Marc's Public Blog - Flying

While there were apparently other fine museums nearby, I didn't fly all the way over there for them, or to learn about the business opportunities of moving my business to Dayton :)

I so ran out of time to go see this. Bummer...

Because of the Wright Brothers legacy, the :Wright Patterson USAF was based there, and in turn the (free) USAF museum was created next to it. Saying that it's big or awesome would be too easy :) It is with the Smithsonian annex in at Washington DC Dulles airport, the best flight museum anywhere as far as I know, and both are worth flying to just to go see them (in the case of Dayton, there isn't really much else to see or do while you're there, but the museum itself is well worth the trip). I flew there on a wednesday and spent all of thursday and friday from open to close, before catching a friday night flight home.
Because I went on the so called presidential tour twice (once to see the presidential airplanes, and had to go back a 2nd time just to see the X-Planes which were so awesome that I had to make a separate page just for them. Those are all due to move in a permanent exposition hall (#4) by 2016. Then, I also went on a 3h backstage tour to see planes being restored, and as a result, the rest of the time was almost not enough to see everying in 2 days. In hindsight, I could have spend 3 days there...

I have a highlight of the pictures below, but here are links of to the full picture galleries:

Anyway, let's start: nearby, there are a few historical points of interest, including Huffman Prairie where the Wright brothers were testing their planes, but outside of the plaques to read, there isn't that much to see (the prairie is unsurprisingly a bunch of grass :) ):

Outside the USAF Musuem, there were also a few planes and barracks reconstitutions:

poor thing, its nose got stung by a bee... (boeing EC-135E, with big radar)

But let's get back to the museum:

the 4th hangar in the distance wasn't open yet, but will be in 2016

the map might not look big, but it is big

I started with the early years hangar:

I would not want to step in this :)

that's going to leave a mark ;)

The World War II hangar was next:

MXy7-K1, a Japanese Kamikaze cruise missile (i.e. the guidance was a human)

First German Rocket plane

shooting inside the prop, nice idea

The next hall was both the Korea War and Southeast Asia:

The A-3 lifeboat was a rescue boat that could be dropped from a B29 bomber

F-94A starfire

F-82G twin mustang, cool...

First MiG 15 that made it to the US thanks to a defector who brought it

F-86A Sabre

F-80C Shooting Star

F-84E

F100-F Super Sabre

RF-101C Voodoo reconnaissance aircraft

Nice ammo range...

B-26K

OV-10A Bronco

MiG 17F

MiG 21

F-4C Phantom II

They had a few leftover planes they stuck there (not Korea or Asia war related):

Boeing Bird of Prey was built to test stealth technologies

The F22 is of course a formidable aircraft from later years

The next hall is Cold War:

B-36J Peacemaker, kind of an ironic name for a bomber :)

SM-62 Snark long range nuclear missile

The RF-86F saber was a reconnaissance plane with fake machine guns stickers to look like it's armed

The WB-50D Superfortress

TM-61A Matador cruise missile

CGM-13B Mace replaced the Matador

B-58A Hustler, the supersonic bomber

nice to see how a plane is inside (F-86H Sabre)

RB-47H Stratojet

F-106

F-15 Eagle

RC-4D Phantom II

F-117A

F-16A Thunderbird

X-45A UAV

They also had a section on the first spy satellites. Before the digital world, they actually took spy pictures on film and would jettison the film so that it fell back on earth with a parachute and would get snagged mid-air by a recovery plane. Not very efficient, but before digital cameras, that was the best that could be done back then. Sure was inventive :)

these were taken by a U2 though

Another corner also had a space shuttle trainer:

The highlight of that room, however, were the B1 and B2 bombers. I had never seen either one up close, and I especially like the sleek look of the B1 (the B2 is an interesting engineering achievement, but it requires so much maintenance to remain stealth that it's not very practical). the B-2 was also very hard to photograph due to its size and where it was stored

