Monday, July 17th WPAFB Museum

Today we had the great pleasure of visiting the National Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton. We started with the IMAX theater where we saw Fighter Pilot - Operation Red Flag which was awesome. Fortunately, we sat in the VERY back row, otherwise we would have developed cricks in or necks from looking up for 45 minutes.
We had lunch and then went by bus to two satellite hangers where the planes that carried presidents were shown. We walked Franklyn Roosevelt's, Harry Truman's (Independence) Dwight Eisenhower's (Columbine) and John Kennedy's (Air Force One) planes. Next door there were mostly one-of-a-kind experimental planes exhibited.
We then toured the World War II sections and then I went back to the Cold War section. I have long been fascinated by the B-36 bomber that was built to be the first intercontinental bomber. In the early 1940's, fearing that Britain might fall to the Nazi's and the US would have to battle Germany from North America, the US decided to build these huge bombers that would reach Germany from US (and return). They had six, 19' rear facing propellers. Of course, Britain never fell and was the prime staging area for battling Germany. The B-36 is called "The Peacemaker" because it never saw combat.

After touring the AF museum, we packed up and drove the 95 miles to Delaware Lake State Park, north of Columbus and settled in for four nights.