My Vacation and Aircraft Museums
08-31-2002, 06:35 PM
#1
Thread Starter
My Vacation and Aircraft Museums
We took off down to see my sons graduation at Ft Benning this last week and on the way the wife wanted to goto Mobile Alabama to see the USS Alabama Battleship that they turned into a Museum. Well when we got there I was pleasantly pleased as they had a very nice aircraft museum there also. we went around the battleship and a submarine they had there and had a blast and the wife finally got to see an ocean going vessel and how huge they are.
Now back to the important stuff AIRPLANES!!! At the front gate of the museum thay had a great looking B-25!!! they also have an F-4 Phantom on a pole to show the entrance to the museum entrance. There is also a B-52, DC-3 and a couple other planes cant remember all just outside the museum. (will be posting pics this week on my website as soon as I get them scanned) inside the museum they had a beautiful bunch of planes and all fully loaded with arms for a mission. There was an F4U Corsair, P-51, F9f Panther, SR-71 Blackbird, Vietnam era gunboat, F-18, and some others have to check my pictures to remember. It is definately worth a vacation to. For reference http://www.ussalabama.com/html/collection/index.php here is the website and it lists all the aircraft on display and other stuff. I would rate this as a 10 on a must see. Along with this adventure you must then make a 49 mile trip on I-10 to Pensacola Florida to the National Naval Aviation Museum. This on a scale of 1-10 I rate as a 100. It is the home base of the Blue Angels and when they are in between shows they do free airshows at the museum. We missed this by 1 day as we had to leave to goto my Boys Graduation. All I can say is they have every naval plane ever flown in that museum. Ith started by having a wright flyer, Sopwith camel, Fokker D7, Boeng F4B, Some Durigible (Blimp)gondolas hanging from ceiling, Flying Tigers P-40C with a nice display abt the AVG, and a carrier deck with a mock bridge for the carrier with several planes on it from WW II ready for takeoff including a Dauntless, Hellcat, Corsair, Helldiver and couple others dont know what they were. (yea I know shame on me for not knowing my planes hehe) They also had the most beautiful PBY and TBM Avenger hanging from the ceiling. there had to be over 100 aircraft in there. on the second level they had an old apollo space capsule and one of them i think it was mercury capsule. (you old timers will remember them the ones with the little frame on top where i think it was Alan Sheppard was the guy that made the first orbit in. I goulda fit that thing in the back of my van man they were tiny and cramped.
Here is the link to that and it shows pics and tells all the cool stuff in the museum http://www.naval-air.org/ For most of my pictures it will be a while as I took them with digital movie camera and have to download to VHS tape then upload to my computer and do some editing then going to save to cd. when I get done I can see how big the vidoe comes to and email it out or mail cds if anyone is interested, but it will be a while as I got a lot to do around there first. Also I will be pulling individual frames out and posting them to my website. I told wife not to worry with her 35mm camera because of the lighting and quality. So most of my still pictures will be pulled off of the movie.
My overall rating on that trip to those museums would be the equivellent of going to the smithsonian. I have been to several aircraft museums and nothing compared to the naval aviation museum and you add the USS Alabama Museum to that and you have it made.
Lowdown on trip. I live in Moline Illinois and was a 16 1/2 hr drive to Mobile. Drove straight through and cost $60 in gas, Tour cost for the USS Alabama $10 a piece so $20 bucks. 1 Hr drive from Mobile to Pensacola, $39 a night for a room abt 10 minutes from the beach and 15 minutes to the museum. Museum costs FREE plus $5.50 per person to their IMAX theater for the Flight movie (flying with the Blue Angels)
Memories and reference pictures PRICELESS.
We were on a very very very limited budget and with rental car with unlimited mileage cost of gas and adding 4 night stay in Columbus Georgia we got the trip in for around $700 bucks. now if you spent the same time in hotels on the trip it would make for a very affordible trip for most anyone.
