National Museum
of the
United States Air Force
May 2008
The area around Dayton, Ohio is rich in aviation history. It was here that Wilbur and Orville Wright grew up, engaged in the design and manufacture of bicycles and became interested in flight. It was to Dayton that the brothers returned, following their first controlled flights by a powered heavier-than-air craft on that historic 17 December 1903 near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, to develop their airplane. Dayton has long been home to military aviation beginning with a US Army flying training field during the First World War and the establishment, in the post-WWI years, of aviation engineering and aircraft testing facilities. Just north of Dayton, at Troy, some of the greatest aircraft of the 1920-1940 'golden age' of aviation were produced by the WACO Aircraft Company.
The US Air Force has maintained a strong presence in the Dayton area since its creation in 1947. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, an Air Force Materiel Command installation, is the USAF's largest base and the hub of its aviation-related scientific and research activities. Flying over the years has included test and evaluation, strategic bomber, tanker and fighter operations. Today, Air Force Reserve Command's 445th Airlift Wing and its giant Lockheed C-5 Galaxy transports operate from 'Wright-Pat'.
Dayton is probably best known, though, as the home of the always impressive National Museum of the United States Air Force that presents the history of the USAF from its earliest days as part of the US Army. The major draw is obviously the collection of over 400 preserved aircraft and missiles. Also of importance are the displays of uniforms, equipment, weapons, personal items and other memorabilia and artifacts relevant to air force operations in the air and on the ground in peace and war over the past century. So numerous are they that more than a couple of days, or even visits, would probably be required to view everything.
For more information about the National Museum of the United States Air Force, please visit the official website: www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/
Note: All photos on this page © Philip A. Tachauer
America's first military airplane, the Wright 1909 Military Flyer, greets the visitor at the beginning of a trip through 100 years of US Army and US Air Force aviation history. While it is, in fact, an accurate replica, it still makes obvious the incredible advances in aviation since then. Still, the Wright brothers were, in some respects, well ahead of their time. The elevator that controls the aircraft's pitch (raising or lowering the aircraft's nose in flight) was placed at the front of their earliest airplanes - an idea that designers have returned to time and time again to this day. Turns were made by warping, or twisting, the wingtips and this idea has, in the 21st century, received renewed interest from engineers at the the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for possible use in future aircraft.
In an industry where change has been the rule, the 1930s were years of notable transition in aircraft design and manufacture. Fighter aircraft progressed from biplanes to mono-planes, from fabric-covered wood and steel skeletons to aluminum structures and skin that provided the airframes strength, from fixed landing gear to complex retractable assemblies that afforded improved performance. The Seversky P-35A was typical of the aircraft that appeared in the last half of the decade. Though of relatively unexceptional performance, the type equipped several frontline Army pursuit squadrons in the Philippine Islands when Japanese attacks against American forces there began in December 1941.
The early post-World War II years were marked by the creation of the US Air Force in 1947, the war in Korea between 1950 and 1953 and the beginning of the long Cold War that thwarted the ambitions of the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China to spread their brand of Communism around the world and in which the USAF played no little part. This image illustrates the changes in technology during this period and is dominated by a Boeing WB-50D Superfortress, the weather reconnaissance version of a post-war type based on the design of the proven B-29 Superfortress strategic bomber that is best known for its role in long-range operations against the Japanese home islands in 1944 and 1945 and bringing the Second World War to a sudden end in August 1945. Above it are suspended, from the left, a float-equipped Cessna LC-126 (Model 195) and a Grumman OA-12 Duck biplane amphibian that carry the appropriately high-visibility markings applied to aircraft operated by the USAF Air Rescue Service in Alaska. Just visible beyond the B-50 is a portion of a Republic RF-84K Thunderflash, one of a family of early jet fighters and reconnaissance aircraft that served the USAF for two decades. In the foreground is a tandem-rotor Vertol CH-21B Workhorse, a general-purpose helicopter that was predecessor to the CH-46 Sea Knight and CH-47 Chinook used primarily by the US Marine Corps and US Army respectively today.
Some aircraft are destined to remain outside the historical spotlight. Built in relatively few numbers when compared to the much larger and long-ranged bombers that were the mainstay of Strategic Air Command, the Convair B-58A Hustler certainly lived up to its name providing the USAF with a bomber capable of flying at twice the speed of sound. The pod beneath the fuselage was a unique design in its own right and could carry additional fuel, nuclear bombs or a combination of both. The operational life of the B-58 was relatively short lasting the decade between 1960 and 1970.
A view of the Cold War Gallery shows an impressive array of aircraft from that period. Somewhere visible are examples of the Douglas C-133A Cargomaster, Lockheed SR-71A, McDonnell Douglas F-15A Eagle, Fairchild A-10A Thunderbolt II, McDonnell Douglas F-4G Phantom II, Rockwell B-1B Lancer, General Dynamics F-16A Fighting Falcon, McDonnell F-101B Voodoo, Convair F-102A Delta Dagger, Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29 'Fulcrum', Northrop F-89 Scorpion, Convair F-106A Delta Dart, Lockheed U-2A, Martin RB-57D and General Dynamics F-111F.