The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force

The National Museum of the US Air Force, or the US Air Force Museum at Wright-Patt (Wright-Patterson Air Force Base) in Dayton, Ohio may not sound exciting to a lot of folks, but it is the best military aviation museum around and one of our personal favorites as a museum in general.

Denny and I arrived at the museum at 9:20 and after talking to the well-informed volunteer at the information desk we decided to start at the rear of the complex at the Missile and Space Gallery and work our way forward to the front of the museum in time to join the guided tour at 1:30. This meant walking through three hangars which is two more than were there the last time we visited the museum. I have loaded some pictures below, but due to the huge size of the museum and the dark lighting for preserving and dramatizing the planes many of the pictures of the more unusual aircraft did not turn out. That is more my fault than that of the camera.

The Missile and Space Gallery appears to be in the process of being built as there are markings on the floor for the placement of additional missiles. Having been to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, we were less than impressed with this area of the museum, but it would be hard to top the Space and Rocket Center missile and rocket displays; very impressive stuff. However, there is a Sputnik on display overhead, some high-altitude balloon capsules, missiles and rockets as well as an informative and interesting display of various space foods eaten by the astronauts.

The next gallery is the Cold War Gallery (we were working back to front, remember) with aircraft that carried nuclear war heads, spy planes, the B-2 “Stealth” bomber, planes that flew in the Desert Storm conflict, air/rescue craft, refueling planes and much more. We were only 1/3 of the way through this exhibit when it was time for us to meet up for the bus ride into the Wright Patterson Air Force base to view the Presidential airplanes and the R&D craft in separate hangars. The Columbine III (President Eisenhower), Air Force One (President Kennedy), the Sacred Cow(President Franklin D. Roosevelt) and the Independence (President Harry S. Truman) have been set up to allow inside viewing (although the corridor is only 17 inches wide inside the planes which is very snug). It was really interesting to see the improvements in technology and sophistication on the various planes from president to president. The R&D hangar was a fascinating glimpse into the amount of time, energy and money that is spent in research on the various facets of flight and wartime technology. The shapes and sizes of the various jets, guided missiles, drones, reconnaissance vehicles and helicopters are amazing in their variety and complexity. The whole hangar is packed nose to tail with aircraft, making it difficult to take pictures of any one model so I have included the link to the website as they have taken individual pictures outdoors before bringing the aircraft inside for display.

After being bussed back to the Museum we returned to the Cold War Gallery to finish the rest of the display and then decided to come back another day to do the second of the three hangars. We were at the Museum for four and a half hours and still have two hangars of the three to explore. Does that tell you how large this complex is? Of course, Denny and I actually read much of the information displayed about the various aircraft and items displayed, and watch the small videos available for further information. I suppose one could whip through the whole museum by just looking at the planes and displays without reading anything, but that would be such a waste as there is a treasure trove of information there.

If we have time before we fly back to Arizona I'm going to push for another day here, otherwise our return visit will have to wait until we work our way back to Ohio late this coming summer. So consider this part 1 of 3.