Nancy Meinzer (left) and lady friend Sue Brooks enjoy the display of a replica of the Wright Brother’s first airplane in the “Early Years” section of the air force museum. Shown in the smaller photo, lower right is The B-29 bomber “Bockscar” and the replica atomic bomb “Fat Boy” it dropped on Nagasaki Japan to end World War II in 1945.


THE US AIR FORCE MUSEUM
Wright Patterson AFB--Dayton

As I wandered through the museum that day I was compelled to ponder it was just 66 years from the Wright Brother’s first flight (1903) to Neil Armstrong and man’s first walk on the moon (1969).

On that 1903 day Wilbur Wright flew about 112 feet. The distance to the moon is approximately 238,000 miles.

The museum, located at Dayton’s Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, is the world’s oldest and largest military aviation museum and contains more than 17 acres of indoor exhibit space in three, hangar-style buildings. It has more than 1,000,000 visitors per year.

There is a separate hangar containing the museum’s collection of Presidential aircraft including the Air Force One that returned President John F. Kennedy’s body from Texas to Washington DC. It, too, is open to the public.

Pictured in the next smaller photo is a 1955 Aero Commander, the smallest ever Air Force One and used by President Dwight Eisenhower for personal transportation. That airplane is very similar to the 500S Shrike Aero Commander I flew for the Shiloh Corporation in the late 1970s. Imagine how that discovery rattled my memories.

Nancy also had a fond recollection of a childhood visit to the museum and a photo of her late father with a WWII era bomber named “Strawberry Bitch”. That airplane is still there.

We quietly pondered the Holocaust section which memorialized the victims and survivors of the Nazi WWII concentration camps—including captured American airmen.

We wished we had more time to reflect on the personal stories for which air force personnel had been awarded the Medal of Honor—our nation’s highest award for conduct above and beyond the call of duty.

Overall it was painful to contemplate the fact the majority of exhibits, naturally, involved the machinery of war.

But, that is a proclivity of the human experience and this museum treats it with a palpable, scholarly respect.

Open year-round, daily, 9 to 5 and free.

The silver airplane on the right above is a North American 047B and has been on display since 1978 after it was restored by members of Mansfield’s Air National Guard Maintenance Squadron. The airplane standing on its nose in the center of the picture depicts a flight training accident.
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http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/