National Air Force Museum

[Nick2317]

Finally went back there yesterday after Id say a good 15 years since my last visit and wow what a huge place now .....they have it all spread out around 3 main hangars and then other areas you have to sign up for to see but wow can never get enough of seeing the WW2 aircraft

Has anyone else been there before and enjoyed it as much as I did?

 

[eagleone1983]

Actually didn't even know about it. Where is it? There is an AF museum here at Hill AFB but it isn't huge but a really good one.

 

[Nick2317]

The National Museum is in-near Dayton Ohio and Wright Patterson Air Force Base

 

[snakeyes]

yup a very place use to fly in there alot ,we would set our birds down there

 

[Budnicks]

Never even heard of it... There are a bunch of them all over the country thou... Did you take any photos ?? Plane ****...LOL... I'd like to see some... I like WWII aviation stuff, use to build a bunch of models as a child, but not much of an expert at all, just like the history &/or mechanical aspects of the cool old WWI, WWII, Korean War, Viet Nam War, military aviation/airplanes & Ohio is way to far to travel, to just go to a museum, unless I'm already there for some other reason, like the NHRA races or something...

 

[Nick2317]

my wife took around 100 pics Ill try and get a few and show em for ya

 

[1948 santa]

Took my son there a few years back when someone told me about the B52 on display along with other large aircraft all in the same hanger.To be able to walk underneath the SR71 blackbird and touch it was a treat.I'm due for a return trip.

 

[super-bee_ski]

I was stationed their for 12 years.
It is a wonderful museum.
Matter of fact, one of the aircraft I flew on for 18 years is there.
Also, they have the 2nd aircraft to ever drop an atomic bomb. The B-29 "Bockscar" dropped the "Fat Man" nuclear weapon over Nagasaki on 9 August 1945, the second atomic weapon used against Japan. It was assigned to the 393d Bomb Squadron, 509th Composite Group.

The museum IS part of Wright-Patterson AFB.
It is located just a little north east of Dayton, in "Area B" a section of Wright-Patt known as the early flith test section.

 

[Nick2317]

Heres a few pics of some of my fav planes

B-17 they have the real memphis belle there but rite now its being restored

B-24

B-29 this plane dropped the A-Bomb on nagasaki as per the nose art

German Messerschimt BF109 love this and the Focke Wulf

And the first real jet of WW2 the ME262

 

[Budnicks]

Nick2317 thanks cool shots

- - - Updated - - -

was the Base or Museum named after Orville & Wilbur Wright, the early aviation pioneers

 

[cr8crshr]

WWWOOOWWWW!!! Are you kidding me??? Some of you have never heard of the "AIR FORCE MUSEUM"??? One of the best in the Country. I also was stationed there. In fact the whole Wright Patterson complex is a Historical place. The birthplace of "FLIGHT". In the center of the main base on the flight line side is where the Wright Brothers first learned about flight and winged flight characteristics. It is known as "Huffman Prairie Flying Field". The next "bestess" Museum is the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum....

 

[wedgie]

A few years ago, I took my father there. I am a Viet Nam Air Force vet and he was a WWII Army Air Corps vet. Very very impressive. Not just the planes either. Awesome displays about POW camps and others.

 

[super-bee_ski]

Yes,
The Wright brothers were inventors of powered flight, owners of a Bicycle shop in Dayton. Now, WE laugh at bicycles, common, every day items BUT back then, most people traveled by bicycle IF they were lucky
They first tested their "Wright-Flyer" on the Huffman damn prarie. Later, the area city built a damn, calling it "Huffman Damn"

