USAF Museum trip

Greetings and happy holidays, just got back from vacation. Went home to Ohio, and took a side trip to the USAF Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB. Thought I’d let you in on what I saw (sorry, no scanner=no pictures just yet but I’m working on it!). I mainly wandered around looking for things I hadn’t seen before (last time I visited was about 10 years ago, so I wasn’t disappointed!). Snapped loads of pictures of the Hughes AIM-4 series AAM’s located around the F-102 and F-106 aircraft, as well as AIR-2 nuclear AA rockets under an F-89. Also got pictures of AIM-7/9/120 AAMs on and around the F-15. Got some good shots of the new F-117 and YF-22 prototypes, as well as AGM-86 and ADM-129 ALCMs. Venturing outside, I saw (and photoed) the BOMARC SAM, and a new MiG-23 delivered in 1998 from NAIC. Got some interesting photos of an SA-2 SAM, which has obviously been in the US for a while as all the markings have been painted over and redone in English. Under the wing of the magnificent XB-70 I saw (basically everything of interest here has been photoed) the Northrop Tacit Blue BSAX stealth demonstrator, a very odd looking plane to say the least. I may have gotten a picture of its exhaust, I’ll have to see what develops (pun intended). There’s a D-21 drone visible in the annex R&D hangar, although it was unfortunately closed so I couldn’t get any close up images of this or, sadly, the YF-12. A very enjoyable experience to say the least, I only regret that I had a few hours to spend there!

Speaking of spending, one of the best parts of the trip was the chance to visit the gift shop, filled with numerous books, videos, prints, etc. They even had various magazines, including AFM. More on this in a separate post.

If anyone has the chance, take the time to see this museum, you won’t be disappointed!