Musée des Arts et métiers

Along with lots of little boys and a few girls we visited the Musée des Arts et métiers which has this very stylish early airplane. Made of trenchcoat fabric and exquisitely detailed with feather propellers it resembles a bat. Clément Ader designed it. He flew an earlier version of this plane thirteen years before the Wright Brothers and described the concept of an aircraft carrier in 1909.

We also saw lots of models of work spaces with tiny tools, like this woodshop.

‘A’ was surprised at the size of Telstar. Evidently he thought a satellite would be much larger than an exercise ball.

I enjoyed seeing a treadle sewing machine very much like one I bought with babysitting money when I was ‘A’s’ age. We talked about how the mechanism has not changed and the convenience of sewing without electricity.

-B