Ride Themes: Aviation Museums

[Phil Tarman]

You know, we could make up a pretty good ride just visiting aviation museums. Washington, Oregon (the Evergreen Aviation Museum, where the Spruce Goose lives now), Chino, CA, and the Planes of Fame; Topeka, KS, and Liberal, KS; Denver -- and I'm embarrassed to say I've never visited the museum at the old Lowery, but it looks pretty good;, Houston and NASA; Kitty Hawk; DC and Maryland, for the Smithsonian and Ugar-Hazy (probably not spelled right) museum at Dulles; there's a Glenn Curtis museum in upstate NY; Dayton, OH, for the AF Museum; back to Kansas for the Kansas Aviation Museum in Wichita; and the list probably goes on. Oh, I know there's one in Paris, Texas, of all places (unless it's folded), and there's got to be one in San Antonio with Kelly and Randolph.

 

[Chucksklrst]

You know, we could make up a pretty good ride just visiting aviation museums. Denver -- and I'm embarrassed to say I've never visited the museum at the old Lowery, but it looks pretty good;, .

Come on down Phil, I will meet you there. It is a nice museum. It is a good warm up for your Avation Museum Trip.

 

[RedLdr1]

The Museum of Aviation at Warner Robins AFB here in central Georgia is also pretty good...

 

[vc_slim]

One of my favorites is the Pima Air Museum in Tuscon, AZ. Right across the street from the Boneyard.

 

[RedLdr1]

My wife surprised me with a ticket for a flight in a B-17 a couple of years ago. Flying in it around north Georgia for about an hour was the coolest flight I have ever had in a fixed wing aircraft...

 

[Chucksklrst]

My wife surprised me with a ticket for a flight in a B-17 a couple of years ago. Flying in it around north Georgia for about an hour was the coolest flight I have ever had in a fixed wing aircraft...

I have to agree. The best seat was in the bombardiers seat.

 

[karl]

http://www.museumsusa.org/museums/info/1162797
Compleat with flying saucer.

 

[Phil Tarman]

And, of course, the U S Naval Aviation museum in Pensacola

Oh, yeah! In fact that was what got my first conversation going with a couple of COG buddies. One of them is building a Cozy, a 4-place variation of Burt Rutan's Long-EZE design. He told the other two of us that when he gets the plane finished, the three of us woulld have to fly to Pensacola to see that museum. So the other guy and I started thinking of all the other places Rick could fly us.

Only one slight issue for me: Rick is doing a beautiful job of building a 160-mph airplane. But Rick doesn't know how to fly. When Rick learns, it won't be in his Cozy. It'll be in something like a 152. Then he'll have to learn to fly faster planes that pick up lots of speed in a dive very quickly. He'll have to learn how to manage the flight. I'm about a 250-hour Private Pilot (who hasn't flown since '83, except for a few times with church members). I want to be sure to give Rick plenty of time to develop the capabilities and mastery to handle something fast before I fly with him.

So, I'm thinking, "Hey, you fly; I'll ride down and meet you!"

BTW, judging from the number of responses to this thread, there must be some connection between what makes us motorcyclists and what draws some of us to flying. I know that my Dad, who was a 30,000+ hour instructor and executive pilot who never had a different job from driving airplanes, "got it" when I bought my first bike. I had expected both of my folks to think I was crazy, but they never did. Mom rode with me two or three times and enjoyed it. Dad rode with me once and never wanted to again, but by the time I started riding, he was failing physically and not particularly enjoying new experiences. But even so, he never tried to talk me out of riding.

 

[Phil Tarman]

When I was a kid my dad instructed for the USAF. From '50 till '58, they used civilian contractors to do primary flight instruction. When Dad first started, the intro airplane was a 135hp military version of a Piper Cub, then they moved into North American T-6s. In about '54, they transitioned to Beech T-34s as the intro aircraft with a transition to North American T-28A's. After 6 months at Graham AFB (or other civilian operated bases that did primary training; I remember that there were a couple in Georgia and one at Hondo, TX), they'd move on to either single-engine fighters with the T-33 as the trainer or multi-engine and eventually bombers or transports.

The base sponsored an Air Explorer Post and had a B-25 "utility" aircraft. Every month, the five "outstanding" Explorer Scouts would get a two-three hour ride in the B-25. It was a later model and had a solid nose, so that the bombadier/navigator and radio operator/flight engineer sat in seats behind the pilot and co-pilot. There was crawl space over the bomb bay and then jump seats in the back for the "gunners." There were two waist gun positions and a tail gun position back between the rudders. Since there were only 8-10 of us Explorers, it meant that we got a B-25 ride every couple of months at least. They'd let us do the navigation, but they never let any of us sit in either the right or left front seats.

During Glenn Miller Days out here in Fort Morgan a few years ago, I bought a ride (for only $60) in a T-6. There was no control stick in the back seat, and the guy didn't give me much of a flight, but it was neat to be able to sit in my Dad's old office for 15-20 minutes.

