pic: National Museum of the USAF

[Foster]

You definitely need to go on a bus tour of the experimental and presidential hangars. They're not very well advertised. Those hangars aren't connected to the regular museum, they're actually on base. So you sign up for the bus to escort you guys over there.

If you are a first time visitor, the main exhibits will take most of a day to get through. If you want to go to the experimental and presidential planes get into the line to get a spot on the bus first. BRING YOUR ID! Because it's on an active base, you take your bus over, tour for about 30 minutes and come back on the same bus. You can see either the experimental or the presidential planes, but not do a good job of seeing both in a single tour.

Two years ago 1640 did the main building, last year we did experimental, and I think the plan is for 1640 to do presidential planes this year.

There is a two IMAX shows that play during the day, I'm an IMAX junkie so thats a first hit for me.

Pictures from the first year are here and the second year is here, experimental planes

[Barry Bonzack]

I will be traveling to Ohio this fall for the UCF vs Ohio State football game, and I'm headed to the Dayton USAF museum the day after. I have a lifelong goal to get my picture with every american capsule to fly in space, and this is home to the Apollo 15 capsule "Endeavour." This museum also has the unflown Manned Orbitting Labratory, the super secret air force space program that was taking place during the space race, and produced astronauts like Bob Crippen, but was ultimately canceled.

North of Dayton is the Neil Armstrong Museum in Wapakoneta Ohio, home of the Gemini 8 capsule, I have to see both.


I can't believe I've gone to the championships twice without visiting the, McDonnell Planetarium, home of Gemini 6, in the city where there capsules were manufactured. If anyone would like to join me in 2013 as I check this one off the list, I'd be happy to talk about the significance of that mission.

[Michael Hill]

Something that's new as of this year you need to check out are the newly declassified NRO satellites. They have KH-7 Gambit, KH-8 Gambit 3 and KH-9 Hexagon. They were used in the cold war to get intelligence on the Soviets.

[Jay Trzaskos]

I spent about 15 minutes in the Presidential Gallery before heading to R&D, and when I go back I will definitely take a second trip to the R&D Gallery. Definitely make sure you check out the Hawker Kestral (VSTOL predecessor to the Harrier), the YF-12A(forerunner to the SR-71), and the Convair TIFS (My aircraft design prof. was a flight test engineer on this aircraft before it was retired) Many of the Volunteers are USAF retired, and love to talk about the various aircraft, I had a great conversation about the TIFS and SR-71 with a women who had been a Blackbird flight mechanic.

Allocate most of the remainder of your day to visiting the various galleries, my father and I spent an entire day walking around and talking about the various aircraft. As it was we didn't spend a whole lot of time in the Early Years Gallery. Make sure you bring a camera too, my phone battery was dead by the end of the day from taking so many pictures. I did the math and I took a picture once every 2 minutes. I recommend panorama mode as well.