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US Air Force Museum (Dayton, OH)

Mustapha

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Mods, I don't know if this is wholly appropriate, I haven't seen anything else like this posted here. Feel free to delete and I won't get miffed.

I visited this museum a few weeks ago. From the standpoint of American military aeronautical history it's fascinating. There is quite a bit of American rah-rah about the place and the exhibits; it's run by the US Air Force after all.

For me it was about the airplanes; I've never seen so many big ones in one place.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v176/JeffLow/Dayton OH US air foce museum/
 
dream girl

brilliant! i could imagine a pilot and gunner in an enemy plane debating weather it is appropriate to hit a dream girl, what their friends would think of them if they did; and in the process of the debate, the enemy being shot down.

:D

of course with today's enemies, they don't have respect for women and won't think twice before hitting a dream girl. :mad:
 
That place is a piece of heaven for an aircraft geek (I'm one of them). A really impressive collection.

The Air Force museum has what I consider to be one of the most beautiful aircraft ever made: the XB-70 Valkyrie. It's the only one left.
 
That place is a piece of heaven for an aircraft geek (I'm one of them). A really impressive collection.

The Air Force museum has what I consider to be one of the most beautiful aircraft ever made: the XB-70 Valkyrie. It's the only one left.

On one visit about 10 years ago I ate lunch under the wings; was one of the strangest and nicest meals I ever had.

Our own version at Hamilton airport is a great way to spend a day too. Ever been?
http://www.warplane.com/
 
I certainly have! Another Canadian aviation gem is the Canada Aviation Museum in Ottawa.
 
Mods, I don't know if this is wholly appropriate, I haven't seen anything else like this posted here. Feel free to delete and I won't get miffed
It's fine Mustapha, but I'm going to move it to the World Photos section.

Up to you, but in the future (or on future trips) you may also consider linking the photos from your Photobucket account and making a proper photothread.
 
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The Air Force museum has what I consider to be one of the most beautiful aircraft ever made: the XB-70 Valkyrie. It's the only one left.

Beautiful aircraft. I find it amazing how the two decades from 1945 to 1965 went from the Enola Gay to the SR-71. It's kind of sad that ou most up-to-date jet fighters look exactly like the ones we manufactured in 1981, we send astronauts into orbit aboard a craft that is nearly as old as they are and that the fastest commercial airliner sits in a museum.
 
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Beautiful aircraft. I find it amazing how the two decades from 1945 to 1965 went from the Enola Gay to the SR-71. It's kind of sad that ou most up-to-date jet fighters look exactly like the ones we manufactured in 1981, we send astronauts into orbit aboard a craft that is nearly as old as they are and that the fastest commercial airliner sits in a museum.

That isn't entirely fair. It's not like aerospace development -commercial or military- stopped, it just went in different directions. Maybe we (the US) retired the SR 71, but now we have things like the Globalhawk, Reaper and far upgraded spy satellites that can do essentially the same thing at far lower cost. The Space Shuttle may be geriatric, but the Spirit and Opportunity rovers have been collecting more data (the ostensible point of space travel) on Mars than the entire Apollo program for the Moon at next to no cost by comparison.

I recall reading an LA Times article about the Pentagon considering pairing back its' F-22 procurement and instead focusing on developing unmanned miniature zeppelins with sniper rifles. I doubt we would ever see that, but it illustrates the point that the most useful solution isn't always the sexiest and fastest thing that looks good in Micheal Bay films. And on a technical note, fighter design has changed quite a bit since 1981. Compare the F35 program or B2 with the LWF program or XB 70. The advances in stealth design and RAM alone are impressive as hell.

EDIT: Besides, we all know that the Polecat is the best looking thing yet to fly. Either that or Helios
 
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Yes, aerospace development went in "different" directions, but in many instances those directions were cases of adopting new technologies to further enable existing platforms. Today, most military aircraft don't go much faster than about Mach 2.2 - mostly because up close air to air combat typically takes place at below supersonic speeds. So what we see is essentially gradual improvements in established platforms - often courtesy of improved computing and materials technologies - and not radical jumps in aircraft design. The military combat aircraft of today closely resembles what existed ten, twenty and even forty years ago.

