Wright-Patterson Air Force Museum Photographs

[armyjunk2]

Hello everyone, I've posted some pics over at the CDSG site of the Air Force Museum collection, 200 or so pics so it might take a while to open. hope everyone enjoys them. feel free to make corrections.
click here
http://www.cdsg.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=381
or here
http://tinyurl.com/2ckl5xl

[Pat Carry]

Those are GREAT! Thanks. Your photography makes us believe the museum actually turned some lights on!

Last edited by Pat Carry on Fri Oct 08, 2010 2:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[jdvoss]

Hey, are those great photographs or what !!!! BTW, what kind of camera do you use ? Also, did you use an auxilary flash unit and unipod / tripod as well ?? You did an outsatnding job documenting the collection. Did you get over to the annex area?

John

[APG85]

Fantastic photographs! What a great collection the museum has. I actually like the dark painted hangars...

[skymstr02]

just a couple of minor errors in the captions for the photos:
* Pic # 159 is not an LC-126, but the Beaver that is in photo # 168
* Pic # 183 is the same T-37 that is in # 182

Very nice, thanks for sharing with us.

[MacHarvard]

Hello again, armyjunk2. These are some great photos - certainly far better than I've ever been able to achieve at Dayton. Thanks very much for sharing them with us.

I would like to take a moment to point out an error in your caption of photo 34. The error is unlikely to be yours - I assume you took the museum's ID board at face value. There have been many discussions on this forum regarding painting spurious schemes on warbirds, or painting a specific warbird with a scheme that it never actually wore in service. This situation takes this scenario a step farther.

This aircraft is not a BT-14. There are no surviving BT-14s. This is an ex-RCAF NA-64 Yale (the only aircraft that correctly wears the name Yale, by the way). The BT-14 had wings that were very close in planform and construction to the AT-6/Harvard series. The NA-64 had an archaic wingform, with a sweepless trailing edge, a hold over from the BT-9 and Harvard Mk I. They also had different engines, the BT-14 a P&W R-985 and the Yale a Wright R-975 Whirlwind. There were other differences, but that will do for now.

For a look at the wing differences, I posted photos of the two types in question in a thread started by legendofaces, during his NA-64 restoration. I'm afraid I haven't taken the time to find the url yet, but I'll have a look later.*

Why an organization as high profile as the USAFM would knowingly use the wrong aircraft in its display has always been a mystery to me.

Thanks for the photos!

cheers
Doug

*the missing link: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=30923&p=329606#p329606

[DaveM2]

Must be getting old-where did the second P-47 come from?
Great shots BTW

Dave

[armyjunk2]

Thanks everyone I think everything is corrected now. I use a Nikon D40 with the timer and a tripod, I've never had any luck with a flash all my flash photographs look terrible. I believe the timer and tripod are the secret to good pics. I've been over to the annex in the past, but not recently. Again Thanks for the corrections....

[67N20]

Great shots, makes me really want to get there someday. I'd be happy if my pictures came out 1/2 as good.

According to the EXIF data the ISO was from 800 to 1600, F/3.5, lens at 18mm, and shutter speed was 1/6 to1/8 second for most of his shots. Tripod definitely needed.

What surprised me was the lack of other visitors in the shots. Usually there are people always in my way.

[Steve Nelson]

I assume by the second P-47 you mean the bare metal bubbletop? According to the registry, it was one of the Jugs brought back from Peru by Ed Jurist in the '69, raced at Reno by Lefty Gardner in '74, then owned by Tallichet for awhile before being donated to the museum in '81.
She sat in the annex for years, and was moved to the main museum when they rearanged everything a few years ago to move the B-36 to the Cold War Gallery. It used to wear rather plain silver paint, with 1st Air Commando stripes on the fuselage. A few years ago it was restored to its current highly polished scheme.

Strangely, the museum restored the aircraft using .50 cal gun barrels with perforated cooling jackets. Every pic I've ever seen of a T-bolt shows them with plain solid gun tubes.

SN

[mustangdriver]

Steve remember that what you are used to seeing on the P-47 is not the gun barrels. The P-47 used protective covers which is what you are used to seeing. I believe they are working on making correct covers still. It was on display before with just fake looking tubes and some hardware. Now it has accurate 50 cals. I will ask around about the covers.

[mustangdriver]

Dumb question alert!

The B2 and F22, are those mockups or prototypes?

The F-22 is the real deal F-22A. It was one of the first built and flew as an engineering and manufacturing test bed. It is as close to the front line fighters as any museum is going to get. The aircraft has all of the hardpoints on it and most of the systems that the current serving F-22's do. It is the museum's second F-22 as the first is the test bed.

The B-2 has a really cool story. After the USAF awarded the contract to Northrop, another rival company challenged that the B-2 would not hold up under the stress that Northrop indicated it could. The USAF wanted Northrop to prove that the B-2 design was indeed a sound one. Northrop agreed to pull on airframe at random off of the assembly line, and place it in a test rig that would flex the wing to a point that it would fail. A B-2 was selected, placed into the rig and then flexed until the wing failed. The wing failed at almost double what Northrop had claimed! This silenced the rivals, and pleased the USAF. However Northrop did not know what to do with a now broken B-2 airframe. it sat for a few years between buildings at Palmdale, as a friend of mine worked there and told me that the guys would have lunch under it. The NMUSAF asked for it, and Northrop said sure, but good luck trying to display it. It was brought to the NMUSAF on C-5's, and before volnteers were able to work on it, classified material had to be removed in the 1st bay at the restoration shop. Big black tarps were placed up so no one could see. After that the museum restoration team went to work. What they have made is amazing. many of them are upset because the external patch on the lower fuselage is visible, but it was the strongest way to restore the aircraft. 99% of all visitors never nostice this patch, and I usually point it out as I think it is a very cool aircraft to have in the collection.

[Kyleb]

So the important question:

How do you get before (or after) hours access to avoid having all the people in your shots?

[armyjunk2]

I find that if you are there when they open and start at the Modern Aircraft Gallery and finish in the World War I Gallery you get few people in your photos, seems to work better that way. I always take 4 or 5 photos and I'm patient, never be rude to the folks that have come to view the aircraft, always give them the right of way. Give yourself lots of time, I stay on Base, but there is a Comfort Inn across the street from the main gate. It really takes more than one day to see everything........Also A lot more Military items posted at the CDSG site http://tinyurl.com/2eodks4

These folks were everywhere