Happy New Year everyone!!
Just wanted to share a few pics from my visit to the Pima Air & Space Museum hosted by a gentleman I met over at "Viperpits". First off, I must say getting the "cooks tour" was fantastic! It doesn't get any better than a personal tour from the guy that is responsible for the displays.
I apologize for the number of pics, I could post another 30 and it wouldn't cover the good stuff!

The star of the show:








Let's climb into a piece of history!


Climbing in...


Just dreaming of ghosts...


That's right Wildcat, keep your hands off...I have the aircraft


The Bombardier / Navigator station




They have three Presidential rides:


Just for you, Viper:


And for Rhino & the VBA:




See what I mean about a special tour?!
In this hangar, they are building a replica P-51 from blueprints. Making ribs from scratch, making skin panels, building it as if it was going to fly! Amazing work!!



Wing detail


Left, Steve (Wildcat) talking to John, the project manager


And of course, my personal favorite piece of history:


Here's a couple pics of the other reason I drove down to Tucson:


What an awesome aircraft! It looks like they wax it every week!


And yes Burner, I have another 20 pics of the Phantom!

Gunner wrote: Just for you, Viper:

F-14A Upgrade. Looks to be a VF-1 bird...and it would look better without the nose gear sitting down, but it does look like its sitting on a catapult.

You get a shot of the BuNo...or is 160684? And I take it that its engines were taken out?

It is a awesome place isnt it Gunner? I talked the wife into going down there with me as my chosen spot for our honeymoon. Did you get to go take the bus ride over to the base and see all of the aircraft there? Trust me, you will see a ton of Phantoms sitting there. Plus, I am a little jealous, when I went I only got to see the Blackbird from afar because they were actually in the process of building that part of the hangar that it now sits in. I will need to go back down there and get a closer look.

Great stuff Gunner. I have made a point to take the boys down every year. They love it as do I. Thanks for sharing.

Con

Cool pic of the Tiger there Steve. You can tell they have altered the landing assembly somewhat to make it sit lower. The Tiger used to sit up like the A-4 did.



They even tried a different, wild looking font in 1958 with the Tiger, before going back to the traditional cursive looking writing on the nose.



Little museums like that are cool. The museum in Rantoul, Illinois, the home of the former Chanute AFB has a collection featuring every aircraft that the Thunderbirds used to fly in their respective Thunderbird paint scheme.

The used the different font in the short nosed tigers. Belive only about an estimate of 40 were ever built, so they transisioned to the Long nose tiger, as you see in Gunner's and Rhino's Picture above.

Viper,

Look Closely the front gear is in a "collapsed" config. If I recall from my time on the flight deck the front gear did not squat so far, even when on the cat!

Cinch wrote:Look Closely the front gear is in a "collapsed" config. If I recall from my time on the flight deck the front gear did not squat so far, even when on the cat!

Close...

Look closely young grasshopper, you are still missing something!!