Amarillo Livestock Auction and Texas Air and Space Museum

Every Monday Amarillo has a livestock auction. The auction is open to the public. It is held in the same building that the Stockyard Cafe is at. Patty wanted to go see the auction so if we were to see it, this Monday was the only chance. It is supposed to start at 10:00 AM.

Livestock Auction

 We showed up at about 10:45 and it seemed that it had not yet started. After a few minutes they let the first cows in. As you can see there was not many bidders. They would just hold up a piece of paper that had their bidding number on it.

Here come the cows

Behind the auctioneer was an electronic board that showed how much was paid for the cow or bull. The price was based per 100 pounds so this `105.00 bid is actually $1.05 per pound.

Price board

Sometimes they would have multiple cows in the pen so there would be more pounds. It may still say $90.00 or $105.00  but the overall sale would be more because there was more weight involved.

3 cows

We noticed that some cows went for as little as $28.00 per 100 pounds. We were told those were sick cows. The bulls as seen here would go for a much higher price.

After we left the auction we went to the Rick Husband International Airport. Rick Husband was a local Amarillo astronaut who lost his life in the Space Shuttle Columbia when it disintegrated while re-entering earth atmosphere in 2003.

Commander Rick Husband

The Texas Air and Space Museum is located at the airport. The museum is very small and although we were enjoying it and liked talking to the docent it was not overwhelming.

Air Museum

As you can see there are a few exhibits of Amarillo air and space history.

Historical documents

Then docent Bud took us outside to show us some planes. Then it got REAL interesting. Bud is a retired Air force and United Air Lines pilot so he really knows about planes!

This is an experimental race plane called the "Beercat". The problem is that top speed is 150 mph, but it took 140 to get it off the ground! LOL

Beercat

This P-51 Mustang was never flown in the war, but the 'kills' that are shown on the side are actual from the owners real history.

P-51 Mustang

Next to the museum is a Bell helicopter factory. They make the V-22 Osprey here. This is a Tilt Rotor plane that works like a helicopter taking off and landing and then the props can turn forward and it becomes a Turbo Prop plane. As we were going outside to look at some more planes this Osprey took off for testing. It hovered for awhile and then took off.

V-22 Osprey

The museum is fortunate to have one of only 4 ever built NASA Shuttle Training Aircraft. They have been retired since the Space Shuttle program has been scrapped.

NASA Shuttle Training Aircraft

You are allowed to board this plane. In the above picture you can see a white ramp at the rear of the plane. After climbing the ramp you have to get on you hands and knees and crawl in the small door to get in. Then you can stand up. They would take up several astronauts for training.

NASA STA

That's Bud on the left. The box you see is hooked up to computers to analyze how the astronauts do on their test missions.

Bud and Brian

A pilot would sit on the right and fly the simulator to 35,000 feet. The astronaut would sit on the left which has "space shuttle' controls. At 35,000 feet The astronaut would glide the plane down using the shuttle controls.

Shuttle Trailer controls

Commander Husband flew 49 training missions on this exact training aircraft! It was pretty cool to be able to enter the aircraft that our astronauts trained on.

The Osprey returned! You can see all the dust it is churning up. We could feel the wind from those massive blades!

Osprey landing

They also had a C7A Caribou on display. 

C7A Caribou

The Caribou was mainly used as a cargo and personnel transporter. The back of the plane opens up for unloading. On the roofline you can see a cable. Paratroopers would hook their lines to the cable which would pull their chutes on the way out the back.

Transporter

I tried to take off, but the batteries were dead! Maybe next time!!

Put the charger on the batteries!

This military jet landed when we were getting ready to leave. Bud told us they open their cockpits to cool themselves off.

U.S.A. , U.S.A. !!!!

I mentioned in another blog that their is folk art around Amarillo. Another folk art that is around is the painted horses. Many businesses will have them with their logos on them. The Chevrolet dealer has a blue one with a gold colored Chevy logo on it. These are full size horse statues.

Because Bell makes the Osprey they have a painted horse in front of their buildings.

Bell painted horse

 That's it for today.

Love you all!

Brian and Patty