Wright Patterson Air Force Base (6/11-6/12/2015)

We've spent the last 2 days at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base, visiting the National Museum of the United States Air Force, located near Dayton, Ohio.  This has been on Joe's bucket list for several years; we visited here in approximately 1982, and Collins and Marilyn have talked about it a lot in recent years, so he has wanted to return for a long time.  Collins was stationed here at this base at one time in his career, and they visited it again 3 or 4 years ago, so they are our tour guides both at the base, museum, and in and around Dayton.

Joe loved this Adventure.  He was always the last one, dragging behind and reading, looking, taking pictures.  He was in charge of the camera, and he took 401 pictures.  I don't intend to post very many of them, because there is every imaginable kind of aircraft here.  We did get to tour some of the Air Force One planes, and even walk inside, so I will post some of those, along with several other interesting planes. 

"This museum is the largest and oldest military aviation museum in the world. Exhibits include more than 300 aircraft and missiles." 

The Museum is organized in different sections and it is a lot of walking:
 
Early Years Gallery
World War II Gallery
Korean War Gallery
Southeast Asia War Gallery
Cold War Gallery
Missile and Space Gallery
Presidential Gallery
R and D Gallery


The first section obviously was a lot about the Wright Brothers' early efforts to build a plane.  They had a couple of displays of wind tunnels used in their labs.

On the wall on the way to the next section was a huge quilt representing all of the closed Air Force bases, quite impressive.

The next section was World War II, and had haunting displays of Pearl Harbor, and a lot of planes used during the war effort.

Joe found his plane here.

Although this was part of the World War II section, this decking was similar to what Joe hauled and laid in Viet Nam, building roads and air strips.



There was also an exhibit of the plane that dropped the Fat Man bomb on Nagasaki to end World War II, Bockscar was the plane and it happened on 8/9/45.  (Enola Gay dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima on 8/6/45).

The next section was the Korean War.  I can never remember what years that war covered, so Joe took a picture of that information here.

Here are some of the various planes we saw today:

They had a Stealth on display.  There were only 21 of these built, but this one had some problems, I think structural, so it was not air worthy, that's the only reason it was available for an exhibit.  "The museum's B-2 stealth bomber is the world's only B-2 aircraft on permanent public display."

That ended today's "hiking" and we loaded up and headed back to camp to rest for a while.  We walked at least a couple miles in this museum and are only about half-way through.


Friday morning, it was back to the museum, and we picked up where we left off yesterday by starting with the Viet Nam war.  Joe spent a lot of time in this section.  He found a helicopter very similar to what his  buddy Ed Williams was crew chief on during his stint in Viet Nam (nicknamed a Huey).  Ed was recently honored at the Decker Alumni as this year's "distinguished alumni," and his military service was part of the criteria that earned him that award.

Another display was of the Tet Offensive in January 1968, both Ed and Joe were serving over there at that time.  Joe was able to find one of the bases he served at on the map (Bien Hoa). 

 And this guard shack, he said, was similar to what they used as well -- maybe a little more cushy than the Army's.

We all have various aches and pains (thus the name, the 6 Rusketeers).  Marilyn gave Mazie a little demonstration on loosening up her neck and shoulder.  (Dave should have been out there too because he's having neck and shoulder issues).

 But we all continued on, and finally got to the space section.  This slowed Joe down again.  We completed this section with a tour inside the space shuttle.

 

We had a bite at the museum cafe, then got in the cars and drove other to the Presidential and R&D Galleries.  We were able to walk inside some of the Air Force One planes, including the one that President Kennedy's body was flown back to Washington in.

In the R&D section was a little one-man helicopter that Collins thought Jeff should build in his backyard.  And it would be a perfect way for them to come to our house, they wouldn't have to deal with our dirt road, and I think we both have enough room for landing and take-off.

 

Sometimes, you just needed a break!

Some more R&D planes.

 Finally, we finished -- or at least 5 of the 6 of us did.  Joe finally caught up with us, resting.

We had a couple rainstorms while we were in this building, but we caught a break and were able to get to our cars during a lull.  The girls went to the grocery store and the guys went back to the base, stopping to pay for another night's camping here.  After we got back, Marilyn and Collins left again to go shopping at the PX.  It stormed off and on, and I couldn't get my pictures to load onto the blog, so I spent my evening being frustrated with the computer.  I had to seek help from my experts, but this morning when I tried, they were loading fine, so I guess it was the weather and the strength of my Hot Spot.

Collins said his pedometer showed that he had walked over 5 miles yesterday, so I'm sure that would go for all of us.  Except I know I walked more than that, because I was always going back to find Joe!

So we can put a checkmark beside this museum on Joe's bucket list.  Today we are going to see some other things around Dayton (mostly about the Wright brothers), and the plan is that we will leave here tomorrow.  This museum is unimaginably vast, and I would encourage any aviation, military or history buffs to spend a couple of days here.