Favorite aviation museum

[indygreg]

The only 2 I have been to are the USAF Museum at Wright-Patterson, and at Grissom ARB.  Other than the Smithsonian, what are some other recommendations

[flyboy53]

The Air Force Museum is the best. The New England Air Museum is second best. The National Soaring Museum and the Glenn Curtis Museum are great, too.

[Senior]

I have been to the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson.  Seeing the B-36 and the XB-70 Valkyrie was absolutely awesome.  The Confederate Air Force's B-25 Mitchell at Smartt Field, St. Charles,
Missouri was neat to see as a cadet. 

[SarDragon]

Pima Air and Space Museum, outside Tucson, AZ

San Diego Air and Space Museum

USS Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum, San Diego

USS Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum

Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, McMinnville, OR

Tillamook Air Museum, Tillamook, OR

Have not been to all of them, but they are all highly recommended by those who have.

[helper]

In my opinion, the best is USAF Wright-Patterson (should plan for two days!)

others I've visited:
Smithsonian (prefer the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles)
Grissom (each time I visit it appears to have added more)
Pensacola (for Navy aircraft)
Omaha Strategic Aerospace Museum
Harris Hill Soaring Museum (for gliders)
Mighty 8th AF museum (not as many aircraft but worth the visit. I've called ahead to arrange a guided tour for cadets)

I'd suggest a google search to find smaller less known ones near you.

[flyguy06]

Warner Robins Air Force Museum

Wright Patterson Air Force museum

The Smithsonian

[SarDragon]

Taking volunteers to administer twenty lashes with the wet noodle flail, for having left the Naval Aviation Museum off of my list.   

Apply by PM. 

[sardak]

Favorite? Hard to pick one. I've been to many and some have personal connections. All museums mentioned are hotlinked to their websites.
My dad used to take me to the SAC Museum when it was a collection of aircraft sitting out in the open on a closed runway at Offutt AFB. Those planes became the core of the  Strategic Air and Space Museum west of Omaha. Dad was a Naval Aviation Cadet through the V-5 program in WWII. He had completed basic pilot training (soloed!) and was in the next phase of flight training when the war ended. He was given the choice of staying in or leaving to go back to school. He went back to school but regretted leaving (at least the flying part) for the rest of his life. His brothers were also in Naval Aviation but not as aircrew. Dad's future brother-in-law (my uncle) flew Dauntless dive bombers in the Pacific Theater as a Marine Aviator. I have connections to the Atlas that stands in front of the museum.

Another connection is to the Atlas at the San Diego Air & Space Museum Annex at Gillespie Field. There has been an effort to move the Atlas to the main museum in Balboa Park. This missile used to stand in Missile Park on the General Dynamics property in Kearney Mesa.

And there's the Atlas at the Air Force Space and Missile Museum at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS). Used to visit the museum and other historic sites when I worked launches.

From there we could drive by the Saturn V sitting outside at the Kennedy Space Center. It's now indoors, accessible by tours from the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center with its Rocket Garden Another Atlas there.

There are/were Atlases at a number of museums around the country. The old Atlas requires pressurization or mechanical stretch to keep from collapsing under its own weight. There are photos of erect Atlases which lost pressure in their forward tanks, causing them to look like...use your imagination. The current Atlas V is similar to the old Atlas vehicles in name only since it is a structurally stable vehicle. There is a bit of behind-the-scenes history why this is called an Atlas and not named after another historic launch vehicle.

The Centaur upper stage, younger brother or sister of the Atlas, is also pressure stabilized and still in use. There is a "wide-body" Centaur on display at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL. One version of the wide-body (14 ft diameter vs standard 10 ft dia) Centaur was designed to be flown and launched from the Shuttle cargo bay. That program ended quickly after the Challenger failure. Astronauts referred to this as the "Death Star." The big Centaurs were flown aboard the Titan IV. The 10 ft. diameter Centaurs flew on Titan III and still fly on Atlas.

As long as you're in Alabama, visit the Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker.

Moving south, the National Naval Air Museum at Pensacola, being a Naval aviation museum, has a number of aircraft you won't see elsewhere. It also puts a perspective on military aviation different from the more common USAF museums.

A couple of museums where I've been not mentioned by others .

Wings Over the Rockies in the historic Hangar 1 at what used to be Lowry AFB in Denver.

A relatively difficult museum to reach is the Peterson Air and Space Museum on Peterson AFB in Colorado Springs.

If you make it to DC, make sure to get the National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Annex at Dulles as well as the main museum on the Mall. Have a connection to the Viking lander displayed there.

Mike

[JoeTomasone]

Some other nice ones are:

Hill Aerospace Museam @ Hill AFB near SLC, UT
Virgina Aerospace Museum @ Richmond Airport.
Seattle Museum of Flight

Also recommend Pima, Wright-Pat, and the Intrepid (noted above).

