A Day at the Museum...

[TimothyC]

My Best Friend was in town today with one of his friends from College (who only show up as the top of a head in this set), and we went to the National Museum of the United States Air Force, The following are the pictures that I felt were good enough to upload.

We started in the Modern Flight Hanger. The Following is the Global Hawk - Damn that thing is big (the Wingspan is something like 20 feet longer than that of the U-2)



From there we went to the Cold War Hanger - Behold the Tail of the Mighty Peacemaker! (sorry for the blur)



I think this is a Patriot (no signage). If a fellow HABite could confirm that would be great.



From there we went to the Presidential Annex (on Base), where we went up in Ike's Plane Columbine III (VC-121E), after exiting that I took the following shots of Truman's Independence (VC-118) and FDR's Sacred Cow (VC-54C) respectively.





And a Wasp! We made a few jokes about using it to add power to my friend's Buick, not that he needs anymore power....




Moving on to the Research and Development Annex...

Who do we find but our old friends the D-21 and A-12....




And Global Hawk's Competitor the Darkstar...




And the F-107A....




The Piper PA48 (the abortive attempt to bring the P-51 into the 80's)...




Tacit Blue (A Stealth test bed - often remarked as one of the least stable planes to ever fly on anything resembling a regular basis)...




The Hiller XC-142A Tilt Wing, that right, unlike the V-22 the whole damn wing moves, greatly simplifying the whole thing...




...Then I spot her, the most beautiful plane at the Museum - the XB-70 AV.1








A look from the aft end of the plane, over a P-80




Some B-70 Skin showing the honeycomb pattern




We are Victorious! (I'm the big one)



All images were taken at 3 megapixels, so if anyone wants a wallpaper, just ask.

[FSTargetDrone]

Good stuff. I especially approve of the D-21.

Doesn't the Tacit Blue look like something straight out of Star Trek. It wouldn't look out of place in a shuttle hangar bay.

[Feil]

It's about the right height (~5m) to be a Patriot.

[FedRebel]

Doesn't the Tacit Blue look like something straight out of Star Trek. It wouldn't look out of place in a shuttle hangar bay.

More Like V, it reminds me more of the Visitor attack craft

[Thag]

Aw, why'd they move the XB-70 to the annex? Are they working on it, or just reorganizing the modern gallery?

[Hawkwings]

oh man, I need to dig up my pictures of the nearby flight museum and put them up...

[Gullible Jones]

I wonder how many UFO sitings the Darkstar is responsible for.

[YT300000]

Completely agree on the Valkyrie. What a thing of beauty.

[TimothyC]

Aw, why'd they move the XB-70 to the annex? Are they working on it, or just reorganizing the modern gallery?

Reorganization, they wanted most of the X-planes in one spot

When they added the Cold War Hanger, they moved moved the B-36, B-47, B-2, and assorted other planes to it, thus opening up the main hangers. The next planned hanger will be the new home of a C-5, the Presidential Wing, and a whole boat load of other planes. They want to do this so they can start work on the XC-99 in the presidential hanger, and apparently there are a lot of people that eventually want the B-36 and the XC-99 in the same hanger so they can talk to each other. Right now all the Peacemaker has to talk to is the Hustler.

[Burak Gazan]

Great pictures there, especially of the B-70

That F-16 in the first shot with it, looks like it could fit down one of its' intakes!

[Sea Skimmer]

The missile is a Patriot, but given that it’s all white it’s likely a development mockup or inert ground handling training round, rather then an actual weapon they demilled. The service rounds all seem to only have white nosecones

[The Grim Squeaker]

Pity about the blurriness of some of the pics, and that you didn't have a wider angle lense.
Some very cool aircraft .