Blackbird!
 

I finally visited the Air Museum yesterday in Dayton Ohio. F'ing HUGE place! I spent about two hours walking around and didn't see half of it. I did peruse the Blackbird though and that alone was worth the trip. What a sleek device. They said it holds the altitude record at 85K feet or so and the speed record at 2,100 plus (is that knots or mph?). I think some folks think its faster than that.

107' long and 55' wingspan....after you take out for the engines and fuselage there is precious little left for actual wing! 150,000# loaded....I suppose mostly the fuselage is a humongous fuel tank, since its only duty was to fly far, fast and high and snap candid moments of the evil empire!

I also had good looks at the stealth bomber and stealth fighter.

The fighter has vents over the motor....folks here said this wouldn't work during our discussion of geese being sucked in a few weeks ago!

Anyway, it would take a couple of days to really do it right.

Admission is free, wear good shoes.

The only thing I didn't see was a C5A.

Two hours !! I guess you'll be going back !!

Sounds like you had an awesome visit. There certainly are some cool aircraft up there, for sure.

As for the 117. The screens arent fixed. Here it is doing what it does best.
Note: No vents.

http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/AirShows/Riat2002/F117/index.html

Let us know the next time you go. How about some pics !

I usually don't think about taking any when I'm at places like that. AF, Pima, etc.
Too busy looking and "listening" to their stories of aviations yester-years.
And yerning....

great place to meet for a get together

Very cool Tom! I grew up going to that museum nearly every year. When I was little, like 4 or 5 my parents told me that I considered all the big planes to be my "friends" and I would go around to each of the ones outside and hug the front tires... :o I was a silly kid... :)

Last time I was there in July of 2008, I toured the X-plane hanger. I had to give my favorite, the XB-70 a pat on the front wheel for old times sake...

I have tons of pictures that I could upload to p-bucket. They're all hi-res so it might take all night... :eek: While I was in the x-plane hanger, I was lucky enough to be able to crawl up under the F-22 prototype and take detailed pictures of all the wiring and plumbing under the landing gear bay. If you think your MB vacuum system is complex, you should get a load of that!

I've been twice; once with my wife, and once with my ( at the time) college-aged son--left the wife at the campground.
For aviation lovers, it is a must see!
Among all the great aircraft, I think the one that impressed me the most was one of the cargo planes--You could play a game of basketball in there--and there was a row of seats way up high by the windows, but no floor under them. Also the trapeeze fighter that was supposed to engage fighters while the bomber stayed on target. Then the fighter was to catch up with the bomber and hook on to the trapeeze. Right! I think they were most likely considered expendable in a real combat situation.

Another thing that impressed me was the reduction in size of nuclear bombs as the technology improved, and the yield increased.

Great place to see. I need to get my nephew and take him there.

That's cool! I have a great memory of getting a large SR-71 model from an Uncle of mine as a kid. It's a beautiful plane, no doubt!

The "standard" cruise charts for the SR-71 were for flight at 80,000ft and a speed of Mach 3.2

It could go higher and faster than that.

I need to get back to the AF Museum... that place is awesome. The SAC Museum in Omaha is good, too -- they also have an SR-71. I was with a KC-135 command pilot when I stopped through, and he recognized the tail #. "Yeah, I have gassed that one up a few times. I probably took some of their money, too." (He frequently played poker with the crews in their lounge).

Tom -- have you been up the road to the Grissom Air Museum lately? They have made some neat acquisitions over the last few years. The vents you saw on the engines are probably just the standard static-display screens to keep birds and rodents out.

you should also try to go during the air show. The whole town closes for a week, its pretty awesome.

The Valkyrie -- that was a neat plane! The escape capsule always fascinated me.

Did they have a B-2 in the X-plane hangar? I got to tour one while on Guam; we were allowed to crawl all over, under, and in it, and take pics of anything but the rear end. They're quite proud of the exhaust area.

The B2 was in the "Cold War" hanger as I remember. I actually think it's an airframe test mule with no engines.

I was always amazed at the Blackbird. Tremendous performance in a time long ago. They did it the old-fashioned way: by brute force! Every now and then they still wish they had a few flying.

I used to live a few miles away from there...we had Dodge GTG's there quite often.

Next time, go to the Air Force One Annex...you'll get to walk through the plane that brought Kennedy's body back to Washington. It's quite a cool exhibit

I grew up in an "Air Show" family. My mom and dad were both hobby pilots and we drove all over the country for Air Shows. My two favorite planes were always the SR-71 and the F-18.

Theres actually some cool website that will give you the exact location of all remaining 71s along with google earth links to view them. Just Imagine what they've replaced the SR-71 with over the years that we have no clue about.....

I think the coolest plane I ever saw fly at a show was the B-1 Lancer(bomber.) It is absolutely insane to see something that huge and that maneuverable. Its also the loudest plane I've ever seen as well. Sadly we only ever saw it fly at one out of the hundreds of shows we went to back then.