Bonus: They all have one form or another of the Blackbird, which is my all-time favorite aircraft.

[SarDragon]

As sardak mentioned: Wings Over the Rockies in the historic Hangar 1 at what used to be Lowry AFB in Denver. We visited there, and it is small, but most excellent. There is even a CAP display there.

[Smithsonia]

I'll speak for Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum in Denver. Once a production set for Jimmy Stewart in the Glenn Miller Story - it is a fine exhibition hall. A huge hangar that once contained up to 6 B-52s with offices, meeting rooms, classrooms, and shops, this hangar was built during the command of Maj. Gen. John F. Curry during WW2. At the time it was one of the largest in the Western US. http://www.wingsmuseum.org/

And yes; there is a fine display about The Largest Single Mission Save in CAP history, Flight 217 - contained in this hangar. Coverage of the unveiling of this exhibit was in the latest (Dec/Jan) Volunteer Magazine. I was project officer for the Flight 217 story, recovery, commemoration, and unveiling. To honor these heroes and once again call attention to their deeds is one of the finest moments of my CAP career. SEE VIDEO HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EyJmkER-d8 There are good interior shots of the museum and more of the Flight 217 story here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VZJhTMURs4

There is also an exhibit containing WW2 CAP uniforms of our first Colorado Wing Commander Col. Harold Smethills. In about a year, or so, I hope to add a John F. "Jack" Curry exhibit too.

I've worked for the Smithsonian, Pima Air, and San Diego Museums of Flight. None of these has made me happier or prouder than my association with Wings Over the Rockies.

Likely, should you come - you'll meet several CAP members who serve as docents, volunteers, historians, and guides.
If one of those persons is Lt. Col. Jim Jenkins - then you are in the presence of a very fine mission pilot, grand fellow, and squadron mate of mine.

[FARRIER]

Champlain Fighter Museum - Mesa Arizona
National Museum of Naval Aviation - Penscola NAS
Tillamook NAS Museum - Oregon
Pima Air and Space Museum -Tuscon Arizona
Iowa Aviation Preservation Center - Greenfield Iowa
Pioneer Village - Minden Nebraska (multiple aviation exhibits within the museum)
Evergreen Aviation Museum - McMinville Oregon

[indygreg]

I didn't know that CCAFS had a museum.  Had I known, I would have planned on going there when I was at KSC a few years ago.  Personally, I'll take the Space Center over Disney any day. We only got to spend one day there, but would have loved to have spent more time.  And, yes, the Saturn V is quite impressive.

[wuzafuzz]

My personal favorites are the San Diego Air & Space Museum, the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum, and the modest but well sited Missile Park at NAWS Pt Mugu (it's directly off the approach end of the runway    ).  OK, the latter isn't really a museum but was a great place to view the real stuff in use.  I burned a lot of film there in my youth!

I also thoroughly enjoyed the Smithsonian, Kennedy Space Center, Pima, Wings Over The Rockies, and the Canada Aviation Museum in Ottawa.

[NIN]

They've since moved to bigger/better digs, but the Kalamazoo "Air Zoo" was a favorite of mine since I first wandered into it on a whim in 1987. 

I was there on a weekday at an odd time of the year, and darn near had the whole place to myself.   I wandered around for a little while and discovered that they had a close-to-full collection of Grumman "Cats" (Bearcat, Hellcat, Wildcat, Tigercat, etc).  I asked the docent "Hey, why do these all have drip pans attached to them?" and he pointed out that most of their aircraft were flyable.  Then the arrangement of the museum was clear (one side of that building was hangar door) and I was even more fully amazed by their collection. 

I also got an impromptu tour of their restoration area, and the gent working on the Corsair invited me to look at anything I wanted to. I spent about 30 minutes with a flashlight just jamming my head thru open inspection panels and soaking in the smells of that wonderful old bird.  That was a heck of an experience.

They were, at least about 15 years ago, very "CAP-friendly."   We were dragging 2 loads of cadets back from a SAR mission in Valparaiso, Indiana when we said "Hey, lets stop at the Air Zoo.." and they cut us an admission deal on the spot.  Talk about flexible!

http://www.airzoo.org/

(I see from the photos that the new facility is head and shoulders over the old one...)

I was a bit disappointed in the EAA's museum in Oshkosh.  I went there in 2008 enroute back to Chicago following the USAC Leadership Symposium, hadn't been since 1985.  It was alright, but nothing I'd exactly write home to mom about.  I did very much like the Space Ship One stuff they had.

Another nice museum was the the Yankee Air Museum at Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti, Michigan.  We'd taken many squadron tours to that place (it was around an hour away) and they were always very accommodating and friendly to us.  I stood in their restoration hangar one day chatting with a gent who was restoring a WWII Waco glider and found out he'd been a glider assault pilot in WWII.  My jaw hit the floor. 

