A Nice Fathers Day

[Bob Womack]

My lovely wife took me to to the local Military Aviation Museum. We got to see up close about forty WWII aircraft, all flying and museum restored, about twenty replica WWI planes, and two actual WWI aircraft. From WWII we walked around the Spitfire Mk IX, the Hawker Hurricane Mk XII, the DeHaviland Mosquito, the P-51, the P-4e, the Yak 3M, the FG4U Corsair, the FM-2 Wildcat, the TBM Avenger, the B-25 Mitchell, the PBY Catalina, the Focke-Wulf Fw 190A, the Junkers JU-52, the Fiesler Storch, the Boeing P-26 Peashooter replica, a Curtiss C-46, and a bunch more. Unfortunately the original BF-109G-4 was in the barn for an engine overhaul on its Daimler DB-605 engine. That was the one I most wanted to see. By the way, all the German WWII aircraft reside in a WWII German Hangar from Cottbus airfield that was transplanted and rebuilt.

From WWI we had every major fighter type, including Fokker D.VII, three DRIs including one with an original rotary engine, an Eindecker, and then a Sopwith Triplane, an S.E.5A, a Nieuport 17, an original Thomas Morse 5-4C, an original Curtiss JN-4D Jenny, an Albatros D.VA, etc.

It was a fun afternoon amongst the planes. I'll have to go back when the BF-109 is on display.

Bob

[muffett.2008]

Sounds great Bob, what happened to the pic's?

[CINDERS]

All flyers wow what a show they would put on, do you have any pictures Bob as per muffett request be good to see.

[Bob Womack]

Two things: my sweet wife timed things a little wrong so we arrived with not even enough time to get through the collection. we were zipped through the tours of the WWI hangar, the German Cottbus hangar, and the Goxhill control tower with little time to dwell on pics. My wife is recovering from total knee replacements on both knees so I decided not to "live in the rangefinder" and instead helped her as much as possible. So no pics. Sorry.

Unbeknownst to me, the museum's "Flying Proms" display happened the night before. At that show, they fly the planes near dusk while the Virginia Symphony plays military pieces and themes from military movies, such as "The Battle of Britain." As a result, the staff were recovering and no planes were flying this time. I'll have to get back in the fall when it isn't as hot and shoot some.

Meanwhile, the website has pictures over everything and you can find a plane there and then search for a plane with "Virginia Beach" appended and quite often high quality shots will come up, like this one:



Bob

[Bob Womack]

Also, my two pages of pics from prior visits are listed above.

Bob

[Bob Womack]

Bob

[muffett.2008]

Sorry Bob, I was only stirring
Kev.

[Bob Womack]

Sorry Bob, I was only stirring
Kev.

Oh, that's okay!

Thanks,


Bob