Aviation Museums

[Flightjock30]

Chicago Air & Space Museum is very neat. The first 727 retired by United is on display there.

 

[pilotyip]

I could tell about the Yankee Air Museum at Willow Run but it was destroyed in a fire last fall. But all of the flyable airplanes were saved. The Yankee Air Museum is putting on a Air show in August called "Thunder Over Michigan 05". It will feature the largest collection of flying B-17 since WWII. There will be 7 B-17s in the sky together flying over the air show. It will be a one in a lifetime sight to see. Plus there is a seminar on Saturday night featuring WWII bomber crewmembers talking about thier expereincess over Europe suring WWII. For further information go to the museum's web site http://www.yankeeairmuseum.org/

 

[Rick1128]

The Evergreen Museum is in the process of building an Imax theater which should be a real thrill when completed.

And don't forget the Eight Air Force Museum in Savannah.

The Afghan Military Museum is still a little weak. They have an interesting collection of military equipment from the toy IEDs that the Russians used there to scud missles. With some aircraft.

The weakest aviation museum I have seen so far is the museum at the Teipi airport in Taiwan.

 

[FastCargo]

I've been to a lot of avaition muesums. Most of my favorites have already been named: NASM, Wright Patterson AFB, Naval Air Museum, etc.

However, when you can, check out the smaller ones, you'd be surprised at what you can find.

We were driving on I-10 back from Florida to Texas, when we decided to stop at the USS Alabama battleship muesum. Surprise! It has a small air muesum as well. They had a VERY nice looking F4U they had recently restored. But, they also had one of the very rare SR-71 2 seater models. And an extremely rare (only 2 ever built) YF-17 Cobra. For those who don't know, it competed against the F-16 for the Lightweight Fighter contract. Though it didn't win, Northrop and McD teamed up and used the YF-17 as the baseline for the F-18.

Many years ago, I did the last airshow at Castle AFB, CA before the base was shut down. I happened to stop by their outdoor air muesum, and they had, wonders of wonder, a Northrop (?) A-9! The A-9 competed against the A-10 for that contract but lost. I think only 2 were ever built as well. It's an interesting looking aircraft, kind of like a supersized T-37. Makes you wonder where the Russians got their inspiration for the Su-25 Frogfoot. I hope someone (maybe even the USAF) will have picked it up and restored it to display somewhere inside.

Fly Safe!
FastCargo

 

[sqwkvfr]

PIMA is excellent, but my favorite was the Champlain Fighter Museum at Falcon Field in Mesa, AZ. It is a one-of-a-kind collection of WWI and WWII --and various other-- era aircraft. Several of the aircraft are the only flyable versions that exist.

They closed it and moved the collection to Seattle (Boeing).

I don't know whether they have it set up there yet, but if/when they do, it's well worth your time.

 

[Huggyu2]

Hey FastCargo!
Good tip! But I believe the only surviving two-seat Sled is somewhere else. It's the one with the stepped-up rear cockpit. The one you saw was probably an A-12 (I don't know the differences between that and an SR-71A).
Anyways, I'm putting USS Alabama on my list!