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[vtrelut]

After that and a long drive to Atwater, I enjoyed a lot the Castle Air Force Base museum:
http://www.castleairmuseum.org/





First of all the B-52 cockpit:



And an amazing collection of WWII bombers:








There was also a B-25 Mitchell.

Note this rare Douglas B-18 Bolo:



And the Douglas B-23 Dragon:



Some of the most interesting aircraft visible at Castle AFB are the cold war bombers, with first of all a rare North American B-45 Tornado:



A Boeing WB-50D Superfortress:


A truly extraordinary Convair RB-36H Peacemaker:



Note the radar in the rear, above the 20 mm cannon turret:


An impressive arsenal:


This Mk-17 hydrogen bomb was more than 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki! It could be carried only by the B-36:


And then a little B-47 Stratojet:


A B-52 Stratofortress:


A B-57:


A fuel and ammunition container attached to a Convair B-58 Hustler:


And even a British Avro Vulcan:


There was also a FB-111A.

That made my day!

But it was not over: interceptors, Century Fighters, US Navy aircraft, transportation aircraft, and so on...

More pictures here:
http://s233.beta.photobucket.com/user/vtrelut/library/Castle%20AFB%20Air%20Museum#/user/vtrelut/library/Castle%20AFB%20Air%20Museum?&_suid=136127437576203346048545610812

[vtrelut]

After the bombers at Castle, fighters and interceptors, including a Canadian Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck:



F-80:


F-84F:


F-86:


A very interesting Northrop F-89J Scorpion, an interceptor equipped under the right wing with a nuclear air-to-air Genie missile, designed to destroy Soviet bombers: more about this missile will come later...




And then the mighty Century Fighters:







The F-106, my favourite:







A Phantom II:


And a F-15 Eagle to link to our present times:

[vtrelut]

Still at Castle AFB, transport aircraft:






A KC-97 tanker:


US Navy aircraft, such as the Grumman F-14D Super Tomcat:






A reco Crusader:


A Skyhawk:


Then it was time to go, and greet the SR-71 Blackbird at the entrance:





So long Castle AFB!





More pictures here:
http://s233.beta.photobucket.com/user/vtrelut/library/Castle%20AFB%20Air%20Museum?#/user/vtrelut/library/Castle%20AFB%20Air%20Museum?http%3A//s233.beta.photobucket.com/user/vtrelut/library/Castle%20AFB%20Air%20Museum?&_suid=136128493861005901782165079844

[BravoFxTrt]

Awesome, Thanks for posting your adventure.

[vtrelut]

Other places to follow: Hiller Aviation Museum at San Carlos, NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field. Then National Atomic Testing Museum at Las Vegas, Nevada... and Southern California.

[steph12]

Thanks for sharing! Looks like there are plenty of nice museums in the US! Can't wait to go there and pay them a visit!!!!!

Great pics by the way!

[vtrelut]

Between San Francisco and Sunnyvale, I visited the Hiller Aviation Museum at San Carlos, alongside the highway and the local airport. This is a very interesting museum, all about innovation and pioneers, including of course Stanley Hiller and his helicopters, but also about all aviation pioneers and inventors of California, from the 19th Century attempts to Burt Rutan's designs.

http://www.hiller.org/

Access is very easy, facilities are nice and the collection is amazing, with a unique flavour of creativity and daring spirit.

For instance I discovered this Avitor by Frederick Marriott, the first powered, lighter-than-air unmanned craft to fly in America, in 1869:



Gliders:





Echoing to an exhibit visible at the Oakland Aviation Museum, I also learnt about Feng Ru, the first Chinese aircraft designer and aviator, who immigrated in California and became the first man to fly an aircraft in the Western United States, in 1909:


An airworthy replica of the Wright flyer which flew from New York to
California in 1911, achieving the first transcontinental flight:




A similar replica is visible at the Oakland Aviation Museum.

At the Hiller Museum, there is also another replica of the Wright Flyer, and an exhibit about Robert Fowler, the first aviator to achieve a transcontinental flight from West (San Francisco) to East (Florida) in early 1912, and to cross the Panama canal.