B-1

B-2

The last room had lots of rockets, most of them ICBMs, the multiple generations of intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver nuclear payload across the world. I didn't realize how massive those rockets were, and how some are big enough to deliver small satellites in orbit. It's only when you're standing in front of them that you get a sense of scale:

That was it for the Halls, but I still have pictures from the presidential planes in that temporary hall on the USAF base. As written above, the other side with the X-Planes was totally awesome, and I wrote a separate page just for them:

And as the last bit, a few pictures of my 3H backstage tour in the restoration hangars

pulsejet

leaving planes outside in bad weather like they get in Ohio, definitely has a toll on them, hence restoration work

they redesign new pieces from scratch to match the old ones

new blood being brought in

shooting turrets

And this time, it's really over, way too many pictures, sorry :)
But if you want more, go to the Museum's web site for a virtual 3D tour

Anyway, the Wright Patterson USAF Museum has an impressive list of flying machines that were cramped in a small hangar waiting to be moved to their 4th exposition hall slated to open in 2016. This was part of the presidential tour, but honestly seeing the presidential planes was a waste of time compared to the other side that had all those X-Planes. I was on a timed 45mn tour and I cried murder when I was told I had to go back on the bus off the secure base, and back to the museum. I signed right up for another tour and went back to the temporary hangar and spent all my time on the X-Plane side.

There are many other things in that museum, they are in the main page Wright Patterson USAF Museum.

This XH-26 Jet Jeep uses pulsejets to turn the main rotor. It was demeed too noisy though.

The avrocar. Is this for real?

Huge turbine in the middle

XF-85, what a strange beast. A parasite fighter carried by bombers

NT-33A

Tacit Blue tested stealth technology

P-75A, dual in line prop, sleek design, but it wasn't successful

Way before the Osprey, the XV-3, the first tilt rotor aircraft

P-80R Shooting Star

XV-6A Kestrel, VTOL prototype before the Harrier

XF-91 Thunderceptor, variable incidence wing prototype

AQN-34L Firebee jet drone

The F-107A has a huge air intake on top

The NC-131H was a weird beast, it was designed to feel like other planes for pilot training

trainee pilots go in the front, instructors go in the upper rear and can change the plane's characteristics

the wings have rudders used to simulate other planes and/or tough crosswind landing conditions

Bell X-1B, sound barrier breaker

North American X-10

The X-24A is also a weird beast, used to test gliding conditions back from space (later used by space shuttle)

OMG, the Douglas X-3 is pointy, designed to test high speed high altitude conditions in 1952

another pre-space shuttle near-spacecraft, the Martin X-24B

like baby bird hiding under the mother :)

XF-36 tail less plane used to test fly by wire without a tail

X-29A

So many planes piled up...

cool nose and fat prop

Misssiles and bombs:

guided bombs

the rascal was a supersonic missile with nuclear warhead

Some special planes I kept for the end, starting with the YF-12A and its drone:

The D-21B was meant to be a drone carried on top of the YF-12A which later became the SR71

I'm not good enough to tell you how the YF-12A differs from the SR71

The Northrop-McDonnell Douglas YF-23 was a contender for the soon to be F22, but the YF-22, from lockheed won:

it's a cool looking plane though

Now, the highlight for me was the XB-70 Valkyrie, which I was not even aware of (shame on me). When I thought that the US had nothing close to the concorde since they cancelled their SST project for cost reasons, the XB-70 was a Mach-3 capable bomber that is quite impressive and not that much smaller than a concorde. Sadly it was cancelled due to lack of strategic need for a Mach-3 bomber, but a couple of prototypes were used for lots of test flights:

6 engines, just to be sure...

many separately actuated tail surfaces, like lots of small elevons

The Darkstar was a high altitude drone:

long wings indeed...

The Ryan X-13 Vertijet, VTOL prototype (too complex to be practical though):

ready for launch :)

And that was it for the X-Planes stored at the Wright Patterson USAF base. More cool planes than I have ever seen in such a short time. Hopefully they'll look good in their new location in Hangar #4, the new addition to the museum opening next year.