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You never know what you’ll uncover once you do a little digging. Museum Technician Tom Paone discovered something quite remarkable from what at first appeared to be a simple map.

On September 17th, Museum staff  participated in the international Ask a Curator Day on Twitter. People asked questions on topics ranging from how we select exhibitions to the most difficult object or display to maintain to the most unusual object in our collections. Here is a selection of those questions and answers.

As I was flipping through a set of historical National Air and Space Museum photographs in the Archives a few months ago, one caught my eye—was that a Hecht’s window display?  Upon closer examination, it was!  But the display from the 1950s wasn’t highlighting the usual dresses, jackets, or shoes.  Instead, it featured models from the National Air Museum in celebration of the 30^th Anniversary of the Anacostia Naval Air Station (NAS) in Washington, DC.

I suspect that most households have what my parents used to call our “junk drawer,” a place for storing miscellaneous small stuff. Ours was in a handy location, the kitchen. It held scissors, rubber bands, toothpicks, matches, various keys, pins and pens, and spare parts for this and that. Some of the things we used often; most were just there in case a need ever arose. The National Air and Space Museum Archives has such a “drawer”—a whole lot of them, actually—but I wouldn’t consider their contents junk. Officially called the Technical Files, they are located next to the Library and Archives Reading Room on the third floor of the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall. A treasure trove of materials that don’t belong to specific collections, they serve as a general reference resource for researchers and staff.

Shortly before the red and white Cessna 180 was to be suspended at the Udvar-Hazy Center for public display, I called its pilot to give her the news.

Seventy years ago, on August 12, 1944, Lieutenant Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. perished in one of the first American fatalities associated with a pilotless aircraft, which we usually know today as a drone or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The older brother of future president, John F. Kennedy, was taking part in an extraordinary secret war being waged across the English Channel with new generations of exotic weapons.

When I was twelve, I had the opportunity to sit left seat on a Bell 206 JetRanger at Lunken Field in Cincinnati, Ohio.

While it might come as a bit of a shock, the topics of aviation and sharks rarely intersect here at the National Air and Space Museum. (Sure we have some nifty nose art, but admit it; connecting these two subjects in any way, shape, or form is really quite a stretch!) Luckily, just in time for Shark Week, the NASM Archives accessioned a new item into its collection: The Harry Bingham Brown Scrapbook (Acc. No. 2014-0038)!

The navigator and last surviving crew member of the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, passed away on July 28, 2014. On August 6, 1945, he guided the bomber to Hiroshima, Japan, the target of the first atomic bomb to be used in combat. Van Kirk’s experience during World War II illustrated the contributions of countless Americans trained to perform highly-specialized jobs, their role in the overall outcome of the war, and one man’s part in a pivotal moment in human history.

Thursday, July 17, was an exciting day at the Paul E. Garber Restoration Facility, and another step towards the completion of one major aircraft currently undergoing restoration:  the wing of the Heinkel He 219 Uhu night fighter was prepared for its move to the Udvar Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA. The He 219 was Germany's best night fighter in World War II, and possibly the best night fighter of the war.