Mar 25 Friday - Pima Air Museum

Mar 25 Fri Day 67 clear & sunny & warm

We dropped off the RV at Orangewood for them to finish it up and went to the WiFi coffee shop, “Java Break” for breakfast & to check email. Then off to the Pima Air Museum. It is immense! There are 4 hangers of aircraft, a space gallery, + acres of aircraft parked outside. We saw a small portion of it all & took lots of pictures. They have 2 or 3 free guided tours plus a long tram tour around the field for an extra $6. You can get a 2 day pass so you can come back to see more. As it is the 100th anniversary of Navy Air Power, they put on a tour of all the navy aircraft which was very interesting, informative, & best of all—FREE! The tour was around Hanger 1 and then on a tram outside, around part of the field. The docent that conducted the tour had been a Navy aircraft carrier pilot for 6 yrs. (’59-65) and then a United Airlines pilot for 30, so he shared lots of interesting information first-hand with us, including near crashes & an bail out ejection, ( he broke his leg).

They had lots of docents around to explain the aircraft; a lot of them were retired air/army & navy personnel. I learned a few things I didn’t know, for instance, the difference between aircraft & airplane - - an airplane has wings, an aircraft might fly, but doesn’t have wings. So all airplanes are aircraft but not all aircraft are airplanes. One docent showed us the photo of the B59 crew beside their plane and mentioned the fact that the ages of them were mostly all under 20, some as young as 17. The old man of the crew who they called “pops” was 26! Another interesting fact was that the life expectancy of a WWII bomber crew was 6 to 10 missions and you needed around 20 missions to complete your tour of duty. When we were under the B59 looking up into the bomb bay the docent pointed out a tube running fore & aft through the plane. He explained that the B59 was one of the first pressurized airplanes and as you can’t pressurize the bomb bay you had to crawl through this 22 inch diameter pipe to go from front to back of the airplane. No wonder in those old war time photos air crew all seemed to be slim & trim. They had a TV beside a Vietnam era attack helicopter playing the scene from “Apocalypse Now” where the helicopters come in over the beach with the loudspeakers playing Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”. Another exhibit depicted a scene from “Dr Strange Love” when Peter Sellers as Group Captain Lionel Mandrake is sitting with Brigadier General Jack Ripper, (Sterling Hayden) & the general’s mannequin was holding the hand-held 50 calibre machine gun with the pistol grip featured in the movie.

Besides the planes & helicopters in the hangers, there are a lot of large old bombers out in the field as well as many other military aircraft. Two that Sheila found especially interesting were the Bumble Bee & the SR 71. The Bumble Bee is the world’s smallest airplane that can carry a man. The fuselage was only about 6 ft. long & the wingspan 5 to 6ft. Sheila was convinced it could only be flown by remote control because she couldn’t see how the pilot got in until a docent explained it to her. Evidently it was built to capture the record for the world’s smallest airplane, only flown once, & then donated to the museum.

The SR 71, used for reconnaissance, is the world’s fastest & highest flying plane. It had to be built of titanium so it could withstand the sun’s heat at high elevations, which meant every screw hole drilled required a new drill bit because of how hard titanium is. The docent said that the CIA admitted that its top speed was Mach II, (2200 mph), but he thinks it’s even faster than that since it can fly LA to New York in 30 min. One other tidbit of info that Sheila learned is that any plane that carries a US president is designated “Airforce I” and only when the president is actually on board.

We finally had to tear ourselves away to head back to pick up the RV & head east out of Tucson towards New Mexico. Away Orangewood RV @ 137293km @ 3:25 pm; after a 10 minute rest area stop, we were into Fort Wilcox RV park in Willcox AZ by 4:50 @ 137413 km. Now it’s “shower & laundry time” and “catch-up on computer & journal time”.


FYI – I HAVE DISCOVERED THAT IF YOU PUT YOUR MOUSE OVER A PICTURE AND CLICK, IT ENLARGES THE PICTURE.