One of the most notable exhibits is the Curtiss pusher replica flown by Eugene Ely, the first to land on a ship in San Francisco bay in 1911, thus paving the way for future aircraft carrier operations:



There is an incredible collection of special aircraft, such as this one for urban surveillance:


The robotic, unmanned, secret spyplane Boeing Condor, nearly stealth:


Some fun stuff:



And of course the Hiller helicopters:






More conventional stuff too:



Ant to conclude, the Hiller flying platform from 1955:



More photos here:
http://s233.beta.photobucket.com/user/vtrelut/library/#/user/vtrelut/library/Hiller%20Aviation%20Museum?&_suid=136154438959305826195533825039

[vtrelut]

Before going to Nevada, I went to Moffett Field and the NASA Ames Research Laboratory, where one can see huge wind tunnel testing facilities, a space shuttle 1/3 model used by NASA for wind tunnel testing, and the first US space capsule ever launched, unmanned, among other exhibits at the Visitor Center.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/home/exploration.html




Moffet Field still has spectacular hangar structures used a long time ago to keep the US Navy's airships Akron and Macon, about which there are exhibits at the Alameda Naval Aviation Museum, and at the Hiller Aviation Museum.


More pictures here:
http://s233.beta.photobucket.com/user/vtrelut/library/NASA%20Ames%20Research%20Center#/user/vtrelut/library/NASA%20Ames%20Research%20Center?&_suid=13615546483360952979706388585

[vtrelut]

In Nevada, I enjoyed the Howard Cannon Aviation Museum at Las Vegas Mc Carran airport:

https://www.mccarran.com/Relax/AviationMuseum.aspx

Again an airport of taste allowing travelers to learn about aviation history...

In Las Vegas I was quite impressed by the National Atomic Testing Museum, where I discovered many things about the Nevada atomic test site and the tests done there, as well as other atomic tests conducted by the US. There was also a special exhibition about Area 51.

http://www.nationalatomictestingmuseum.org/

Of particular interest, a nuclear air-to-air Genie missile is there, the same than the one attached to the lower right wing of the Northrop F-89J Scorpion featured above at Castle Air Museum. The nuclear warhead of this missile was 10 times less powerful than the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima, nevertheless it would have been devastating against a stream of Soviet strategic bombers... and that was the whole purpose. A live nuclear test was conducted over the Yucca flat... only one.






There is also a B-53 thermonuclear bomb, to be carried by B-52s:

[vtrelut]

After that I went back to California, this time to the South, and spent a day and a half in the Los Angeles area.

Since I had already visited the Yanks and Planes of Fame museums at Chino, March Field and some of the other museums in the South, I decided to focus on the North, aiming for the Mojave desert, and also for space...

My first stop was at Burbank, at the Portal of the Folded Wings, a shrine to aviation:
http://www.portalofthefoldedwings.net/





A moving tribute is paid to NASA astronauts who died aboard orbiters Challenger and Columbia:




The next stop was Palmdale, where I met up with Brian, i.e. our Wheelsup_cavu! We roared together among jets and other stuff in the Mojave desert, just like in "The Right Stuff"...

[BravoFxTrt]

Wow, Thank you for the Tour!

[vtrelut]

At Palmdale, I met with Wheels, and we started immediately to admire the Lockheed U-2, Lockheed A-12, drone D-21, and SR-71 visible at the Palmdale Blackbird Airpark:

http://www.palmdalecam.com/blckbird.htm

http://www.sr-71.org/photogallery/blackbird/06924/







The A-12 was a single-seater and actually faster than the SR-71:


SR-71:




Pratt & Whitney J-58:




U-2:








More here:
http://s233.beta.photobucket.com/user/vtrelut/library/Alameda%20Naval%20Aviation%20Museum?#/user/vtrelut/library/Palmdale%20Blackbird%20Airpark?&_suid=136172482099405952130636515664

After this tribute paid to the Skunk Works, we went to the nearby Joe Davies Heritage Airpark...