Must See: The United States Air Force Museum
Updated: Mar 16, 2023
The National Museum of the United States Air Force is located at Wright Patterson Base in Dayton, Ohio, and brings in over 800,000 tourists each year. These tourists get a chance to explore the expansive museum that shows off "more than 350 aerospace vehicles, missiles and thousands of artifacts all in 19 acres of indoor exhibit area" (https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/).
When visiting the museum you take a tour through time in the form of aviation. You will see many galleries starting with the early years, then World War II, Korean War, Southeast Asia War, Cold War, Missile Gallery, Space Gallery, Research & Development Gallery, Global Reach Gallery, Presidential Gallery, Air Park, and Memorial Park. The Air Force Museum always has great exhibits when visiting and right now they are featuring a few different ones including Global Positioning and Its Impact, Flying The President, Women In The Air Force: From Yesterday Into Tomorrow. New Exhibits will be coming in 2023 one of them being Enlisted Force - Foundation of Air and Space Power. Free daily guided tours are offered, they take about an hour and 15 minutes and you are taken through all the galleries. Although, I recommend taking your own tour; you can take your time walking through the galleries and exhibits that interest you the most.
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You will find so much and see so much at the museum. Each exhibit has many airplanes from that era/war period on display for you to look at. Most planes also have a plaque that explains their importance and their history, so no matter where your interest lies you are sure to find something. Some of the planes that you will see are below:
Early Years
Boeing P-26A
Halberstadt CL IV
Kettering Aerial Torpedo "Bug"
Wright 1909 Military Flyer
World War II
B-24D Liberator Strawberry Bitch
Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress Memphis Belle (not pictured)
Curtiss P-40E Warhawk (looks like a shark)
P-47 (has a pink elephant painted on it designed after 'Dumbo')
Boeing B-29 Superfortress Bockscar
De Havilland DH 98 Mosquito
Bell P-39Q Airacobra
Snafu Snatchers OA-10 Catalina
Junker Ju 88D-1/Trop
Presidential Gallery
Boeing VC-137C SAM 26000 Air Force One
The museum is open 7 days a week from 9 am to 5 pm which is great because if you look at everything and read all the plaques, you could spend days learning about old and new technologies in military aviation. Admission and parking is completely free which is hard to believe with how big the museum is and how well it's been laid out. They do have donation boxes when you first walk in that does go to the upkeep of the museum.
Having something like the Air Force Museum in my backyard (30 minutes from my house) is pretty amazing. The fact that people travel from all over the world to see these planes and learn army/military/air force history makes me feel fortunate that I can travel locally and get the same experience. I highly recommend the United States Air Force Museum, whether you are traveling from far away or nearby the museum is for everyone. It's somewhere you can go multiple times and see something new each time. So if you are in the area or just passing through, take a day and visit the Air Force Museum!
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