Merlin70 coming to the US

Warbirds usually put on a pretty big showing on Friday & Saturday, and it thins out on Sunday after the Warbirds banquet & awards on Saturday night. I would recommend Saturday this year, that’s the day EAA has identified for its main Warbird effort in 2005, hoping to fly all the heavy bombers (right now the B-29, B-24 and 5 or 6 B-17s are lined up.)

Friday and Saturday it is then :D. I might get a chane to get to Grissom on the Sunday. Not sure about Kalamazoo purely on a time basis.

Thansk again to all for their comments an useful info. I hope to meet up with a few US Forumites on my trip.

Warbirds usually put on a pretty big showing on Friday & Saturday, and it thins out on Sunday after the Warbirds banquet & awards on Saturday night. I would recommend Saturday this year, that’s the day EAA has identified for its main Warbird effort in 2005, hoping to fly all the heavy bombers (right now the B-29, B-24 and 5 or 6 B-17s are lined up.)

and visit the display at Grissom AFB.

Tony Andrews

The Grissom Musuem is worth visiting for the B-58 Hustler and B-17.

IMHO…However, If time’s an issue, it doesn’t have anything that the USAFM doesen’t have…but you can see the planes outside and have a better chnce for good photos….so it might be worthwhile depending on what you want.

And half of the 6 B-25s were gone by mid day Saturday. I’ve been to Oshkosh 17 times and the weekend shows used to be great but the recent trend is that many of the warbirds are gone by mid-day Saturday and on Sunday there are very few left. This year MIGHT be different though since they’re celebrating the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII.

Dennis

As early as possible in the week, Tim, despite my previous uncalled-for comment, there would have been at least twice as many Mustangs in that field a few days before! I tried to phone your mobile this afternoon without success by the way, to chat about your trip, as I am now a “veteran” of two successive Oshkoshes!
Peter

Hard to tell what to do then. When is the best day for wardbird static and air displays?

I beg to differ, Mark V, this was the Mustang park on the Saturday last year . . . (my first ride in a Bell 47, fantastic to get a bird’s eye view of Oshkosh!)

Just a quick heads-up: The schedule for OSH indicates no warbird airshow for Thursday, July 28.

There might not be very many warbirds left at Oshkosh by Saturday and Sunday since many leave Friday or on Saturday morning. If you could go earlier in the week, you’d see quite a few more WWII aircraft.

Absolutely correct, last year we had a field full of P-51’s mid week but by Saturday mid morning only four or five were left. A weekend visit to Oshkosh would give a very false impression of what the warbird scene is about at this event. Come on Wednesday/Thursday and leave before the weekend if you can.

Hi Tim, these are the best airframes there, at least they were in the summer of 2003, you couldn’t say that any were complete!

Thanks Peter. I suspect I will have enough on my itinery and will put this one on the reserve list.

regards

tim

Kenosha Museum

Hi Tim, these are the best airframes there, at least they were in the summer of 2003, you couldn’t say that any were complete!

Dennis

Thank you for all the info. Sounds like I need to fly out on the Wednesday. I guess I will see alot more if I drive and those journey times don’t seem too bad.

Mark

I like the sound of those museums around Denver. Is the Air Force Academy open to visitors during the week? I will look at the places suggested and spend some time with an atlas. It appears that I ought to be able to fit most of this into my trip.

PL

Are there any whole airframes at the Kenosha museum?

regards to all

tim

And I might mention the Wings over the Rockies Museum here in Denver (and others) which is about 4 miles from where you will be staying in Denver and a nice little museum (Bush seems to think so, he’s visited it 4 times in the last year and a half)…just to the south we have the Air Force academy and all those X-planes, a lot of warbirds at Centennial airport that fly every weekend, and in Pueblo we have the Weisbrod museum if you’re interested…

Mark

The US Air Force Museum in Dayton is a must.

There might not be very many warbirds left at Oshkosh by Saturday and Sunday since many leave Friday or on Saturday morning. If you could go earlier in the week, you’d see quite a few more WWII aircraft.

