007-vf1 Posted January 6, 2004 Posted January 6, 2004 I went to this museum on the first of Jenuary when I thought everyone was going to have a hung over and wake up late. For my surprise over 5000 visitors showed up along with us. The good thing is that this museum is just 5 minutes from my house. I took several pics for modeling reference, specially the concord's landing gear. You can see a great amount of WWII and modern planes displayed, including the space shuttle enterprise; but that's about all what this museum has to offer for now. Also if you get to see a movie in the Imax theater I suggest you to see the show "Adrenaline rush"; is worth watching.. ...The pics from the entrance 2nd floor you can see the 'Black bird' with the Enterprise in the background. this is the part where the restorers make you go WOW..... Quote
007-vf1 Posted January 6, 2004 Author Posted January 6, 2004 The always controversial Enola Gay....the metal finish on this baby is well polished....you can see the original mangled pieces of metal that has survived over the years... Quote
007-vf1 Posted January 6, 2004 Author Posted January 6, 2004 My 2 brothers with the concord in the background and the trusters of the SR-71 on the second pic Quote
007-vf1 Posted January 6, 2004 Author Posted January 6, 2004 (edited) the F-22 raptor ( or may be the YF? ) to which they took the engines off... Last one but not least. The last thing you think you would see at this museum....the mother ship from the movie "Close encounters". Also you would find several rockets and rocket trusters in detail I took pictures of; as well as a bunch of gliders and wind-man powered planes... Edited January 6, 2004 by 007-vf1 Quote
Toby Danger Posted January 6, 2004 Posted January 6, 2004 Not to nitpick (but thats what we're here for, right), but that last picture is the Lockheed X-35 (F-35), the winner of the JSF competition. Quote
007-vf1 Posted January 6, 2004 Author Posted January 6, 2004 Not to nitpick (but thats what we're here for, right), but that last picture is the Lockheed X-35 (F-35), the winner of the JSF competition. You are correct!! Quote
Unknown Target Posted January 6, 2004 Posted January 6, 2004 (edited) I was wondering about that...the engine inlets were all wrong. Do you have any pictures of the space shuttle? Edited January 6, 2004 by Unknown Target Quote
Anubis Posted January 6, 2004 Posted January 6, 2004 I'm going to have to go there one weekend. Quote
David Hingtgen Posted January 6, 2004 Posted January 6, 2004 Nit-pick: "Concorde". The E is for England. Concord is a grape, Concorde is a plane. (And a car, but only because BAe forgot to trademark the name and Chrysler copied it) No 367-80 pics? You people have no sense of what's important. I think that's a Dauntless in the Enola Gay pic, though I was never good with WWII carrier planes. Did you get to the observation deck? That's actually going to be my highlight when I get there--Dulles pics! (I've seen a B-29 flying, saw the 367-80B at Boeing field, sat on an SR-71's gear at Offutt) Above all else, my love is for airliners. Quote
Keiichi Posted January 7, 2004 Posted January 7, 2004 That's not a Dauntless but a Kingfisher. The Dauntless was a dive bomber, while the Kingfisher you see there was made for recon and such. Woo I knew something about planes that David didn't! Quote
David Hingtgen Posted January 7, 2004 Posted January 7, 2004 (edited) OMG it is a Kingfisher. ::hangs head in shame:: I'm *building* a model of one of those for my USS Iowa... D*mn. I must be blind to have missed the floats. Gotta stop going by markings for Navy plane identification... I'm never going to live this one down. That's on the level of me confusing an F-15 and an F-16. hey, got any more pics? I need them for painting references--especially the undersides and pop/gear/struts. Edited January 7, 2004 by David Hingtgen Quote
Apollo Leader Posted January 7, 2004 Posted January 7, 2004 Dave, here's what a Dauntless looks like (it's not a seaplane like the Kingfisher). And just to add some additional comments: 1) The Space Shuttle on display is Enterprise. 2) IMO, the X-35 should be at the Air Force Museum in Dayton. 3) IMO, Enola Gay should be on display here in southeast Nebraska at the Strategic Air and Space Museum since it and Bock's Car (which is at the Air Force Museum) were built at the Martin bomber plant which is today the facilities used by the 55th Recon. Wing at Offutt AFB. (I got to meet Paul Tibbits and Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk (the last two surviving members of the Enola Gay crew) three years ago). 4) That particular SR-71 is the last Blackbird to set a speed record when it set the new LA to Washington DC speed record back in early 1990 (that was its last flight). Quote
007-vf1 Posted January 10, 2004 Author Posted January 10, 2004 yeap..I got a bunch of different pics but I didn't think it would be such a great idea to post all of them here... I'll post only some of the ones I got requested on; I wouldn't recomend anyone to go any time soon since they have thousands of perople form Virginia going every day; and the place needs to be finished and expanded -David; I have your Concorde landing gear pic, and yes I went to the observation tower (which isn't that spectacular after all) and took a pic of the Korean air 747 landing; the pic is zoomed. - Unknown target, your enterprise pics, they took sections of the wings to test distress responses because of the Columbia accident. Quote
007-vf1 Posted January 10, 2004 Author Posted January 10, 2004 (edited) This is the real reason for going to the museum concorde landing gear and rocket system details Edited January 10, 2004 by 007-vf1 Quote
007-vf1 Posted January 10, 2004 Author Posted January 10, 2004 Captain, it is the Enterprise.... Quote
David Hingtgen Posted January 10, 2004 Posted January 10, 2004 Ooh, actually I like the KAL pic the best. I can definitely get reg numbers from that observation deck. Quote
Beltane70 Posted January 11, 2004 Posted January 11, 2004 Cool pics! This is definitely on my list of things to see. I should make a run there sometime to see the new museum. Hmm, maybe I should go in February when I go to KatsuCon..... Quote
kanata67 Posted January 11, 2004 Posted January 11, 2004 I remember when I went to the air and space back in the late eighties they had the most awsome model of an aircraft carrier I had ever seen. It had to be over 4' long and you could see all the details in the hanger decks. Truely awsome. Is it still there? is there a sr-71 still on the intrepid? did somebody need shuttle pics? I have family who worked for nasa. Heck... I've got a piece of the challenger in my display case Quote
Murphy Posted January 11, 2004 Posted January 11, 2004 The always controversial Enola Gay....the metal finish on this baby is well polished....you can see the original mangled pieces of metal that has survived over the years... its finally good to see the enola gay finally put together, the last time i saw it was at the smithsonian(sp?) in 97' and it was in sections....at the time i thought it was retarded because i saw the box car in dayton a couple of weeks before and it was complete, it was really wierd to put my hand on the plane that nuked nasigakii(sp?) but cool to touch something that ended the 2nd world war Quote
Mobyrz Posted January 11, 2004 Posted January 11, 2004 Yeah, the sr-71 is still there...I can't remember, but I coulda swore I saw a MiG-21 there Quote
Wes Posted January 12, 2004 Posted January 12, 2004 I went there a couple of years ago - cool place. Quote
007-vf1 Posted January 13, 2004 Author Posted January 13, 2004 I remember when I went to the air and space back in the late eighties they had the most awsome model of an aircraft carrier I had ever seen. It had to be over 4' long and you could see all the details in the hanger decks. Truely awsome. Is it still there? Yes, the carrier is still there but in the DC museum in downtown Washington...what most people don't know is that this museum annex is about 25 miles from the main "Mall" in Washington DC where the main Air &Space and most museums are; about 3 minutes from the Dulles international Airport and practically on my "back yard"... Quote
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