6 replies to this topic

[Dave Crevie]

An old family friend forwarded this snippet from his local Tucson TV station. He volunteers at Pima, and became friends with my uncle James when he was also a volunteer there. It is quite a facility, with aircraft    

from the beginnings of flight to more recent examples.

 

I have been there several times, my uncle giving me unlimited access to all the exhibits. I even had free range in the shop, time I used to amass a large collection of photos of the underpinnings of many WWI and WWII warbirds. There is also a collection of movie planes, including an F-14 Tomcat from Top Gun. The aircraft inside the building, including those hanging from the trusses, are flight ready, minus fuel of course. The planes in the 'junkyard' are available for close up inspection, but I recommend taking the tram tour first, so you get a lay of the land. If you are as crazy about airplanes as I am, you might want to spend a second day.

 

If you live anywhere in the Southwest, I encourage you to make the trip. Spend the day. You won't be disappointed.

 

 

[Bill from NH]

My son and his family live in Sierra Vista. They've been to this museum several times. I'll be out there late May, but don't know yet if I'll have time to go up to see it.

[Pappy]

I'd love to go to this museum. We have the Air Force Museum in Dayton, OH, which is a fantastic museum and only about 40 miles from my house. Everything in the Air Force museum is related to the Air Force and they have over 360 aircraft on display.

[Bill Seitz]

As a Tucson resident, I'm very familiar with the Pima Air and Space Museum and their additional Titan Missile Museum. The Tucson area was home to Titan ICBM's during the cold war, and one of these Titan silos has been preserved as a museum complete with a decommissioned missile standing in the underground silo. The aircraft museum is located adjacent to the USAF AMARC which is convenient for moving decommissioned aircraft to the museum. Many of the aircraft at Pima are indicated as being on loan from either the Museum of the USAF in Dayton or the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Pima Air and Space Museum provides additional storage in the desert climate for additional museum artifacts.

 

I've visited both the Pima Air and Space Museum and the Museum of the USAF at Dayton. Both are excellent and well worth a visit.

[Paul Menkens]

l visited this once about 25 years ago, on the flight back to Chi the third in our row of seats was a worker from one of those other museums you named who told us he had to fly down there once a year to check on their planes that were there on loan.

 

l'd like to go again as it looks like they've added a lot since my visit.

[Dave Crevie]

Too bad they don't have the Saturday morning auction at AMARC open to the public any more. My uncle had free access to that as well, and is the "junkyard" I alluded to in post #1. We watched reps from other countries bidding on decommissioned fighter jets and helicopters. What really was amazing was that any American citizen could also bid if he could prove financial backing. (On our last trip to that auction, we saw Henry Winkler there, but didn't see him bid on anything )

[Cheater]

We have the Air Force Museum in Dayton, OH, which is a fantastic museum and only about 40 miles from my house. Everything in the Air Force museum is related to the Air Force and they have over 360 aircraft on display.

If you can only visit one airplane museum, this is the one. Just don't go there for a single day, as the place really needs multiple days to absorb. Heck, two days is probably not enough. I could spend a week there.

The material in the Dayton museum is astounding. From Wikipedia:

"In September 1908, Orville Wright visited Fort Myer to demonstrate the 1908 Wright Military Flyer for the US Army Signal Corps division. On September 17, Selfridge arranged to be his passenger, and Wright piloted the craft. On this occasion, the Flyer was carrying more weight than it had ever done before; the combined weight of the two men was about 320 pounds (150 kg).

The Flyer circled Fort Myer 4+1⁄2 times at a height of 150 feet (46 m). Halfway through the fifth circuit... the right-hand propeller broke, losing thrust. This set up a vibration, causing the split propeller to hit a guy-wire bracing the rear vertical rudder. The wire tore out of its fastening and shattered the propeller; the rudder swiveled to the horizontal and sent the Flyer into a nose dive. Wright shut off the engine and managed to glide to about 75 feet (23 m), but the craft hit the ground nose-first. Both men were thrown forward against the remaining wires, and Selfridge struck one of the wooden uprights of the framework, fracturing the base of his skull. He underwent neurosurgery, but died three hours later without regaining consciousness. Selfridge was the first person ever to die in an airplane crash.

 

One of the exhibits at Dayton is the pieces of the propeller that broke!