Ollie,

The Geneseo Airshow is scheduled for July 7-9. The seventh is a fly in day with full shows on Saturday and Sunday. In a previous post I sent you the URL for the sponsoring organization, The 1941 Historical Aircraft Group (I mislabeled the group in the original post). The entrance fee is low, only $10 per day and cost of food and drink is about as low as it gets at any airshow.
The gates open at 6:00 am and don’t close until dark. You could visit the Curtiss and Wings of Eagles Museums on the way. The only problem for you would be the distance; I’m guessing it would be about a 4 hour drive from your location.

Jeff

Ollie,

For the sake of completeness, I’m giving a set of sites within about 4 hours of your location. You won’t be able see much if you can’t go a couple of hours. Perhaps Rhinebeck is closer, but you’ll have to negotiate some two lane roads. You are going to be in the middle of nowhere!

1941 Air Heritage Group (Geneseo, NY) http://www.1941hag.org/
Mid Atlantic Air Museum (Reading, PA) http://www.maam.org
Cradle of Aviation Air Museum (Long Island, NY) http://www.cradleofaviation.org/
American Airpower Museum (Long Island, NY) http://www.americanairpowermuseum.com/
Air Mobility Command Museum (Dover AFB, DE)
http://amcmuseum.org/
New England Air Museum (Bradley Locks, CT) http://neam.org/cont_about.htm
Wings of Eagles Air Museum (Elmira, NY) http://www.wingsofeagles.com/
Delaware Valley Hist. Aircraft Assoc. (Philadelphia) http://www.dvhaa.org/
Intrepid Aircraft Carrier (Manhattan, NY) http://www.intrepidmuseum.org/
Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome (Rhinebeck, NY) http://www.oldrhinebeck.org/
Glenn Curtiss Museum (Hammondsport, NY) http://www.glennhcurtissmuseum.org/
International Council of Airshows http://www.airshows.org/

Good Luck

I believe this is an episode of “War Stories” hosted by Oliver North of Iran Contra fame/infamy. That is his usual time slot. Some of the episodes are pretty good.

I was pleasantly surprised to see this plane while visiting Bossier City for a wedding in June ’04. The weather wasn’t quite right for perfect pictures, but these aren’t too bad. I’d like to see her and the rest of the collection under cover to protect them from the Louisianna heat and humidity.

Steve,

In NYC, you can try the Carrier Intrepid Museum on Manhattan. Unfortunately, some of the planes have been replaced by fiberglass replicas.
Their website is http://intrepidmuseum.org. On nearby Long Island, there are at least two museums, the American Airpower Museum, http://americanairpowermuseum.com, and the Cradle of Aviation Museum, http://cradleofaviation.org. I haven’t visited either museum, but I’ve seen several of the American Air Power planes at various airshows.

In New Orleans, there is the relatively new D-Day Museum, http://ddaymuseum.org, founded by noted historian Stephen Ambrose. I haven’t seen this museum either, but I believe it has at least a couple of planes. If you have the time, the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pennsacola, FL is about 2-3 hours east of New Orleans. I don’t believe the Museum is as big as Hendon, but it is well worth the visit. The real attraction of N’Orleans is the food, drink and merriment. You must try the Cajun food.

I don’t know if Memphis will offer much in the way of Aviation Amusement. The most famous attraction, the Memphis Belle is undergoing restoration. In fact, her future location isn’t certain. The Air Force attempted to reclaim her until Memphis politicians started a counter effort. In Memphis, try the barbecue ribs!

In Dallas, you might try the Cavanaugh Flight Museum, http://cavanaughflightmuseum.com. Their planes routinely visited airshows in Houston while I lived there.

As it is air show season, you might want to contact “flying” collections to make sure their planes are at home. I also suggest you look at the International Council of Airshows website, http://airshows.org to see if your travels intersect an interesting display.

That’s all for now, except for one thing. Our friendly neighbors to the north will be surprised to find they are in the US. They firmly turned down our gracious offer to join us in 1812-13.

Jeff

I had a short visit to your fine Museum in December. The Tulius mustang looked good, but not as good as she did at the Reading PA WWII days in 2002 when I last saw her! Oh well, she’ll be well taken care of.

I see occasional references to the dark lighting and I agree it is a problem. Fortunately, I saw some advice from Robbo before hand to use a tripod and long exposures. Therefore I got advance permission and brought my tripod and was rewarded with a number of decent slides. I had previously stumbled on this technique and used it successfully at the USAF Museum in Dayton and the old Marine Musueum in Quantico. The new NASM Udvar Hazy Museum (Dulles) is moderately dark but they don’t allow tripods, so photography is challenging.

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.

Tallichet “Memphis Belle” Replica and Fuddy Duddy. Pictures taken at Mid Atlantic Air Musuem World War II Days 2002 (Reading, PA)