Want to see a century-old safari movie made in Africa by pioneering aviators whose special plane has a New Hampshire link?
Would you like to hike to a crash site in the White Mountains where the fuselage of a vintage airliner remains near the top of an obscure peak?
You can do all that and more, thanks to a new series of humanities programs offered in 2022 by the Aviation Museum of N.H.
Programs will take place at the museum, which is located in the 1937 passenger terminal at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, and also at venues around the state.
The series takes off on Thursday, Jan. 27 with a program on Osa and Martin Johnson, an American husband-and-wife team who became world famous in the 1920s with their aviation and motion picture work in remote regions of Africa, Asia, and the Pacific islands.
“Martin and Osa Johnson: Adventure’s First Couple” will be presented on Thursday, Jan. 27 at 7:30 p.m. at the Town Hall Theatre, 40 Main St., Wilton, N.H.
The program will include a talk about the Johnsons by Jeff Rapsis, executive director of the Aviation Museum of N.H. Also included will be a screening of ‘Simba: King of the Beasts’ (1928), a full-length documentary feature filmed by Martin and Osa Johnson in Africa.
The film will be shown with live musical accompaniment.
Tickets at the door are $10 for adults; $5 for kids under 12, seniors 65 and above, and active military. Aviation Museum members are free. The program is not recommended for very young children.
Traveling the globe in the early years of aviation, often piloting a Sikorsky float plane to reach remote locations, the Johnsons pioneered the use of the motion picture camera to record wildlife. Their work brought audiences the first-ever footage of lions, tigers, giraffes, and other exotic creatures seen in their natural habitat.
The program will include a look at the Kansas couple’s unexpected link to New Hampshire aviation.
During their overseas adventures, the Johnsons flew a twin-engined zebra-striped Sikorsky S-38 float plane dubbed “Osa’s Ark” and then later a single-engined S-39 float plane famous for being painted in the pattern of giraffe markings.
Only 21 Sikorsky S-39 float planes were produced in the early 1930s; none survived in flyable condition after World War II.
However, in the early 1960s, pilot Dick Jackson of Rochester, N.H. embarked on a 40-year odyssey to recreate a flight-worthy Sikorsky S-39 from surviving pieces of five separate aircraft salvaged from locations as far away as Alaska, where many of the aircraft were employed by bush pilots to reach remote locations.
In an adventure as ambitious as any undertaken by the Johnsons, Jackson and a dedicated crew of volunteers labored for four decades, logging 40,000 hours to rebuild a single working S-39, fabricating parts and components when necessary.
In 2003, the fully restored aircraft took flight for the first time, and remains airworthy today.
The world’s only flying Sikorsky amphibian C-39, painted in the same giraffe pattern in honor of the Johnsons, is now part of the ‘Fantasy of Flight’ vintage aircraft collection in Polk City, Fla.
A single other Sirkorsky C-39, although not in flying condition, is on display at the New England Aviation Museum in Windsor Locks, Conn., not far from the Sikorsky plant where it was built in the early 1930s.
“Martin and Osa Johnson: Adventure’s First Couple” is presented with assistance of the Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum, located in Osa Johnson’s hometown of Chanute, Kansas.
The Aviation Museum’s 2022 Humanities Series is underwritten in part by the Grappone Auto Dealerships and the Sidore Foundation.
The Humanities Series seeks to broaden the non-profit Aviation Museum’s efforts to promote aviation to the public, and especially to young people.
“We run many STEM-related programs to get kids interested in aviation and aerospace, such as our plane-building partnership with the Manchester (N.H.) School of Technology,” said Jeff Rapsis, executive director.
“With the Humanities series, we hope to inspire the public—and young people—about flight from other perspectives,” Rapsis said. “We seek to celebrate the sense of adventure that’s been part of the human experience of flight since the Wright Brothers, and with pioneer balloonists before that.”
Upcoming programs in 2022 include a look at the experience of Afro-Americans at Grenier Air Base (now Manchester-Boston Regional Airport) during World War II, when armed forces were segregated; a program highlighting female aviation pioneers in New Hampshire; and a North Country hike to the summit of Mt. Success, site of a 1954 Northeast Airlines crash that made worldwide headlines.
The Aviation Museum of N.H. is a non-profit 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization dedicated to celebrating New Hampshire’s role in aviation history and inspiring tomorrow’s pioneers, innovators and aerospace professionals.
The museum is located at 27 Navigator Road, Londonderry, N.H. It can be reached via Exit 1 on Interstate 293 in Manchester and heading south on South Willow Street past the Mall of New Hampshire entrance; then follow the brown “Aviation Museum” signs.
The Aviation Museum is open Fridays and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sundays 1 to 4 p.m. The Aviation Museum follows all recommended Covid-19 public health protocols. Facial coverings are required for visitors inside the building.
For more information, visit www.aviationmuseumofnh.org or call (603) 669-4820. Follow the Aviation Museum on social media at www.facebook.com/nhahs.