Our mission is to develop, implement and maintain programs which promote aviation history through public educational activities and projects.
We provide educational presentations to community groups as an ongoing process to promote public awareness, in recognition of Seattle's rich aviation heritage. Our programs have been designed, according to our guidelines as a 501.c(3) publicly-supported, arts and cultural organization, and are appropriate for all generations of learners.
The Seattle 2 Program (also known as Seattle II) is the overarching nomenclature for our educational programs inspired by Seattle's role in the 1924 first world flight, as follows:
Phase I, Research for public programs, which began in 2001 and continues to support the content of our educational programs, presentations, and projects;
Phase II, "Build-A-Rib" public programs, designed for engagement of community with local history, culture, and technology through educational presentations and hands-on participation in construction of wing structures;
Phase III, "Building Seattle II," reflects the maturation of the "Build-A-Rib" program, and integrates those elements into the larger aircraft design of a living artifact. Public programs in this phase feature our progress in context of the history of technology, using math, science, reverse-engineering, and modern technology to resolve differences between design and as-built historical documentation and artifacts of the 1924 Douglas World Cruiser aircraft.
The following phases will involve partnerships with industry, higher education, and community:
Phase IV, "Rollout," is scheduled for 2010, presenting the living artifact, Seattle II, a World Cruiser reproduction to the community, and will offer educational programs regarding technical, photographic, and regulatory documentation of the project, research, a focus of the impact of the 1924 world flight on local history and culture, and preservation of the collected local stories and artifacts that the program has inspired.
Phase V, "Flight Test," is a comparative analysis of the 1924 archival flight test records, integrated with a technical fellows project to study the performance of the living artifact in flight.
Phase VI, "World Flight," will encompass a partnership program to study logistics, human factors, history, and communications, as applied to real-time physical and virtual environments. Public access through internet downlink at the Museum of Flight is planned for this phase.
Phase VII, "Community Legacy," is the installation of Seattle II into a permanent display at a local museum. The Museum of Flight is under consideration for this installation. |
