Air Force Museum Photos - Bonus Post from Day 76 of Road Trip

Folks interested in photos inside the Air Force Museum, this post is for you. As I mentioned in my blog on Day 76 (June 12, 2023) of our road trip, we enjoyed our five hours in the museum. I am sharing a few more of the photos from our trip.

Inside of Air Force 1 - the very first Air Force One used during Kennedy through George H.W. Bush presidencies.

Inside the Columbine III:

Info from the Columbine III information display: “The only Lockheed VC-121E built served as President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s personal airplane from 1954 until he left office in January 1961. A military version of the famous Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation commercial airliner, it has a fuselage stretched eighteen feet longer than earlier versions.

Eisenhower named this aircraft, his third Constellation, Columbine III, after the official state flower of Colorado in honor of his wife Mamie. “

From the Viet Nam POWs exhibit:

Poster of the era

 You may be able to click on this photo and see how the prisoners communicated with each other from their cells.

                        Left is the clothing worn by POWs, the middle is the North Vietnamese guard uniform, right is the clothing prisoners were given when released. The North Vietnamese wanted the US Government to believe the prisoners were well treated.

Appolo-15 Command Module - Endeavor

Aveo Canada Vz-9A Avrocar: 

Bird of Prey F-22 Raptor used for stealth missions. The canopy is coated with a film to reflect away most radar waves so that the pilot's helmet cannot be detected.  The shape of the plane itself reduces its visibility to radar waves:

Ryan X-13 Vertijet was an experimental jet during the 1950s. The objective was to prove that a pure jet could vertically takeoff, transition to horizontal forward flight, and then land vertically. There is an exhibit for experimental aircraft at the Air Force Museum.

Early Warning Satellite designed to rapidly detect ballistic missile launches which would enable defensive military action.

C-119J Flying Boxcar Satellite Catcher - made the world's first mid-air recovery of  an object retrning from space in August 1960. "satellite catching" became an important and regular US Air Force operation to recover secret reconnaissance satellite film.

Nothing like a room full of missles to make me feel smaller than 5'2" tall.  

Right - LGM-118A peacemaker

Next (right to left) Minuteman III

Third (gold ban) Titan I

4th (B5) Titan II

5th THOR SM-75/PGM-17A

Last Jupiter (Chrysler SM-78/PGM-19A)