Category: Photography

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TomD

Tired of statues and would like to jump to another topic: museum aircraft

Most, but not all, of these shots were taken at the US Naval Air Museum, on board NAS Pensacola. I’ve been to the Smithsonian, Wright Patterson and scores of lesser museums but this museum is right at the top, world wide. The Blue Angels are based out of Pensacola, so you’ll see a lot of that. The Naval Museum concentrates on Naval stuff as you may suspect but there’s other noteworthy stuff there too, like a Messerschmitt Me 262 one of the very, very few still in existence. The ME 262 was the first ever jet to be used in combat.

This Navy NC-4 was the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic. Unlike Lindberg, it wasn’t solo and it wasn’t non stop. But it was in 1919 when most aircraft had max ranges in the hundred mile range or so. This by the way, the actual aircraft, not just the aircraft type. Talk about a beautiful restoration.

Corsair: The museum tends to be crowded with stuff just everywhere competing for visual attention. I shot this picture and was looking at it wondering what could be done with it and somehow ended up here.

An F18 outside one of the museum buildings.

00683: A B25 Mitchell bomber. This was principally an Army aircraft but the B25 won fame in early 1942 when the famous raid on Tokyo was launched from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet.

A little humorsep