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Last weekend we visited the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. Now, I do like museums and history in general, but I'm not particularly interested in aircraft and I have very little interest in the history of modern warfare. And let's face it, a museum focusing on the USAF is going to have a lot of stuff related to modern warfare. I expected the place to be interesting, but not geared to my interests. It was actually more interesting (and lot bigger!) than I'd anticipated! We arrived in the early afternoon, so we only had the time and energy to see about half of what it has to offer, and while we didn't rush through what we looked at, we kept moving in order to see as much as possible and to keep our little granddaughter happy. She also had much more fun than we'd expected, so that was a bonus! Overall, I'd highly recommend this museum if you're in the area!
The B-29 "Bockscar" that dropped the "Fat Boy" atomic bomb.
Of interest to me personally were exhibits like this one, that highlighted the contributions of musicians and artists in keeping up morale.
Next to letters from home, the Major Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band was the greatest morale builder we had in the ETO (European Theater of Operations)." ~Lt Gen James "Jimmy" Doolittle, Eighth Air Force Commander
The "Memphis Belle" B-17F heavy bomber
If you've followed me for awhile, you might remember that one of my sons was a member of Civil Air Patrol for several years. The Civil Air Patrol was founded during WWII and this is a small training plane used by members during that time.
In another hangar we found this experimental aircraft that bears a remarkable resemblance to the flying saucers of science fiction.
This plane was just way too long to get in one photo!
A highlight for me was seeing the various iterations of Air Force One used by the Presidents. You are allowed to go inside several of them. Of course, by the time we got there, my phone had almost no battery left, thus almost no photos were taken. But we went into Air Force One plane used by eight presidents from Kennedy to Clinton (it's the one that brought JFK's body home from Dallas), and also the Air Force One planes used by Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower.
Going inside these and other planes, and a few other hands-on activities kept Veronica more entertained than I would have expected!
Yes, these are missiles, and they are huge!
Have you visited the National Museum of the USAF? What did you think?
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1 comments:
That looks very interesting! I have never toured that museum but we do have a New England Air museum near us that sounds quite similar (but on a much smaller scale I'm sure) and my boys have had lots of fun exploring the planes and helicopters and even playing on flight simulators there. What a fun family outing!
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