The MisterEd 8000; Grande Tour of America

Defenders of the Free World

This was a very cool side trip.  I was so glad I didn't skip it in the name of schedule.  Last night, I had been mentally flipping the coin about whether to go back to the SAC museum or not.  I had gotten pretty delayed by the rain on Labor Day and Tuesday.  I had to be back in Portland before Monday morning and if I had any trouble like weather or bike problems in the next three days, I'd be screwed.  Overnight, however, I started talking some sense in to myself.  I was already in Lincoln, Nebraska.  I only had about 1750 miles to go and I really had four days to do them in - I mean, if I got home late Sunday, I'd still make it to work on Monday.

So, in Lincoln, Nebraska, I decided to remember that I was still on vacation and decided to take half a day and go see the airplanes.

After a leisurely breakfast and a copy of the Lincoln Journal-Star, I headed east on I-80 back to Ashland, arriving at the Strategic Air & Space Museum about 20 minutes before they opened for the day.


Everything about this place is large.  It's hard to do it justice in this picture, as all you can really see is the main atrium.  Flanking that are two huge hangers - one large enough to hold a B-52 and a B-36 as well as about 30 other aircraft!  It's also unique in my experience in that it's an aircraft museum that doesn't rope off all the aircraft.  Sure, the rare B-17 Flying Fortress is behind a barrier and a number of aircraft hang from the ceiling, but the majority of the large aircraft are open and available.  You can walk right up to them, touch them, stand in the wheel wells and bomb bays, see deep inside the cockpits and so on.  In a couple of cases, you can even walk through aircraft fuselages set up with ramps to make them ADA compliant.


 
Outside the museum, the driveway is lined with a stunning row of American flags - the staff closest to the museum also flys a POW-MIA flag.  The Blue Scout, Thor and Atlas-D rockets displayed in front of the building represent a wide range of military and non-military uses through the years.


Reconnaissance dedication monument inside the front entrance - it sits just to the left of the nose of the aircraft below.


This SR-71 what greets you just inside the main entrance to the building ... this is gonna be good!


Sure, I was impressed with the airplanes and spacecraft on display, but this one caught me totally off guard and brought a serious lump to my throat.  It's a flag whose stripes are made of nearly 700 individual fabric panels created by schoolchildren and folks in senior facilities.  The flag hangs nearly from the rafters of the hanger and comes within inches of the floor - it's HUGE.  Each panel bears one kind of message or another about what America means to that person - the oldest and youngest Americans.  The display just plain floored me and in fact, still brings dampness to my eyes as I write this.  This is only one of many flags that was created as part of this project.


A closer look at some of the panels in the flag.


The first Presidential helicopter - Used by Dwight Eisenhower


Hangar 'B' houses some of the older aircraft, rescue and utility craft, etc.


Lockheed U-2 spy plane


North American F-86A 'Sabre'


Lockheed F-80 'Shooting Star'

Convair B-36J bomber


Boeing B-52B bomber ... it's hard to get a complete picture of this behemoth!!


Inside the bomb bay of the B-52


... and, one plain and basic thermonuclear bomb.  Closest I ever want to get to one, thanks.


The 'Quest for the Moon' exhibit was on when I visited.  Here's a couple of Apollo and Gemini test articles - spacecraft mockups that flew on launch vehicles, but not in to outer space.


A Mercury capsule mockup


A better view of the Apollo avionics test article (foreground) Apollo boilerplate spacecraft and Hollywood's version of the Apollo 13 capsule (right)


A closer look at the splashdown capsule used in Ron Howard's "Apollo 13" - this one's a replica, fully created by Hollywood, not NASA.


An interesting idea... the McDonnell XF-85.  It was designed to hang from a hook in the bomb bay of a B-36 bomber (but was tested only from a B-29.)  The idea was for a bomber to be able to carry its own fighter escort.  It flew.  Uh, but the idea didn't.


A portion of hangar 'A' (click on the image for a full sized panorama)


The museum was also showing a couple of concept electric race cars

I of course visited the gift shop, but having very little space to carry lots of tzatkes, I opted for a museum guidebook given to me in a bag with the museum's web address on it.

It was a nice morning.  The museum is most impressive and is one of the best ones I've seen outside the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington and the USAF Museum at Wright Patterson in Ohio.

It was about 12:30 when I hit the road.  I stopped in Lincoln again on the way west for lunch.  Then it was on to Wyoming.

As I came in to Cheyenne, Wyoming, I couldn't resist, given my profession, stopping to take a picture of this:

A few links