Doolittle Raiders Reunion - 70th Anniversary, 20 B-25 flyover

[Logan Hartke]

I'm hoping to get to the USAF museum next time I visit my friends in California. Make a detour on either the way over or back

You won't regret it, NARSES.  Try to go on a Friday if you can and sign up for the restoration tour. Even if you can't do that, as soon as you get there, sign up for the bus to the Presidential and R&D hangars if you want to see the P-75 and XB-70, for instance.

I was there on Monday the 16th for the unteenth time...... Wish I knew you'd be there.

We might have just passed each other, jorel.  I was there on the 17th-19th, but not the 16th.

Outstanding pictures. 

I'm happy that you were able to get a ride on one of the aircraft.  I was able to fly on 'Liberty Belle' once when she was in Winston-Salem.  It was a blast.

BTW, two of your photographs show a silver 4 engine aircraft, looks like it may be a DC4.  Is that what it is?  Thank you.

Thanks, wagnersm.  It's indeed a DC-4 variant, specifically President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Douglas VC-54C "Sacred Cow" Presidential aircraft.

Cheers,

Logan

[RussC]

Thanks for sharing those pics' Logan, really appreciate em'.

Surprised there are so many modern stealth and drones there, even a B2 and tacit-blue, although some of those must be mockups, wind tunnel or RCS models, can't imagine a B2 being museum'ed yet!

  BTW- you can tell us- Who or what where you pointing that Browning .50 at ? 

[Logan Hartke]

Yeah, Russ, glad you like them.  You're basically right on the B-2.

B-2 test article (s/n AT-1000), the second of two built without engines or instruments for static testing, was placed on display in 2004 at the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio. The test article passed all structural testing requirements before the airframe failed. The Museum's restoration team spent over a year reassembling the fractured airframe. The display airframe is marked to resemble The Spirit of Ohio (S/N 82-1070), the B-2 used to test the design's ability to withstand extreme heat and cold. The exhibit features the actual Spirit of Ohio nose wheel door, with its distinctive Fire and Ice artwork, which was painted and signed by the technicians who performed the temperature testing. The restored test aircraft is on display in the museum's "Cold War Gallery".

I was probably pointing in the general direction of a farm, if anything.  That's about all there was out there. 

Cheers,

Logan

[CANSO]

The pinup is very much a what-if, but the scheme looked pretty accurate otherwise (and attractive).  I got a number of good shots of it, two of which I uploaded. By the way, were you there or did you just grab those shots from another site?

No, I wasn't there. These are pictures from the net. I was just following the news after the restoration of this particular "Mitchell" and was nicely surprised to see her at the show this year. Previously the same a/c (s/n 44-30456) was "Silver lady" at the Tillamook Aviation Museum.

[PR19_Kit]

That's no good.  Have you tried a different browser?  There really are some gems in there.  The museum's changed a lot in the past 20 years and is set to change a lot more in the next 10.  The Thunderscreech is in the R&D section on the base itself.  As for getting in the cockpit of the B-36, now you have me envious!!!  That's one of my favorite aircraft and I've only ever been in the bomb bay.

I really want to make my way "across the pond" to check out Bovington, IWM, and the myriad of aviation museums in the UK alone, but if memory serves, the USAF Museum is the oldest and largest military aviation museum in the world, to say nothing of the quality and rarity of the actual exhibits.

Firefox did the job just fine thanks, and that's an awesome set of photos there!

You're dead right about changing the museum about a lot, loads of the stuff in the R&D section was in the main hangar when I was there, the XB-70 was backed up to the east hangar doors so you could JUST look up and see those HUMUNGUOUS exhausts!

If you can get over here you'll need at least a week to do a good tour, Cosford alone could take up two whole days. 

[jorel62]

"We might have just passed each other, jorel.  I was there on the 17th-19th, but not the 16th."

Then your not the guy who was in front of me and bought $325.00 worth of books...... Did you buy your Doolittle coffee mug? I did......

[Logan Hartke]

Firefox did the job just fine thanks, and that's an awesome set of photos there!

You're dead right about changing the museum about a lot, loads of the stuff in the R&D section was in the main hangar when I was there, the XB-70 was backed up to the east hangar doors so you could JUST look up and see those HUMUNGUOUS exhausts!

If you can get over here you'll need at least a week to do a good tour, Cosford alone could take up two whole days. 

Thanks, I'm glad you got to see them!  The XB-70 is a sight to behold.  Most of the USAF Museum changes have been great, but there are just a few from the past 20 years that I'm not a fan of.

1) Painting all of the ceilings dark gray/black instead of white.  It just gets kind of depressing after a bit.
2) Moving the XB-70 to the off-site R&D hangar.  It used to be the beautiful symbol of the museum, now it's just forgotten.
3) Cleaning everything up.  This sounds silly, but the USAF Museum used to smell like rubber and JP-8.  That was a good thing.  Now it smells like...nothing.
4) Changing the name from "USAF Museum" to "The National Museum of the United States Air Force".  That was a nation-wide thing, but man.  Nobody uses that term thankfully.  What a mouthful.

Other than that, though, the improvements really have been great, especially for the exhibits themselves.

As for a UK museum trip, one of these days I'm saving up a couple thousand dollars and I'm going to really try to hit a lot of the UK museums.  Some day...

"We might have just passed each other, jorel.  I was there on the 17th-19th, but not the 16th."

Then your not the guy who was in front of me and bought $325.00 worth of books...... Did you buy your Doolittle coffee mug? I did......

No, my photos were my souvenirs, mainly.  I was the one taking pictures of the books in the bookstore with my camera phone and ordering them with my Amazon app so they'd be waiting on my doorstep when I got back home.  On that note, though, the gift shop is the best aviation-themed book store that I've ever seen as far as selection goes.  It's like a storefront for Osprey, Squadron/Signal, Schiffer, Ian Allan, and Specialty Press all rolled into one location.

Cheers,

Logan

[Sentinel Chicken]

This one deserves to be enlarged and framed. Stunning shot, Logan.

[Logan Hartke]

Thanks!  You can find it and the rest at larger sizes on my DeviantArt page.

http://comradeloganov.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4xh6ji

Cheers,

Logan