I hope all can hit them museums one day as they are great have from props to jets a lot of history and a ton of reference as you can get up close and personal with every plane not hung from the cieiling.
Joe
Visit my B-25 Construction Site at http://home.mchsi.com/~jahuntley/ or catch me on Yahoo Messenger under the nick ProfLooney
Now back to the important stuff AIRPLANES!!! At the front gate of the museum thay had a great looking B-25!!! they also have an F-4 Phantom on a pole to show the entrance to the museum entrance. There is also a B-52, DC-3 and a couple other planes cant remember all just outside the museum. (will be posting pics this week on my website as soon as I get them scanned) inside the museum they had a beautiful bunch of planes and all fully loaded with arms for a mission. There was an F4U Corsair, P-51, F9f Panther, SR-71 Blackbird, Vietnam era gunboat, F-18, and some others have to check my pictures to remember. It is definately worth a vacation to. For reference http://www.ussalabama.com/html/collection/index.php here is the website and it lists all the aircraft on display and other stuff. I would rate this as a 10 on a must see. Along with this adventure you must then make a 49 mile trip on I-10 to Pensacola Florida to the National Naval Aviation Museum. This on a scale of 1-10 I rate as a 100. It is the home base of the Blue Angels and when they are in between shows they do free airshows at the museum. We missed this by 1 day as we had to leave to goto my Boys Graduation. All I can say is they have every naval plane ever flown in that museum. Ith started by having a wright flyer, Sopwith camel, Fokker D7, Boeng F4B, Some Durigible (Blimp)gondolas hanging from ceiling, Flying Tigers P-40C with a nice display abt the AVG, and a carrier deck with a mock bridge for the carrier with several planes on it from WW II ready for takeoff including a Dauntless, Hellcat, Corsair, Helldiver and couple others dont know what they were. (yea I know shame on me for not knowing my planes hehe) They also had the most beautiful PBY and TBM Avenger hanging from the ceiling. there had to be over 100 aircraft in there. on the second level they had an old apollo space capsule and one of them i think it was mercury capsule. (you old timers will remember them the ones with the little frame on top where i think it was Alan Sheppard was the guy that made the first orbit in. I goulda fit that thing in the back of my van man they were tiny and cramped.
Here is the link to that and it shows pics and tells all the cool stuff in the museum http://www.naval-air.org/ For most of my pictures it will be a while as I took them with digital movie camera and have to download to VHS tape then upload to my computer and do some editing then going to save to cd. when I get done I can see how big the vidoe comes to and email it out or mail cds if anyone is interested, but it will be a while as I got a lot to do around there first. Also I will be pulling individual frames out and posting them to my website. I told wife not to worry with her 35mm camera because of the lighting and quality. So most of my still pictures will be pulled off of the movie.
My overall rating on that trip to those museums would be the equivellent of going to the smithsonian. I have been to several aircraft museums and nothing compared to the naval aviation museum and you add the USS Alabama Museum to that and you have it made.
Lowdown on trip. I live in Moline Illinois and was a 16 1/2 hr drive to Mobile. Drove straight through and cost $60 in gas, Tour cost for the USS Alabama $10 a piece so $20 bucks. 1 Hr drive from Mobile to Pensacola, $39 a night for a room abt 10 minutes from the beach and 15 minutes to the museum. Museum costs FREE plus $5.50 per person to their IMAX theater for the Flight movie (flying with the Blue Angels)
Memories and reference pictures PRICELESS.
We were on a very very very limited budget and with rental car with unlimited mileage cost of gas and adding 4 night stay in Columbus Georgia we got the trip in for around $700 bucks. now if you spent the same time in hotels on the trip it would make for a very affordible trip for most anyone.
I hope all can hit them museums one day as they are great have from props to jets a lot of history and a ton of reference as you can get up close and personal with every plane not hung from the cieiling.
Joe
Visit my B-25 Construction Site at http://home.mchsi.com/~jahuntley/ or catch me on Yahoo Messenger under the nick ProfLooney
