Air Force Museum

 After we finished in Jonesborough, Trish and I drove up to Dayton, Ohio, to visit her son, Greg, and his family for a few days.

Greg and his wife, Annette, are both career Air Force (he retired three years ago, she is still active), and they were stationed at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton.  She has now been transferred on to Texas, but Greg and the kids and staying in Dayton for now for school.

One of those days, Trish and I went to visit the US Air Force Museum, located on the air base there.

Located in these four huge hanger type buildings, the museum has more than twenty acres of indoor space.

We started at the Presidential Plane Gallery where we saw the planes used as Air Force One by Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and the 707 that was in service from Kennedy to Clinton.

The museum is in chronological galleries from the beginnings of flight to the present.  We walked several hours through all of them.

Being from North Carolina it was interesting to see Ohio try to take all the credit for the Wright Brothers who actually did much of their research plus their first flight and many follow-ups in North Carolina!  We claim them too!

Of the military planes, I loved the WW II gallery the most.  These were the planes I first remember seeing and learning about when I was growing up.  This B-29 was an impressive example.

The Memphis Belle has quite a record in the Pacific.

This museum is 100 years old this year and it keeps interpreting history and looking to the future.