Bandito, the Lighting of the National Museum of the United States Army, and the LED Revolution

By Randy Reid with Brian Hullfish

November 11th, 2022, has arrived, marking the 104th anniversary of the end of what conflict? Hint: it began with mounted cavalrymen and ended with tank brigades. Another hint? This war signaled a worldwide shift toward industrialism, mass production, and an onrush of new technology. You likely already guessed it. November 11th? Armistice Day. The end of World War One and its cataclysmic hostilities.

Photo Credit: Steven Rosen

That very first Armistice Day also represented a new beginning for many of WWI’s survivors: the attempt by those who lived through it to begin to comprehend, adjust to, and possibly exploit the altered landscape created by these new technologies.

As the Air and Space Museum's website articulates, “Heavy artillery, machine guns, tanks, motorized transport vehicles, high explosives, chemical weapons, airplanes, field radios and telephones, aerial reconnaissance cameras, and rapidly advancing medical technology and science were just a few of the areas that [WWI] reshaped.”

Point being, we humans often have to juggle massive technological shifts while in the midst of gargantuan projects, doing our best to recognize when our old tools have become obsolete and learning to be flexible and adjust, sensing when to leap, when to learn to use new tools and new applications once the tipping point has been reached.

It’s the old cliché of “building the airplane as it's taxiing down the runway.” Only, sometimes it’s more like, "Converting an airplane from aviation kerosine to electric while taxiing down the runway."

Let’s to go back to one of those very first tank brigades, led by a 30-something lieutenant colonel in the United States Army who had first seen combat during the Pancho Villa Expedition of 1916, the U.S. Army’s first mechanized engagement. Among this lieutenant colonel’s litany of nicknames was “Bandito”.

Bandito immediately sensed the potential flexibility, speed, and strength of this new technology. He was what you call ‘an early adopter,’ and he would spend much of his time between the world wars enhancing the U.S. Army’s capacity for this new type of armored warfare. Bandito’s exploits were only beginning. World War II would make his name legendary.

But before we continue with Bandito’s story, let's shine the spotlight on the National Museum of the United States Army, which opened its doors on the base of Fort Belvoir in Virginia on Armistice Day—November 11, 2020.

Photo Credit: Steven Rosen

Soon after officially opening in 2020, the museum was closed temporarily due to the pandemic. The Army decided to reopen on June 14, 2021, the Army’s 246th birthday.

But, let me back up yet again. Because it is important to note that way back in 2008, the opening of the Army Museum had been projected to be sometime around 2013, about five years from beginning to end.

And what seismic tech-shift was playing out in the lighting industry in the years between 2008, when work on the museum’s shell began, and 2013, its initially projected completion? In 2008, when Available Light created their initial lighting design plan, they operated under the assumption of an opening five years in the future. This was roughly the same amount of time it had taken their team to complete the lighting design job at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, which was approximately the same size.

A large project means more stakeholders, whose competing sensibilities will have to play out as part of the process. Said another way, a lot of different people have a lot of different ideas. And, those differences are not always addressed by the final proposal. At any point in the process, issues can crop up which the various shareholders must ultimately sort out.

Such was the case a number of times with this important museum. Like the democratic process itself, progress can at times seem glacial, as competing interests do what they must to resolve their differences. Compromise. Give and take. Hard-won ground, foot by foot.

Photo Credit: Steven Rosen

Case in point was the Bradley tank, one of the many macro-scale pieces the lighting team had been asked to illuminate. It had originally been conceived and designed to be on a platform in the museum at a 60-degree angle. An interesting perspective for a museum visitor, perhaps, but according to Lead Designer Derek Barnwell, Principal at Available Light, “Some stakeholders got involved and noted, ‘When would that ever happen? When would you ever see a Bradley at a 60-65 degree angle? Yeah, probably not.' So…“

“There were some elements of real Army-life continuity that needed to be addressed by these groups of stakeholders. We rolled with the changes, all the while keeping our eye on the end goal/opening date,” said Barnwell.

But, as the work on the museum proceeded, the churn and clamor of a revolution became impossible to ignore.

That question about the seismic tech-shift playing out in the lighting industry between 2008 and 2013? LEDs, of course.

And as with the advent of any new technology, LED technology brought along its own rewards, demands, and consequences. Some early adopters, who spent big too early, got burned.

Barnwell explained, “We took a cautious approach toward working with LED on a macro-scale project. We started to look down the road, though, and realized that even though we didn’t know exactly when the museum was going to open, the lighting industry was undergoing a transformation. Lighting manufacturers were starting to phase out legacy lighting sources, like metal halide and compact fluorescent.”

“Pretty soon you’re going to reach an inflection point where the lighting we’ve specified isn’t going to be supported. It may be obsolete by that time.”

It sounds a bit stressful, delivering the cold, hard truth to, and bargaining with, The United States Army. And, while armed only with some rapidly outdated lighting equipment. But, Available Light knew it was time to confront the realities of this rapidly changing playing field and lay its cards on the proverbial table.

“So,” said Derek Barnwell, “We suggested to our client that, roughly a year and a half out from opening, our instinct is that we should reevaluate and re-specify the lighting hardware we originally deployed. Essentially, we should replace every legacy light source fixture with a comparable LED equivalent. And, by the way, we have no idea how much that’s going to cost.”

What was the Army’s response to that? These people whose livelihoods, as well as their lives, rely on rolling with the steady churn of new technological realities?

