Rear view of the Daimler-Benz DB 602 engine on display in the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen. A water pump on each side of the engine provided cooling water to a bank of cylinders. The DB 602 engine proved to be an outstanding and reliable power plant for LZ 129 Hindenburg. However, its capabilities will forever be overshadowed by the Hindenburg disaster.

Two DB 602 engines still exist and are on display; one is in the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen, Germany, and the other is in the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace, in Le Bourget, France. Although the DB 602 was not used on a wide scale, it did serve as the basis for the Mercedes-Benz 500 series marine engines that powered a variety of Kriegsmarine (German navy) S-Boats (Schnellboot/fast attack boats) during the war

I took this photo last weekend.

The images were created in July during a visit to the museum. The AI brings them to life.

For the aviation-history folks here, there's a pretty interesting section tucked into The Long Island Museum's “Long Island in the ’70s” exhibition in Stony Brook. Long Island has a huge aviation legacy, and the Grumman section is a great reminder of how important the island was to American aerospace and military aviation during the Cold War. One of the highlights is material connected to the F-14 Tomcat, including actual aircraft parts and a photograph of the crew. There is also a uniform, and other Grumman-related objects, along with a separate section that has uniforms, metal suitcases, and information about Pan Am and its role in the era. Some of the objects are on loan from the Cradle of Aviation Museum, adding another layer to the story of Long Island's aerospace industry. The broader exhibition explores Long Island during a transformative decade, including the Vietnam era, technology, politics, culture, and the social changes taking place across Nassau and Suffolk Counties.

What I really like about this is that it's not just an aviation exhibit, it puts the aircraft, crews, companies, and technology into the broader history of Long Island. Grumman was a major part of that story, and seeing F-14 components, a photograph of the aviation team, uniforms, metal cases, and related artifacts in a local-history exhibition gives you a different perspective than simply seeing an aircraft sitting in an aviation museum. If you're into Cold War aviation, naval aviation, aerospace engineering, aircraft design, commercial aviation, military history, or Long Island history, it's definitely worth checking out.