There's only one place in the world that you can get this view.

Had to look up the museum location but recognized the XB-70. I probably watched every episode of Wings on the History Channel at least once growing up.

Yep, that's the one. It had been a few years since I'd taken the kids, and they're old enough to really appreciate it now, so I took the boys out to Ohio for the weekend and the girls stayed home and did girl things.

There's some amazing stuff in that place. My favorites are the XB70 and the B36.









This was the original main landing gear design for the B36...would have been cool to see on the plane!

Great pics. The XB-70 had some amazing capabilities - guess just too many mishaps in development to make it viable. My favorite story from Wings was how one took off painted white and returned gray after the paint delaminated during the test flight.

My nephew moved to Ohio a little over an year ago and is a contractor at Wright-Pat. When I have a chance to visit him I’ll be sure to save time for a tour. Was able to visit the museum at NAS Pensacola a few months ago. I enjoy those places quite a lot.

Thanks for posting this
I
Might just add that stop to my bucket list of places to visit.

It could be on my way to the Atlanta Aquarium.

yes really good photos that museum looks interesting

It's an excellent museum...will easily fill a day and then some. 4 Large hangars from WW1 to present day, plus a "Missile Silo", and an airpark outside for some stuff that didn't fit inside.

They even have a Presidential aircraft exhibit. It used to be over on the base proper and you had to sign your life away and take a shuttle to get there, but it's now part of the main museum complex. One of the volunteers told me they're slated to get one of the VC25s when they get replaced by the new 747-800 based aircraft.

There's some pretty historically significant aircraft on display, and even a lot of the ones that aren't immediately apparent as significant have some good stories behind them. Taking the free guided tours is worth it, if just for that.

The actual "Memphis Belle"


The Bockscar...dropped the Nagasaki atomic bomb (Enola Gay which dropped on Hiroshima is at the Smithsonian)


The kids really liked the stuff you can get inside:

What's better than one Mustang? 2!


Not every day you see a B52 inside.




They even have some interesting historical firearms:


ICBMs


The plane that took Kennedy to Dallas


And a whole bunch of other really weird stuff...

That is super cool. It is amazing at how they get those big planes off the ground. I understand lift,etc., but still pretty amazing.

What's it called and where's it at ?
Please

National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...residential_aircraft

Great Museum. I have been there tons of times. I went to college at Wittenberg University which is just a ways down the road.
It was also in the flight path of Wright-Patterson Air force base where the museum is.

Got to see lots of cool planes flying.

I think it was 2003 and Hurricane Isabel that ravaged the east coast all the way up to DC.
They brought tons of planes to Wright Pat from all along the east coast.

The run ways and grounds were all lined up with all sorts of planes.

They had one runway that was awash with B1s and it was absolutely glorious.

They used to have a great Air Show each year. I have not been there in a few years and not sure if they still do it or not.

I've been there twice. Great place for airplane addicts, but not representative of the entire Air Force. Not a single exhibit honoring the thousands of radar folks manning the hundreds of radar sites all over the world during the Cold War. You'd think they could at least have one representative radar set on site. There were some notable ones in the late inventory -- the AN/FPS-24 had a rotating sntenna that was 120' wide and 50' tall and weighed 70 tons. There were only 12 of them all got scrapped. Biggest rotating radar ever made. This is a photo of the one not mounted in an 85' tower: EufaulaFPS24Fall1960ax.jpg by David Casteel, on Flickr

flashguy

This message has been edited. Last edited by: flashguy,

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The run ways and grounds were all lined up with all sorts of planes.

They had one runway that was awash with B1s and it was absolutely glorious.

I'd have paid money to see that! Love the B1!

Love that museum. I have pictures of the XB-70 somewhere but can't seem to find them.

Lots of off-the wall stuff there. It's the only place I have seen an actual Kaman HH-43 Husky in the flesh. My dad flew those in Vietnam during the war and it was cool to see one in person.

Went to grad school at WPAFB. Our class got a tour of the WWII+ aircraft and missiles in the museum by one of our older profs, who talked us thru each iteration of aircraft and missile as tech progressed. Fascinating.

quote:

Originally posted by 229DAK:
Went to grad school at WPAFB. Our class got a tour of the WWII+ aircraft and missiles in the museum by one of our older profs, who talked us thru each iteration of aircraft and missile as tech progressed. Fascinating.

That would be really cool. One of my favorite things to do is tag along with the guided tours as the volunteers are typically veterans themselves and have a lot of cool stories.

Just last week we were at the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola and I started talking to one of the volunteers there. We ended up talking for almost an hour. Turns out he was a Skyraider pilot in Vietnam and had some great stories about flying off of carriers. He had a lot of knowledge about the WWII collection and showed me some interesting stuff about the Corsair that I'd never heard before, too. Fascinating stuff.

Truly a spectacular museum, and one that should be at the top of the list for any enthusiast of American history. It is to aircraft what the Cody museum is to firearms.