They had/have several display aircraft including, if I remember correctly, a Privateer (single-tail B-24 used by the Navy for ASW), an Armstrong Whitworth Argosy (yeah, I bet you're saying "What the heck is that?"), a cpuple Century-series aircraft (I seem to recall an F-106 and an F-101), some of the early jet fighters like a P-80 (or was it a T-33?), F-84, F-86D and even some more modern stuff like an F-4 and an A-7.  The crown jewel, IMHO, is the B-52.  Last time I went there, they had the Buff open, and my cadet commander and I spent about a half hour crawling thru the inside. I got to open the "tunnel" door and proceeded to crawl the length of the aircraft to the tail gunner position. That was a real treat.  I had no idea the aft fuselage of a B-52 was quite so cavernous.  (nevermind that I scared the crap out of my cadet commander when he was in the lower cockpit area and I was on the other side of the pressure bulkhead door scratching on it randomly. He opened the door and about fainted when I surprised him..<GRIN> Is that cadet abuse?)

Unfortunately in 2004 they suffered a tragic setback when their hangar burned to the ground, taking their huge collection of memorabilia, equipment and non-flyable aircraft with it.  The flyable B-25, B-17 and C-47 were all pushed out of the hangar before they could be consumed in the fire, however, so they at least have those.  They've been raising money for a new facility ever since, and I don't know how long its going to take them to build a new hangar, but if you can patronize them, I would.  It would help their efforts out.

I also cannot say enough about the Udvar-Hazy Center @ Dulles Airport. I was there a week after it opened in 2003, and unfortunately could only spend about 45 minutes in the museum (my autistic daughter, who was almost 5 at the time, made it clear that aviation museums were OK, but don't stop to read the background information.. keep moving, daddy!)  My son, who was 2 1/2, could identify about a half-dozen of the aircraft on display, especially the Concorde & the SR-71 (he had a book that had those aircraft in it, so he was all geeked out).   I need to get him back down there now that he's 8.   Hmmm, weekend trip with Dad?  Yeah!!

I've been back since and its even better now. The Space Hangar is tremendous, and the thing I really like is that they just put the aircraft there with very little interpretation, unlike the NASM at the Mall which has all the interpretive materials to accompany the static displays.

I would take the Udvar-Hazy facility over the Mall facility any day of the week.

Someone already mentioned the New England Air Museum, and I'll just say that its a "nice" museum, but its not tremendously spectacular.  Then again, its nearly a 2 hr drive for me, so going there has to be compelling, IMHO.

[Trung Si Ma]

I'm TDY a lot and carry the "Guide To Over 900 Aircraft Museums" in my luggage so that I can find museums wherever I go.  There is even an appendix that locates aircraft by type.

[Gunner C]

I can honestly say that I've never been to a "crappy" aviation museum.  They have all registered on the "cool side" of my fun meter.  But for just shear variety and quantity of hardware, I like the Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles, VA.  Seeing a space shuttle up close was a REAL treat.

[Smithsonia]

Udvar Hazy is commonly referred to the Smitty Dulles. While impressive my complaints are: I want to see inside the cockpits. I want stairs, ramps, or visual appointment zones. I want planes suspended as in flight to have a place where I can view a bank towards me - so I can look inside through the canopy. For high wings, I want them to bank away so I can look in the side windows.

Smitty has some of these. Could've had a lot more. Look at the 2 Taylorcrafts on display... you can't look in either on of them. To me and overall Smitty Dulles is like the Superbowl. Impressive pregame promotion followed by a mediocre display. Meaning, Smitty will knock your socks off but leave cold in the end.

San Diego is pretty good but had lots of Startrek garbage the last time I was there.

Boeing Seattle is one of my favorites.

Simply the best isn't a museum but then it is the best museum too. The EAA Oshkosh in late July beats everything. http://www.airventure.org/  To see the planes fly, to talk to the pilots, restorers, and owners, to watch them race around the patch, to hear them growl, and bark, and spit to furious life, and to see them side by side - not just on the ground but in th air. It is glorious!!!
In its way it is the difference between going to a local zoo (museum) and going on a real safari (AirVenture). There isn't any comparison, really.

[Gunner C]

Yeah, kinda like a girlie bar.  You can look, but only to a point. 

It is a no-frills museum, but it's all that stuff that the Smithsonian wouldn't display if they didn't have the added space.

Have you been to Huntsville?  Nothing better than laying hands on the skin of a Saturn!  (My grandfather worked there and my uncle worked on the Saturn V third stage - actual rocket scientist). 

[Thrashed]

I've been to all the major museums in this country and a few outside the USA.  I like them all.  I won't list them as most are already listed above and it would take too much time.  I'll name one unique one that I went to a couple years ago.  Not big, not great, but unique.  It was a good time.  It's nice to see the exhibits fly too.
http://www.oldrhinebeck.org/