Aircraft in your logbook in a museum

[SteveG75]

So, yesterday, was looking for something to do today in Central FL. After looking at the website, wife and I dropped the top on the big block C3 Corvette and headed over to the Valiant Air Command Museum in Titusville.

On 07 April 1992, I flew my ATM-2 (Air Tactical Maneuvering) aka BFM hop in a T-2C “War Guppy” at NAS Key West in buno 156702. Today, got to see that bird again. VAC has done a beautiful job keeping it.






They also have an old metal wing VA-52 A-6E (161682) carrying a VA-145 Swordsmen marked drop tank. Fun to crawl around that bird since they let me touch it, open ladder to show wife, etc. They were also supposed to have a T-34C but it wasn’t there.

 

[Llarry]

Somewhat related but off-topic, as a cryptologic officer I was discussing with a similar retiree that fact that almost all of the overseas duty stations we served at, all the ships we served in and (as an LDO) almost all the enlisted uniforms we wore are now gone. It's enough to make an older retire increase both amplitude and freqency of chair rocking! At least the officer uniforms (dress and summer white, dress blue, etc.) have showed staying power.

 

[hlg6016]

Aerial Visuals - Airframe Dossier - Lockheed KC-130F Hercules, s/n 149798 USMC, c/n 3680

This Aerial Visuals page provides airframe history details of a specific airframe from the airframe database.

www.aerialvisuals.ca

Old girl looks kind of rough these days. I have a few hours as Flight Crew on this workhorse.

 

[zipmartin]

I'm on the road and don't have access to my logs or some of my pics, but I have time in the A-4F on the flight deck of the USS Midway Museum, and the A-4M that's on display at JRB Ft. Worth. On a related note, the airport diner at Walnut Ridge, AR has a 737-200 fuselage that's been converted into a dining area, and I flew that particular aircraft as a first year FO.

 

[VMO4]

I have gone through my father's logs from WWII, I did find a SNJ he had time in was converted to a Zero for the movie Tora Tora Tora and is now owned, last time I looked, by a warbird organization in Chicago, still looking like a Zero, and still flying.

 

[nittany03]

The first Prowler that I ever flew (in my first iteration) is in the park by the NAWDC HQ in Fallon. As I recall off the top of my head, I've also got flight time in the one that used to be at the Leatherneck Aviation Museum in San Dog before that shut down, the one at the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field, and one in a museum in Hickory, NC.

Most importantly to me, I logged one flight in the Prowler at the MAPS Air Museum at Akron-Canton Airport outside North Canton, Ohio . . . my hometown. I don't know what runway they landed on at KCAK when the Marines dropped that jet off. But there's a not-insignificant chance that in its final minutes or seconds of flight, a Prowler I logged time in may have overflown the house that I grew up in dreaming about flying jets. And that's just damn cool.

 

[ChuckMK23]

The first Prowler that I ever flew (in my first iteration) is in the park by the NAWDC HQ in Fallon. As I recall off the top of my head, I've also got flight time in the one that used to be at the Leatherneck Aviation Museum in San Dog before that shut down, the one at the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field, and one in a museum in Hickory, NC.

Most importantly to me, I logged one flight in the Prowler at the MAPS Air Museum at Akron-Canton Airport outside North Canton, Ohio . . . my hometown. I don't know what runway they landed on at KCAK when the Marines dropped that jet off. But there's a not-insignificant chance that in its final minutes or seconds of flight, a Prowler I logged time in may have overflown the house that I grew up in dreaming about flying jets. And that's just damn cool.

Pictures!!!

 

[nittany03]

Pictures!!!

First I have to get there.

 

[VMO4]

Leatherneck Aviation Museum in San Dog before that shut down,

There currently is an agreement to move this museum and its aircraft to the County Park now located at the former El Toro MCAS, hopefully your bird makes it.

 

[PhrogLoop]

I flew CH-46D HW00 cross country from NAS Norfolk to NAS Pensacola for her museum induction! https://www.history.navy.mil/conten...ht/museum_s-ch-46d-sea-knight-on-display.html

 

[RobLyman]

I never flew something to the boneyard or museum. My experience has been mostly on the other end...I am the first Army pilot to have my name in the log book of at least a dozen aircraft. Yes, even military helicopters have that new-car smell when they haven't even flown to the first 9-11 tail rotor retorques.

 

[sevenhelmet]

I flew a Hornet out West to die after the 2011 Bush deployment. Enjoyed setting some personal "time to climb" records in the slick 18C that had been stripped of everything mission-related. Just had a TACAN and one ARC-210 radio, along with the standard Hornet GPS/INS. I requested direct and unrestricted climbs, and got them most of the way. One of my stops was in Tuscon, so I got a good look at the real boneyard.

I saw the same Hornet at the depot about 18 months later on a stopover. It had speed tape all over it and all the control surfaces and engines missing.

 

[zipmartin]

We flew our four A-4M's that were attached to OMD NAS Dallas to support the reserve fighter squadrons there, to the boneyard in March of '94. Before we were done filling out the paperwork, the boneyard guys had pulled the jets into the hangar and were stripping them of various avionics, etc., as the a/c had already been sold to Singapore (or Malaysia, don't remember for sure).

Our orders were to return to Dallas via commercial air. I had a close friend who was the OinC of the COMFLELOGSUPWING executive detachment at Andrews AFB (transporting CNO, etc.) and they had just received their new Gulfstream C-20's. About a week prior to flying to the boneyard, I called Dirt, and asked him if he had any pilots that were in need of some valuable training on their new jet. When he replied yes, I explained our situation, and he happily sent a brand new C-20 (on a training mission) to bring us back. We had gotten a ride to base ops at Davis-Monthan and were awaiting our transportation home when all kinds of air force brass showed up, frantically setting up red carpets out front with the big silver bullets and lanyards and everything. We figured some VIP was coming. What we didn't realize at that time, was that base ops had gotten an inbound on the unannounced executive GV and were convinced there was somebody way up the chain of command arriving, and they didn't want to be caught looking bad. Our ride was directed to taxi up to the red carpet where the brass were standing at attention, waiting. They shut down, lowered the boarding ladder, and we, wearing our sweaty flight suits and carrying our flight gear, casually walked down the red carpet, past the waiting heavies, and climbed aboard. It was heavenly.