Gunner's visit to the Pima Air & Space Museum
Gunner's visit to the Pima Air & Space Museum
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!
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!
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Re: Gunners visit to the Pima Air & Space Museum
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.Gunner wrote: Just for you, Viper:
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.
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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.
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.
Phantoms Phorever!
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