Any quick survey of the aircraft history of the 1950's shows that decade to be a "golden age" of aircraft design. Rocketry and spacecraft are very similar to what was produced in the 1960's - with refinements in materials and associated technologies.

Other than being unpiloted, what is so revolutionary about the Global Hawk or Reaper? They are essentially variations of reconnaissance aircraft without pilots (and I'm not putting those technologies down - just saying that they are not revolutionary). As for reconnaissance satellites, that idea goes back to the late 1950's and early 1960's. Back then, film canisters were even dropped from space and caught in the air by aircraft. Now that's kind of revolutionary. Again, what we've seen then is incremental improvements in technologies that make these platforms ever more useful, but the essential platform remains the same.

For it's time, an aircraft like the XB-70 was quite revolutionary. It was conceived in the 1950's as a high-altitude waveriding bomber that could fly three times the speed of sound. It was built largely out of stainless steel, honeycomb sandwich panels, and titanium (a very difficult metal to work with- even now). It was designed to use a phenomenon called compression lift, which would be achieved when the shock wave generated by the airplane flying at supersonic speeds would support a portion of the airplane's weight. It represented a considerable jump from anything flying ten years earlier.

As for stealth, the mostly titanium SR-71 included refinements and materials to reduce detection by radar. "Stealth" research is almost as old as radar, and during the 1960's this Mach 3+ aircraft was designed in such a way so as to reduce its radar signature - decades before of the F-117, B-2 and F-22. Sure, these aircraft are more capable of avoiding such detection, but their capability is a product of evolution, not revolution.

A for the B-2 flying wing (which is subsonic), let's not forget such early examples like the Northrop YB-49 (1947), the Northrop YB-35 (1946), or the German Horten Ho 229 (1944) - the first jet-powered flying wing.

At the same time, what do we see in commercial passenger aircraft? What we have is incremental change. Most people would have a tough time distinguishing a an A-320 from a B-737, an A-350 from a B-787 from an A-330 from a B-767; but everyone would instantly see a big difference between any of those aircraft and Concorde. Yes, the technologies have improved considerably on contemporary aircraft, but the platform is essentially the same. The commercial airline business is a very conservative, so even today there is no strong impetus for much radical change (see the case of the Boeing Sonic Cruiser).

I recognize the improvements in allied technologies - and I certainly would not put them down - but Hipster's point is certainly not wrong or unfair.
 
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The Space Shuttle may be geriatric, but the Spirit and Opportunity rovers have been collecting more data (the ostensible point of space travel) on Mars than the entire Apollo program for the Moon at next to no cost by comparison...the most useful solution isn't always the sexiest and fastest thing that looks good in Micheal Bay films.

In terms of military aircraft, I agree that the objective is to design a more effective killing machine, and that defense contractors will always get enough money from the government to do this.

But as for NASA, it has two roles: one is to pursue scientific exploration of outer space, and the other - possibly more important role for its long term survival - is to sell the public on the glamorous image of space exploration. Unlike the defense industry, NASA is very reliant on chasing ever dwindling funding from the public purse. If it's dwindling, it's dwindling for a reason: for two decades it has launched unsexy projects that fail to spark the public's imagination. While the Mars rover might win the cost benefit analysis, it would be a mere footnote in the annals of human achievement to a manned expedition. That whatever manned missions do take place involve sending astronauts aboard a spacecraft which mission control prays won't disintegrate upon reentry only adds insult to injury. The state of NASA, and the American space program is probably best summed up in an episode of The Simpsons. When a shuttle launch is about to take place on TV, Bart excitedly runs as fast as he can, not out of the fear of missing it, but so that he can unplug the TV so they will not have to endure watching it.
 
USAF Museum: Good pics!

Mustapha: Good pics of the USAF Museum in Dayton,Ohio-for some reason it reminds me of a smaller version of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington,DC - the USA's most visited museum if I recall correctly.
LI MIKE
 

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