Aviation and Beyond!

May 31, 2010
An early morning after a late night of fishing made for a very tired group of Americans as we met Sven Scheiderbauer, an incoming Rotarian president and our host for the Norsk Luftfartsmuseum (Norwegian Aviation Museum). Sven is the director of Norsk Luftfartsmuseum and was in fact hand-selected and courted to move from Sweden to Norway to take the helm of this national museum. As director, Sven is responsible for all the daily operations of the museum including the hiring and maintaining of the nearly 35+ staff members and for raising the 25 million NOK budget. The first 20 million NOK is relatively easy: 10 million NOK comes from the government and the other 10 million NOK comes from storage fees paid by the Norway military and other private entities that have aircrafts or archives on display on museum grounds. The remaining 5 million NOK is a challenge, largely because Norwegians do not donate in the same way Americans do at home. Instead, Sven has to be creative in bringing groups to the museum. His efforts over the past five years have been very successful, Norsk Luftfartsmusuem boasts a record of 40,000 attendees per year, which is especially impressive considering there are only 45,000 residents in Bodø.

The Norsk Luftfartsmuseum itself is shaped as a giant propeller and situated on approximately the same land as the German airfield during World War II. The aircrafts within the walls are separated into two exhibits: civil and military. The civilian hanger dates back to the early 1900s when Norway saw its first planes and record setting was a major sport. It wasn't until the 1950s when planes were used for transportation. Interesting exhibits included both the first female pilot, who never flew commercially since nobody would hire her to fly a plane and the second female pilot who was independently wealthy so bought her own plane but also retired after seven years due to lack of business. There was also an interesting display of a small plane that got caught between two electrical wires and how they saved the pilot and then shot the plane out of the sky instead of cutting down the wires and taking out the electricity of the town. On the military side, we saw several aircrafts purchased by the Americans as gifts to Norway. This turned out to be a brilliant move since the Norweigians adopted the American way of flying and today continue to buy a majority of their aircrafts from the United States. Also interesting was a nuclear bomb, the only nuclear bomb in a country that doesn't own their own nuclear weapons. This particular bomb is 500 times as powerful as the one that went off in Hiroshima! Perhaps the highlight of the visit was seeing a homemade plane... the engine was made of parts from car engines and the owner used it for about a year before the air patrol heard about the plane and grounded it.

After a lunch at the museum, we headed over to Widerøe's company headquarters here in Bodø. Widerøe is the top airline in Northern Norway, owned and operated under the Scandinavian Airline System (SAS). Interestingly, the airlines in Norway all bid once every three years to operate certain routes. Currently, Widerøe is operating 85 percent of the routes in Norway with a few international connections to Scotland and England. However, with the system designed as it is, there is no guarantee that the company will remain busy after three years so they have to continue to do the best they can to keep costs low and remain efficient and on time. The headquarters include an administrative building, followed by a series of hangers. Widerøe flight staff are expected to make several visits to the headquarters over the course of the year and the hangers hold several teaching tools including a flight simulator, a cockpit for training pilots and an airplane for practicing how to open emergency exit doors, administer first aid and any other necessities that might arise while in air. The building also includes an aviaition technical team working on fixing radios, batteries and any other wire connections; a fire set; and two hangers for planes in need of maintenance or repair. On this day, there were four planes waiting to integrate a new GPS system. An aviation transmitter team also works at the building, keeping track of all the planes scheduled to fly, their status and the crew aboard each aircraft. Watching the monitors was fascinating!

Norwegian Culture.
Living in Bodø has been an easy transition since it is such a small town. Since we have a key and know where our host family house is, we've been walking around town on our own and making it back to on our own after our commitments for the evening. I have noticed a few interesting cultural differences. First, both men and women exchange rings during an engagement but they are plain bands and are worn on the right hand. During a wedding ceremony, they will either engrave the band with the date or the woman will wear a second similar band. Another interesting experience is dining. In Norway, people do not wait for all the guests on the table to receive their meals before starting to eat. As soon as the first plate comes, the person is expected to start eating and at times, this can mean that the first meal is done before the last plate arrives on the table. There is also no keeping your elbows off the table or excusing yourself or other norms that we expect back at home. Similarly, if you accidentally bump into somebody while walking, people do not say "excuse me" or expect to hear it. In fact, if they do, they just ignore it because they do not know what to do. When you sneeze, people will generally not say "bless you" or make any comment. Tipping: there is generally no gratuity or taxes in Norway and that includes everything from taxi rides to dining out. However, everything is ridiculously expensive here so the tip is actually included in the item price.

Our evening started with our first Rotary presentation and ended with a couple bottles of wine and great conversation with our host, Majvi! Yes, it was another 2 am bedtime.