National Museum of the US Air Force WPAFB

Steven@147

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Tami and I visited the US Air Force Museum near Dayton Ohio the other day. They have really changed it from the last time we visited several years ago. It is outstanding!

We spent about 3.5 hours there and didn't see everything. You can go inside a lot of the aircraft on display. Its still free and well worth your time. Check in at the main museum entrance and get a map of the museum, it will list all of the aircraft on display and where to find them. a Small donation for the map. The IMAX theater is outstanding as well and they will give you a schedule of what is playing and when. Don't forget about the outside exhibits, US 8th Army Air Force control tower and quonset huts. All of the museum is now in one place so you do not have to take a bus across the base to see the Presidential aircraft.. I shot a YouTube of our visit, I could have made it several hours long..

For Military Retirees' they have a nice campground on base, I saw a YouTube of it. Might want to check it out. We are not eligible as I didn't retire. Wish I had!

We try to visit as many military sites as we can or are allowed, to take in a museum, since I was in the Navy 75-81
In our travels we have visited these ship memorials or museums,

USS Cavalla SS-244, USS Stewart DE-238, USS Texas BB-35, USS Lexington CV-16, USS Yorktown CV-10, USS Laffey DD-724, PT 617, USS Massachusetts BB-59, Joseph P Kennedy Jr. DD-850. USS Arizona BB-39 Memorial. We have plans this year to visit USS Alabama BB-60 and USS Wisconsin BB-64.

While in the Navy and on 3 Westpac cruises, and several pineapple cruises, we transitioned to the far Pacific through Pearl Harbor. Been there many times, one of these days I hope to get back to Pearl and again visit the Arizona Memorial and visit the Missouri for the first time.

Also in our travels, military places or museums we have visited,
PIMA Air and Space Museum, Kirkland AFB, Ft Sill Army Base and Museum, National Museum of Nuclear Science and History, WPAFB Wright Patterson AFB National Museum of the US Air Force, Grissom (Bunker Hill) AFB and Museum.

Grissom AFB, now a reserve base, is also a Harvest Host site and is situated close to the outside aircraft museum.
 

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We were there several years ago. Spent a full day there and could have spent a couple more to see it all.
 
We were there years ago and, for me it was a huge disappointment. It was dim and poorly lit making details of aircraft hard to see; and aircraft were just jammed together like the were more concerned about quantity over quality.

Good to hear it is better but not sure I’d go out of my way to see it (again).

There are so many others like PIMA and the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, FL. The later is always a must visit when in the area; good chance of seeing the Blue Angles and they have a restaurant done up as an Officer’s or NCO’s Club from the Vietnam Era.
 
They have really remodeled the museum over the last 5 years or so and have added a number of new buildings. It is a great stop.

I might add, if you are in the dayton area for a couple of days there are a number of Wright brothers historic sites and a Place called carilon park that houses one of the first original wright fliers along with region history and a disney quality animatronic presentation
 
Every time I was at Wright Pat on business, I got a few hours in. 2022 a full day heading on our first trip. Not nearly long enough. I truly could have spent days reading everything that I didn't have time to.
 
Although I’m a pilot by profession I don’t really consider myself an “airplane guy”. I had a day off from work in Ohio a couple years back so I drove to Dayton to check this out. It was awesome. I spent 4hrs in there. It trumped both Smithsonian museums, and the museum at Boeing Field in Seattle. I was an “airplane guy” again for those 4hrs. Amazing history and displays. Favorites were the Vietnam section and the presidential planes. Ash trays on the glare shield and coffee pots on co pilot side. Reading the pages displayed of the ops manual for the F4 showed me just how far safety and procedure had come over the years. Such cool stuff. I could go on and on.
 

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