6/18 - Air Force Museum, Day 2

We spent the day in the Air Force Museum again, this time getting through the Cold War, Missile, Space and Presidential Galleries. The museum is overwhelming with its countless planes and objects and the excellent presentations. It's a truly fascinating place but it left our heads spinning.  


I'll hit just a few of the highlights because I doubt anyone is interested in seeing lots of pictures of aircraft from the last 100 years.  

I got a passing shot of three of the museum's four hangars as we drove to the entrance.

Entrance to the Cold War Gallery.  The big tail on the left with 22220 on it goes almost to the top of the hangar.  It appears to be a good 50 feet high.

Plane with its skin removed so all the innards are visible. Every inch has been used.

It's hard to imagine either building these planes or working on them. Good ground crews are so vital to the functioning of the planes that the crew chief's name is often painted on a plane along with the pilot's name.

One of the most unusual planes, the Ryan X-13 Verti-Jet in landing position.  It took off vertically with its nose up, transitioned to horizontal flight, then landed vertically by going backwards to the ground. It was developed in the mid-50's, proved the concept worked, but was discontinued in 1958 because of limited operational potential and lack of funding. The yellow wall provides both its landing site and trailer.

The Presidential Gallery has at least six planes used by presidents from FDR to Clinton. The one above was Kennedy's Air Force One, the plane on which his body was returned to DC after his assassination.

FDR's plane, nicknamed the "Sacred Cow", is one of the most interesting because of how the inside was designed.  The passageways are very narrow but they could all accommodate his wheelchair.  There wasn't an inch to spare all the way through and moving from the wheelchair into a seat must have been challenging.

Replica of FDR's wheelchair and chair lift into his plane.

The biggest problem for FDR when flying was getting on and off planes without a public spectacle being made of his inability to walk.  He was always very conscious of keeping his disability hidden as much as possible.  A chair lift was designed so he could easily get in and out of the plane with a minimum of fuss.

An F-16 Thunderbird (lower right with red-edged tail) next to a huge air transport plane. 

One of the most amazing things about the museum is how many planes they have and how they've been fit into the hangars like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.  They're all over the ceilings and walls and floor with all sorts of other things in between (like nuclear bombs). It's so well done nothing looks over-crowded, but looking at the whole picture it's difficult to figure out how they got all the planes into place.