Now, just where did I park my airplane?
So, I drove back to McMinnville today, this time I ponied up a Andrew Jackson and went inside. Wow, this place is amazing if you are anyway interested in aviation. I mean, the Spruce Goose may bring them in, but there are a ton of interesting things to see and do besides that one oversized aircraft. There are two buildings jammed with airplanes, rockets and memorabilia. There are planes from the early 1900’s up to the Vietnam era stuff in the one with the Goose in it and the second is all space race stuff and modern warplanes. In total I spent almost 2-1/2 hours there and I can see a return visit in a few months.
The only thing I had a complaint about is that somehow the Spruce Goose seemed diminished by the shear amount of small (and they all weren’t all that small) aircraft crowded around it. I understand that they probably couldn’t build a third giant building just for the Goose alone and they have an awesome collection and want to display as much as possible, but, I don’t know, maybe it is just me.
I took a couple dozen pictures and here are a sample:
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- Grumman Goose – Donna would have enjoyed seeing this as it was the type of plane her father flew in New Orleans to ferry folks to the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.
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- ME-262 – This set me off to the internet to listen to a Blue Oyster Cult song with the title that equates to this aircraft.
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- X-15 – A mockup of the hypersonic rocket-powered airplane that reached the edge of space in the late 60s.
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T-33 Trainer – This was the aircraft that trained nearly every Naval Aviator that flew jets between the 60s to the 80s.
I supervised the repair of the avionics from it while stationed in Meridian, Mississippi in the 70s.
