This heavily-modified
North American P-51C has quite a history. It was first owned by Hollywood stunt pilot legend and racer Paul Mantz, who used it to win the Bendix air races in 1946 and 1947 before setting a transcontinental speed record with it. Mantz then sold it to Charles Blair, who used it to set more speed records on flights from New York to London and from Norway across the North Pole to Alaska.
And here on the other side is a stock
Grumman F6F Hellcat.
This one was actually used to gather data in the early atomic bomb tests...but they say that it's not really radioactive any more.
Not far away is this
Grumman G-22 aerobatic plane, once flown by Al Williams, air show pilot for Gulf Oil. He last flew it on it's final flight into Washington National Airport for donation to the Smithsonian in 1948.
Turning around, you look down on one of the most famous aircraft in military history, the B-29 bomber
Enola Gay, one of the two aircraft that ended World War Two.
She's huge, but this building is so big that she fits in here just fine. Here's the tail-gunner position below her rudder.
And beneath her huge wings we see this
Republic P-47 on one side:
And a Japanese
Kawanishi N1K2 Shiden Kai "George" behind that.
On the other side of Enola Gay, there's this beautiful
Lockheed P-38J, shown in it's "preserved, not restored" condition to reflect the way that she looked when she came out of storage.
Behind that is a classic
Hawker Hurricane that Old AFSarge and I both drooled over for a while.
Old Sarge put it best: "The Spitfires got all the credit, but the Hurricanes did all the work."
It kills me knowing that there are runways right outside. Pity that there's no door open to them or me and this Hurricane might have to skate out. Hell, ANY of these fighters would be a joy to fly, even for just a few minutes.
And speaking of aviation gems that just beg to be flown, This ultra-rare
P-61 "Black Widow", still wearing her old NACA colors, has a special spot in the collection...and in my heart.
Just a baby when she ended her flying career and came here; she only had 531 hours on her engines. That's not nearly enough and I'll be starting a petition to convince the museum to let me take her up for a few more hops.
The twin-engined Japanese plane in front of the P-61 in this last picture is a
Nakajima J1N1 "Irving" night-fighter, the only one still existing.
There will be more later. Stay tuned. And special thanks goes out to OldAFSarge's incredibly tolerant wife and daughter for gamely putting up with us all morning as OldAFSarge and I ran around like two hungry fat kids in a candy store.
