates
from the famous watch-makers "Brothers Tiehl" founded in the
18th Century.
A decade ago the company signed a long-term
license contract with the Junkers’ family, whose forefather was
Hugo Junkers, the German constructor engineer of famous passenger airplanes
such as the famed “JU 52”.
The company added a long-term license for
the watch brand Zeppelin in 2002.
Although specialized or promotional watches
are rarely of very high quality the watches here include some extraordinary
watch movements—mechanical hand-winding or automatic, as well as
high-tech functional wristwatches.
 Lufthansa,
for example, sells one version “JU 52 Iron Annie” that is
said to be constructed of the corrugated metal found in the real Iron
Annie DLH restored and still flies around to air shows.
Also pointing to quality is a double-decker
wristwatch creation carrying the Zeppelin brand, that combines a digital
altimeter/barometer/chronograph (lower watch case), with a fine ETA Swiss
Pesseux hand-winding movement (upper watch case).
This unique piece was created in cooperation
with the Technical University (TU) in Munich, and indicates exact altitude
data up to 10,000 meters with an easy switch to 30,000 feet. The
Swiss watch module inside its two-part collapsible folding case has already
been tested on a climb of Mount Everest.
Aside from also making watches for the German
Army in the high-tech watch sector, multiple advancements in wristwatch
applications are being researched and brought into realization, such as
POINT Access, a watch for personal identification and paperless money
transfer (Ident-Pay-Watch).
But maybe the nicest experience looking
over the collection of watches at the company website is the feeling these
people have put into their product.
There are stories and pictures of the era
of the Junkers and of Hugo himself and also wonderful pictures and background
information about the Graf Zeppelins.
But my favorites are the short film clips
on Junkers and Zeppelin that open the site.
The clip of the Junkers JU52 buzzing the
Statue of Christ in Rio de Janeiro is fleeting and spectacular.
Here for an instant is a live action view
of the airplane that opened up European and Latin American and elsewhere
aviation, and was the actual first aircraft of many airlines.
Later the DLH’s JU52 flying alongside
an Airbus raises wonder of how the pilot of the big jet kept from stalling,
as he slowed down enough for old Iron Annie to keep up.
And then of course there are the watches.
Stuff for a summer dream.
www.pointtec.de
Geoffrey |
The
ATC tower with the Technical Building and Cargo Building at the
Rajiv Gandhi International Airport.
The
International Air Transport Association (IATA) said soaring fuel costs
and slipping demand could cost global airlines $6.1 billion this year.