The world's largest collection of military aircraft can be found at Wright Patterson Air Force Base just northwest of Dayton Ohio. The National Museum of the United States Air Force houses an amazing collection of airplanes and missiles from the Wright Brothers era to the present.
Tom would like to spend a week going through this museum in detail, but we only had one afternoon. It might have been easy to skip the first hanger of early aircraft but we would have missed a couple of early wind tunnels including one designed by Orville Wright.
Two famous World War II bombers, the B-17, Memphis Belle, and the B-29, Bock's Car, highlight the World War II section.
The Cold War era airframes include a B-36, the largest plane in the museum. Since my cousin, Don Sather, spent several years doing maintenance on these behemoths before moving on to United Airlines, I was anxious to see the engines up close.
If you have read very many books on the development of nuclear weapons (and who hasn't) the display of several bomb casings will interest you. Contrast the Mark-17 megaton warhead with the much later 1/3 megaton W87 weighing in at around 600 pounds.
There is a very interesting corner of one hanger devoted to transporting the U.S. presidents. Aircraft there include the one that flew FDR to Casablanca during WWII, Truman's Independence, Eisenhower's Columbine and the first Air Force One, a Boeing 707. All are open for a walk-through to inspect the presidential quarters.
More pictures at our Flickr Album, of course.
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