“Yes, that’s probably a good idea. You should do that,” Barnwell paraphrased of the Army’s response.

It’s the old double-edged sword: one tech blade cuts forward, solving problems, while the other tech blade cuts backward, creating new ones.

Barnwell continued, “In 2017, we engaged in a process of looking at every fixture on the job and re-evaluating it, asking ourselves, 'What fits the bill with new technology for this fixture type?’ We did a wholesale re-specification of the entire project. And, we had to quantify that and come up with how much that was going to cost. This was a tricky assignment.”

Available Light President and Creative Director, Steven Rosen, explained, "The budget that we were carrying for the legacy lighting system—with ceramic metal halide (CMH) as our workhorse light source—was about $900,000.”

Coming up with a revised LED conversion budget was not easy. The team had multiple layers of light to consider, including an overhead layer of lighting, custom-curved track lighting formed to parallel sweeping curvilinear exhibit panels, many elements of display case and integral lighting built into a lighting exhibit design element, etc.

"So, after a deep dive into the art, science, and cost of LED conversion, we came up with a budget number approaching $1.9 million," said Rosen, “To justify the added cost, we developed a detailed cost-benefit analysis looking forward five plus years beyond opening, to help the Army understand how much LED technology would save in operational costs (including significantly reduced power consumption, decreased maintenance, diminished air conditioning loads, etc.). Taking all of these factors into account, the real added cost to the Army was about $100,000 for the LED technology exchange.”

In 2017 and 2018, the project at the Army Museum moved into full-blown fabrication mode and installation of the exhibits and the lighting into the building. Included on the project are 650 ETC brand framing projectors, hundreds of LSI track fixtures, and many other assorted lighting ammunition products.

Available Light did what great generals do. They began with an informed and clearly-reasoned plan, and then improvised as the landscape shifted around them.

Photo Credit: Steven Rosen

Barnwell pointed out, “What’s important to know is the shell of the gallery, the building we were given, had a 30-odd foot ceiling. That meant, when we got done loading it up with MEP equipment and all the accoutrements that make up a functioning building for human beings to occupy, our datum line for lighting was going to be about 27 feet.”

He elaborated, “That’s not a bunch of track fixtures. That’s highpowered theatrical framing projectors. Our original pass at that utilized ceramic metal halide framing projectors because we couldn’t use an incandescent source. That would've been highly impractical having to change them every 2,000 hours. CMH was the initial choice going back to 2008.”

Photo Credit: Steven Rosen

As technology progressed, the switch to LEDs became more feasible. Manufacturers engineered a way to get a significant lumen-package LED engine into a theatrical framing projector, allowing a throw distance of 30 feet to light macro-scale artifacts such as airplanes and tanks, along with associated graphics and scenic decor.

And like the Army itself, the Available Light team had to be versatile. They also needed weapons to throw beams of light at shorter distances with more conventional track heads, at oblique angles, at…you name it.

Photo Credit: Steven Rosen

In February of 2020, the Available Light team went on-site, and the scale of the project became clear in a way that it often isn’t on-paper. “The scale of it was breath-taking,” said Barnwell. “Usually, we walk into a space and it feels smaller than we imagined. In this case it felt bigger―much bigger―and it gave us pause. We wondered if we did the right thing with this LED conversion. There’s a lot of air in this place!” Looking back on the job, Barnwell reflected, “We did four great days on site. Most of the work was done 27 feet off the ground. Logistically, that’s always a challenge. You focus a light, carefully move a big one-person lift to a new position, focus another light, and so on. It is slow, painstaking work. And there’s a lot of priceless army hardware hanging up there between the base of the lift and the focus person up in the air. But, it went well, and we busted out two very large galleries in those four days.”

The team was scheduled to return for a second focus trip the next month, but plans can sometimes unexpectedly change.

What could possibly have come along in March of 2020 to disrupt not only their plans, but the plans of the entire world? I think we all know the answer.

The team finally returned to finish up the job months later. “Our final departure from the site was rather anti-climactic,” said Rosen. “Because virtually everything in the exhibit needs to be complete and installed, we need to do our work in the final days before opening. Normally, the big press opening is on the heels of the final lighting focus/programming visit. But opening day was yet to be set.”

At long last, the museum opened on November 11, 2020.

And what about the controls? An intricate project like this demands precise lighting control.

“Because there is dynamic lighting in every space, we decided to distribute our lighting control with networked CueServers by Interactive Technologies in each gallery,” said Rosen.

“In the World War One gallery, we had a highly theatrical mediaimmersion experience with cast human-scale figures immersed in a scenic environment. Lighting and lighting effects were synchronized to a giant semi-circular projection screen expressing the historical story of a battlefield moment. This area, in particular, required a great deal of granular control. The CueServers served us well in every gallery.”

Speaking of the World War One immersion experience, let’s return to Bandito where we left him: spending the years between the world wars pondering the significance and strategic value of the tank. Do you want another hint to solve his identity? Another of his nicknames was “Old Blood and Guts.” He also happened to be a renowned Olympic athlete.

Now you’ve got it. The man who rolled with it, literally, helping lead the Allies to victory in the invasion of Sicily. An instrumental force in liberating Germany and the world from the Nazis. The United States Army’s own prodigious and prodigal son: General George Smith Patton, Jr.

You can find him in Virginia. At Fort Belvoir. In the National Museum of the United States Army, deftly illuminated by the good people at Available Light.

To those who roll with it and improvise as the ground shifts beneath them, we'll keep a light burning for you.

Salute! ■