Day 7 - Pima Air & Space Museum

 Today’s tourist activity was the Pima Air & Space Museum outside of Tucson. I didn’t see any “space” things but there were a number of NASA planes. Maybe the space side of the museum will be a future addition. I had originally visited the museum in the late 70s and it is very different now. Nice modern exhibits.

I had seen an announcement for the Wings & Wheels event at the museum with a display by the Southern Arizona Military Vehicle Collectors but they had a pretty dismal turnout. A couple of MB Jeeps, a couple of Kübelwagens, and a 2007 Ural. I talked to the Ural owner for a while. He has around 25k km on it, owned it since new, and the only upgrade has been the deep sump pan with an oil temperature gauge installed. No problems, no breakdowns, no major repairs.

The indoor hangers had a lot of the nicely refurbished aircraft and ones that were on loan from other organizations. There were also models of planes not on display, submarines, and carriers. Including a model of the carrier and fighter from Battle Star Galactica. Someone has a sense of humor.

Here is one of the Kübelwagens. It looked unrestored but did run though not street legal. The owner was sitting with the Ural owner in the shade of a wing. Pretty nice. I had never seen one up close before. It would have been cool if it was one of the super rare 4wd versions.

The outdoor display area was huge with a large number of aircraft such as this B-52D Stratofortress. I remember as a kid seeing these fly over the farm my father grew up on in Sacramento. Pretty impressive. They also had an SR-71 on display inside the hanger with recordings of startup, taxi, takeoff, landing, etc. Pretty cool. I saw one during refueling and subsequent takeoff at Edwards Air Force Base while in college. We were there to see the 747 set up to transport the space shuttle. This was during the initial unpowered flight tests before the first launch.

I had never seen or heard of this bomber with six engines. It is a B-36J strategic bomber from the Cold War era. In use from 1947 to 1959. All of the planes in outside storage have their windows covered to keep out the sun.

This is a KC-135 that was used by NASA for flight training. Known as the “Vomit Comet”. By flying the parabolic path, you get 15 - 20 seconds of weightlessness. I got a chance to fly in the commercial version operated by Zero G in 2010 which was a modified 727. Essentially the same plane. Click on the link to see that blog post including a short YouTube video.

Lastly, there was a C-130 on skis. These a still in use today and DavidR, who comments on my posts occasionally, had worked with the Coast Guard to get a rack of equipment up to Barrow aka Utqiaġvik on one of their daily flights north. No commercial carrier was able to transport the rack as the manufacturer required.