Air Force Museum 2024
The National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, OH is the largest aircraft museum in the world, roughly four times the size of The Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. It's so vast because it goes into great detail about every subtle advancement in aircraft design. Many of the aircraft inside are displayed not for being famous successes, but for being important failures, solutions to a perceived need that were either critically flawed or instantly obsolete. And supporting all of the aircraft are the stories of their pilots, and the technology trying to bring them down.
B-36. It's huge: Six Turning Four Burning
A B-36 landing gear could crush a Cessna without the bomber pilots noticing.
You could fit the fuselage of a B-17 inside a B-36 bomb bay.
XB-70 ~ The best plane that ever flew. Watch the documentary!
XB-70
full size (500 MB)
XB-70
XB-70
XB-70
XB-70
XB-70
XB-70
XB-70
XB-70
XB-70
X-15 (rear view): the first spacecraft
X-3 Stiletto: an experiment in early sustained high-speed flight, results from which were used in designing the F-104
V-6 Kestral: which evolved into the Harrier, the first vertical-takeoff jet in combat
A design where the cockpit was in the engine
XF-92: First delta wing fighter jet, marking the beginning of an era focused on high-speed interception of jet bombers carrying nuclear weapons.
XF-85: Designed to be stored in the bomb bay of jet bombers carrying nuclear weapons, for intercepting the interceptors. The plane would dock with the parent bomber using its hook.
F-106: A highly-advanced supersonic interceptor in its day, with a fully internal payload.
P-75A
XF-84H Thunderscreech: It was so loud it made the ground crews sick, and made folks washing the dishes 10 miles away really mad.
Tacit Blue: a stealth jet for surveillance near the front lines
X-13: performs vertical takeoff and landings vertically
"Please be quiet, I'm trying to land. I only get one shot at this." "Well as soon as you land, we're through!" "You're dumping me while I'm trying to land the Space Shuttle?!?! Oh believe me, the feeling's mutual!"
X-32: The runner-up to the F-35 in the Joint Strike Fighter competition.
X-32
X-32
X-32
An F-15 stripped down for high speed tests
F-15
F-15
X-45A: An early autonomous fighter prototype
XQ-58A: An remote-controlled stealth fighter
Long-EZ Borealis: features a pulsed detonation engine, technology still under development
XH-26 Jet Jeep
YF-23 (rear view): The runner-up to the F-22 in the Advanced Tactical Fighter competition
Was it actually better than the F-35?
Lifting body flight test models
First American in Space
F-22 Engine
Igloo White sensors: Dropped from altitude into areas for use as stealth sensors
Best visualization I've seen of WWII bombing campaign in Europe