Wright field and Mccook field merged as a flight test center, training etc.
Frank Stuart Patterson, born in Dayton, Ohio, on November 6, 1897, was the son of Frank Jefferson Patterson and Julia Shaw Patterson. The elder Patterson and his brother, John H. Patterson, founded The National Cash Register Company and figured prominently in local Dayton history. Frank Stuart attended Yale University, but graduated "in absentia" in the spring of 1918 because he, like many of his fellow classmates, had joined the Army. He enlisted in May 1917 and was commissioned in September as a first lieutenant in the Officers Reserve Corps with the aeronautical rating of pilot. Lieutenant Patterson was assigned to the 137th Aero Squadron as a test pilot at Wilbur Wright Field the following May. On June 19, 1918, little more than a month after his arrival, Lieutenant Patterson and his aerial observer, Lieutenant LeRoy Amos Swan, went aloft in their DH-4 to test newly installed machine guns synchronizers. They completed two trials successfully, but during a steep dive on the third test the airplane's wings collapsed and the aircraft crashed, killing both crewmen.

Wright field consisted of the 'Triangular area" where the Mueseum is today.
Patterson Field consisted of the land known today as Areas A and C of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. It included the Fairfield Air Depot and the Huffman Prairie Flying Field. Patterson Field soon became the Army's center for aviation logistics, maintenance, and supply.

It became : Wright-Patterson Army Air Field shortly after WWII
(Remember, the Air Force was "BORN" Sept. 14 1947)
Before that it was Army Air Corp
PS: When I was there, I met "old timers" that swear that the Roswell incident UFO was there in Wright-Patterson when it was moved from Roswell, New Mexico.

PS: The museum IS FREE!
It relies on donations...

 

[Bruzilla]

That museum is peanuts compared to the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, FL. Go Navy!

 

[GTX.JCW]

Bruzilla,

This sounds like when I get together with a bunch of my cousins! They are all AF and I am the lone Navy guy. As a matter of fact, one of my cousins' son is going to be stationed at Nellis AFB iin Las Vegas, starting in June. He will take over as CO of the AF Fighter Weapons School. (AF version of Navy's Top Gun) All of the military cousins are gathering there for the change of command. 1 active duty and 4 crusty old farts! 4 AF types and me! Maybe I'll con my nephew that was in the Marines and a brother-in-law that was Army to help me out!!

Jeff

 

[cr8crshr]

That museum is peanuts compared to the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, FL. Go Navy!

I wouldn't go so far as to say that. In its own right it is a very impressive Museum. I used to spend quite a few weekends visiting when I worked at Eglin AFB. Just remember though Bru...The Navy is steeped in 300 plus years of tradition yet I am still awaiting for them to get it right...Military Aviation owes the Army Signal core for what it is today...just my 2 cents is all...Carry On....

 

[YY1]

I used to live walking distance from there, and went multiple times each year.

I had my finger on that A bomb button when the fuselage was a walk-through exibit.

I also heard the "area 51/hanger 18" stories.

Remember, "Project Blue Book" was based at Wright-Pat.

WPAFB is home to MANY different types of aircraft and is also a test wing.

Last I recall, it was the 16th largest military installation in the world.

Lots of stuff, and lots of "odd" stuff flys around over the area.

 

[67 B-body]

Pretty sure it's considered the largest AF museum in the country...
I used to go once a year for most my life growing up and adulthood, but work has had it limited to only once in the past 5 years! I will go again this summer "maybe spring"... I love that place!!!! I met Neil Armstrong at the 100th anniversary of flight in Dayton and had pictures taken with him "he didn't do it often".
I also met the remaining Doolittle Raiders and Tuskegee airmen at the museum. What a great place!!!!

 

[Ron 73]

I used to live walking distance from there, and went multiple times each year.

I had my finger on that A bomb button when the fuselage was a walk-through exibit.

I also heard the "area 51/hanger 18" stories.

Remember, "Project Blue Book" was based at Wright-Pat.

WPAFB is home to MANY different types of aircraft and is also a test wing.

Last I recall, it was the 16th largest military installation in the world.

Lots of stuff, and lots of "odd" stuff flys around over the area.

Love to hear those, Bet they were good after all these years of talk about the place..

 

[YY1]

If you're not familliar with project blue book-

it was the USAF's "offical/unofficial" UFO investigtion program.

There was a TV series based on it in the 70's.