Here’s the mileage if you’re considering driving any of these legs of your trip:

Oshkosh to Dayton: 478 miles and almost 8 hours of driving (it’s slower driving through the Chicago area with toll booths and heavy traffic)

Dayton to Wings Over Michigan: 196 miles and 3 hours driving

Wings over Michigan to Washington DC: 524 miles and over 8 hours driving time

Dayton to Washington DC: 483 miles and 7 1/2 hours of driving

Dennis

The Kenosha “Museum” mentioned in post #6 is hardly worth the time, in my opinion, it’s more like a glorified scrap yard! I have photos if you are interested, from my visit in 2003 . . .

Merlin-

When are you flying into Denver? If it’s a night or two stay, I can get you put up in Denver easily no cost…let me know your itinerary and what to expect…

Mark

All

Thanks for all the info and suggestions. I will try to locate the places mentioned on a map and try to plan an itinery.

Mark

Thanks for your kind offer. At present I am hoping to fly out on around the 28th July with a view to spending the Saturday and Sunday at Oshkosh. I will then have from the Monday to Friday to tour the museums before the Michigan Display on the Saturday and Sunday. I guess I will be in Denver on the Friday night and Saturday night (Aug 5th & 6th).

The Museum at Dayton is high on the wish list but which end of the week it will be is down to fitting these other sites in. After the Michigan Display I will take in the Washington Museums, which sounds like I might need to allow two days plus a bit of tourism before flying home around midweek.

The challenging part will be squeezing things in between the two airshow weekends.

regards

tc

Merlin-

When are you flying into Denver? If it’s a night or two stay, I can get you put up in Denver easily no cost…let me know your itinerary and what to expect…

Mark

Remember, the NASM in Washington is two sites, the original museum on the mall near the the Capitol and the new Udvar Hazy out at Dulles Airport in Virginia. You should make time for both if you can. I doubt you can do justice to both sites in a single day.

Since you indicated you’re considering air hops to cover the considerable distances, you might consider Southwest Airlines. They are a no frills carrier and seating is first come, first serve. However, they are often the cheapest airline between cities the serve. In your case, they serve Denver, Chicago, Detroit and the Baltimore-Washington Airport (BWI). They don’t play well with other airlines and ticket agents, so you’ll have to contact them directly.
They are one of the very few US air carriers making money these days.

If you do go to the Air Force Museum in Dayton, I suggest you get there as soon as they open (9:00 am) and sign up for the bus tour to the R&D and Presidential Hangars. The daily tour schedule is usually full within an hour or so. If you want to minimize other patrons in your pictures, I suggest that if you arrive early, by-pass the “early years” and go to the WWII or later galleries. It takes the typical tourists about an hour to filter into the those areas. Late in the day, I back track to the Early Years after most tourists have finished that area.

Have fun! I hope this helps. Late last year, folks on this board (Robbo and von Perthes plus others) provided valuable Hendon advice when I had a short stop over in London. Their advice helped me make the most of three hours.

The route I’ve followed a few times from Chicago has been to drive down to Dayton to visit the USAF Museum – that’s about 300 miles but the roads are good and generally quiet once you’re away from Chicago. From there one can head up to Canton to MAPS to see the B-26 and SBD restorations etc. and then to the Crawford Museum in Cleveland. From there it’s a modest run up to Detroit with the Neil Armstrong Museum en route. Around Detroit there’s a reasonable display at Selfridge AFB but it’s only open on Sunday afternoons and also the Henry Ford Museum with a range of interesting aircraft plus a vast array of vehicles and general ‘stuff’. On the way to Kalamazoo which is a convenient stop on the way back towards Oshkosh one can deviate south and visit the display at Grissom AFB. Continuing back past Chicago it’s worth visiting the Museum of Science and Industry to see the Stuka amongst others. Finally just off the main road between Chicago and Milwaukee is the Kenosha Military Museum with a few helicopters on show.

Tony Andrews

Visiting the US

There are all sorts of Museum gems all around however depending on your length of stay and distance willing to travel hard to say exactly where to go. However if you are going to Michigan and Oshkosh area then I agree check out the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo as well from Michigan truck over to Ohio and go to the Huge!!!!! Air force museum at Dayton. If you were crossing the border i would suggest the Canadian Warplane Heritage hangar in Hamilton Ontario and from there it would only be 2.5 hours to the Halifax at the RCAF Museum in Belleville however not sure if this will be open to the public yet.
HH Mulder