 

[Warren]

Wonderful list! … personally, I've never been to an air museum that didn't offer a great sense of Fascination and Ingenuity … some, like my all-time favorite, the Air Force Museum in Dayton Oh. … is a lifetime obsession! I lived 'next door' for 37yrs in Cincinnati, and always visited at least 3-5 times/yr. … even more fun when visiting with several of my friends who worked for GE Propulsion (in Cinci) & they would reminisce on the development of various key aircraft engines … as we all well know … an exceptional powerplant is essential to a truly great machine!

I currently live 'next door' to Kennedy Space Center … even with all the current NASA misdirections … the Kennedy Space Museum & Visitors Center is extraordinary! They even have the exact Gemini spacecraft that I worked on in the mid-sixties … it's still 'state-of-the-art' in my memories!

Phil, I think you've come up with a travel agenda that would be truly an extreme riding pursuit … but close to impossible to better!!!

ken

I lived in Dayton for 9 years and went to Wright Patterson Air force museum many times and agree that it is awsome. Last year I also went to Kennedy Space Center and it was pretty cool as well. History is one of my passions and I can spend hours in just about any kind of museum. One of my goals is to visit every motorcycle museum in the US.

 

[BessonGuy]

Near Detroit:

http://www.yankeeairmuseum.org/ has a B-17 and others you can get a ride in. Remember Ford built planes in WWII.

http://www.selfridgeairmuseum.org/ is north of Detroit and a good way to spend a few hours.


Don

 

[Phil Tarman]

One of my goals is to visit every motorcycle museum in the US.

Warren,

You need to start a Thread of "Riding Themes: Motorcycle Museums." I know there's one in Kansas. And I'm thinking that Harold Warp's Pioneer Village in Minden, Nebraska, might have some motorcycles. If it doesn't, it's probably the only thing that isn't there. Pioneer Village is the most idiosyncratic muesum I've ever seen. It's just Harold Warp's personal collection. He definitely collected some airplane stuff: two of his planes that I remember, a Piper Cub and a Piper Apache, quite a few radial aircraft engines.

 

[Phil Tarman]

Air Force Air Armament Museum Eglin AFB FL

Oh, yeah! In 1957, my dad was a flight instructror for the AF in Marianna, FL. The instructors got a chance to take their families to a dress rehearsal for a "Firepower Demonstration" at Eglin. Absolutely awesome. They fired lots of ammunition and dropped lots of bombs pretty up close and personal. My two favorite things that day were an F-100 going past the stands supersonic and about 30-40' off the ground and a B-47 doing a LABS weapon delivery. LABS, IIRC, stood for Low Altitude Ballistic System. The B-47 came in low and fast and pulled up into an Immelmann, when it was going straight up, it popped a 5,000# bomb out. The bomb had a smoke canister attached, but was plenty big enough to see. The -47 pulled on around, rolled out into a shallow dive and exited stage right, low and fast. The bomb went way up, stopped, and came straight back down and made a heck of a big noise. The delivery was intended to be used with nuclear weapons if penetrating the adversary's airspace demanded low flight to get under the radar screen. The whole deal was awesome.

 

[Phil Tarman]

a few exciting hours in full motion simulators over the years.

Boy, that would be good enough for me. I had an F-16 simulator instructor in my church in Ogden. He called me three times at 2 or 3 in the morning when somebody didn't show up, but I was out of town every time he called. My wife wasn't as excited about those calls as I would have been if I'd been home.

One of my secretary's sons drives B-1s out of Ellsworth. He deployed to Qtar last Saturday. The Saturday before his dad had gotten to taxi the B-1 out to the runway before Brett took his instructor-pilot check ride. The guy who was giving the check ride had been known to let Dad's ride in the jump seat, but that didn't happen for Stan, even though he's a CAP pilot.

That'll teach him. He's known for 15 1/2 years that I'm a lapsed Private Pilot and that I love to fly and he never takes me with him.

 

[Chuck 500]

+1 on the Naval Aviation museum at NAS Pensacola. I remember a display there years ago of a small yellow plane that had been recovered from San Diego Bay. The restores contacted the pilot, who was still living, and informed him that they had recovered the plane he put in San Diego Bay in 1935. His response was "Which one?"

+1 on the US Air Force Armament Museum at Hurlbert Field, Eglin AFB, FL. the used to have a small device out side the door, bomb, general purpose, 44,000 lb.

Keep the shiny side up,

Chuck

 

[Phil Tarman]

44,000 pounds is a large bomb -- was it a penetrator like today's bunker-busters?

 

[Chuck 500]

As I recall, they were used in Viet Nam to create "instant landing zones". They were dropped from C-130 cargo planes because they wouldn't fit in a regular bomber.

Chuck

 

[Phil Tarman]

After thinking about that for a few minutes, I realized that when you said "Landing Zones" you were talking about helicopter landing zones not runways for C-130s. I'll bet it would clear a heck of a big LZ.

Did they roll them out the back of the Herc on wheels?

 

[Phil Tarman]

Wow! I wish they'd had one of those to drop at that 1957 Firepower Demonstration I saw at Eglin AFB.

 

[Phil Tarman]

Coffee is on me when get here....

Talked me into it, Dave!