National Museum United States Air Force

Saturday August 22, 2015  Dayton, OH

Gerry and I have made the trip from Maryland to Illinois more than 60 times over the past years and have driven by Dayton, Ohio and Wright Patterson AFB.  We've never taken the time to stop and check out the museum there and finally decided it was time to see what it was like.  All I can say is: WOW!

We've toured the Pima Air Museum a number of times and really enjoyed it also, but the one at Wright Patterson AFB is different and equally as nice.

National_Museum_of_the_United_States_Air_Force 

I decided to take a route to the museum via cross country rather than taking the interstate and that was a mistake.  The GPS routed us down old country roads with stop signs about every mile.  Add in the detours and it took us forever to make the drive.  It was worth it though.

B-52 Bomber

F-84E Thunderjet

 

B-26C (A-26C) Invader

F-82G Twin Mustang

 We spent a lot of time in the Korean War section and Gerry wanted to see the Cold War display, so we split up and she went that way.  

 I headed for the Vietnam War section and was quite impressed with the displays in that area.  It was difficult to get clear pictures since the aircraft were so close to each other.

Jolly Green 22

 I hurried through the WWII displays and enjoyed them very much.  There have been so many films made of that war and it was neat seeing some of the aircraft that flew then.

Spitfire. WWII

 

German ME 262A  WWII

 The plane below delivered the 2nd atomic bomb to Japan in 1945.  It was the deciding factor in ending the war without having to invade Japan.

 There was a small section devoted to the early years of flying and since the Wright brothers were from the Dayton area, it was only fitting that a model of their plane was on display.

We could have spent the whole day there but unfortunately we didn't have that much time that day.  We hope to revisit the museum sometime in the near future.
 
 There was a very nice "Memory Garden" outside the museum and we checked out a number of the monuments to American Air Force pilots and personnel.

 All the walking made us hungry so we sought out a proper watering hole for dinner.  We managed to get a table outside and enjoyed the nice day and some good food.  The nice cold beers helped revive us. 

We drove around the downtown area a little to see what it looked like.  One street close by the Dublin Pub had a number of restaurants and nice shops, but there weren't any parking spots open so we kept driving.

Dublin Pub

We took the interstates back and it was 1/2 hour faster that way.  Of course, you don't see anything interesting that way, but we were worn out by then.

That was our day, how was yours.