A Walk Through Castle Air Museum

So it's Tuesday, August 9, 2022 and I'm on Interstate 580 heading east from the San Francisco Bay Area heading to the Castle Air Museum in Atwater, California, in the Central Valley, there are a lot of cars going on the another address. I always like to stop by there. these hills. I forget what they are called. I'll have to look them up later, but I'm just providing this as a bit of ambiance before the

museum

visit. In fact, I get a lot of pain from hating YouTube commenters when I show them. Atmosphere before visits to various places, but I think it is important to have.

Otherwise, if I just show the

museum

, people have no idea what to expect. Is it in the middle of a city? Is it in the field? Know? Far from other places without the atmosphere, you can't really say, plus it's just pretty scenery and all the times I've been to this part of California I don't remember seeing these hills in any color other than brown. I don't know if they are evergreen or if brown is their natural color when I look at all those cars coming the other way, I'm glad I'm not going that direction, a mile and a quarter, stay left to I-205, continue on I-205 and then we can drive on this for a while, this is Highway 120, I think it's California Highway 120. and then we got off of 120 and continued on, I think it's California Highway 99.

And as I recall, this is a very unpleasant highway, actually. I'm not sure there are any roads in this part of the state that are more than functional, there's usually a lot of traffic in my experience and as you know when I was a kid there was a book I loved called go Dog go. That was just a bunch of dogs in cars going around and I always remember that book when I travel these roads in central California, so we're passing through the well-known city of Modesto California, still on the highway. 99 and heading south there are some sort of orchards on the side, there are many of those in this area, a lot of crops of all kinds are grown here mainly through irrigation.

I guess I don't think it rains much here. Irrigation channels. They come down from the mountains and I'm wondering how they're doing with everything drying out after about an hour of them finally coming down, take a little local trip here now, but I'm including all this just because it's helpful to have an idea of ​​where they are. There are a lot of orchards there. down and other crops at the end of the road, turn right, so now we are driving through the local Berg. I'm not sure if this is Atwater or an adjacent town, lots of trees or not.

Groves are actually just The orchards are really getting closer now they continue on North Santa Fe Drive. There's a slightly picturesque railway bridge here that I had to turn around to see again. Yeah, we definitely weren't in that water before. I was further from the destination than I thought. some of the planes in this museum have been brought on trains right down these tracks here, okay, I finally crossed into the town of Atwater, just to the left is the museum. 5050 Santa Fe Drive, thanks in a quarter mile, get to 50 50. The Santa Fe drive on the left still thinks it's a quarter mile away, so right next to the Castle Air Museum parking lot we have a SR-71 and we have one of the variants of the DC-9 that was used as a presidential transport and then we have the main building, there are also a couple of buildings behind that and then the main air park, which we can only see a little of here .

The downside to this museum is that the planes are exposed to the elements and they are not. like the Pima Air and Space Museum, where the climate is very arid. I don't think it rains much here, but it's still not an ideal place to preserve airplanes, so the entrance fee is twenty dollars for adults and 15 if you're a senior and I forgot what it is for kids. Something less obvious. The museum grounds in that direction end right where there are other facilities and their metal fence and parking area. They used to give them out for free, but now. you can pay two dollars to get their map or you can scan a QR code and get a similar map on your phone.

There is a North American at6 Texan there and right here we have a Boeing B17 G Flying Fortress marked as virgin. Delighted, there are many ways you can wander around here this time. I'm going to try to take the order that the map is in, so we have a Consolidated b24m liberator bomber from World War II and, as I mentioned. There used to be a big multi-track railroad going through here and that's how they brought some of the planes here, they brought them in pieces on box cars and then they brought them across the highway, back to the B-24. and there is one that goes in the other direction, like I said, multitrack here, we have another Boeing product, the KC-97 freighter, which of course is a tanker plane, it has the flying boom in the back, here we have a Douglas b - 23 dragon, another type of bomber, not very popular.

I don't remember how many of these they made, but I don't think they were a ton, and over here, one of my favorites, the Avro Vulcan B Mark II nuclear bomber. from Jolly Old England used to let you

walk

under these, but it seems like they're gradually chaining them up a bit more. I'll find some of these guys when I get back here we have one of the military variants of the Lockheed constellation I think Super Connie actually this is the ec-121 warning star so it has all the big radars thanks now these guys don't they are on the map at least not in the position they are in now this is an observation plane um I think the O2 o2a, I know they operated them in Vietnam, it has the pusher and the tractor propellers, two engines with a performance Pretty cool, I mean it's made by Cessna, it also has underwing ordinance capabilities, they can drop small bombs. and flares and whatever, it has some weaponry, but I think they were mainly used as observers, you know, hovering over areas and calling in fighters with bigger bombs, etc., and I think they could also be used to help the pilots shot down. be rescued, in fact I wonder if this is the type that was used in that Bat 21 movie.

It looks to me like it's a De Havilland now, but again, I'm not sure it's marked on the deck as a U6. a beaver um again I don't remember the foreigner and I think this is one of those blue canoes is that the u3 again I'm not sure, but uh little executive transport and utility plane that returns to the warning star, there boy, that guy en I'm not pregnant, isn't it cheese? This is supposed to be pretty new. They came out with a pair of new pads here that look brand new. He has that again. Helicopters aren't my bag, baby, but it's a cobra.

I don't know, maybe I'll find out later. It doesn't have any signs. They do have some banks here. This is something I've seen at the Dover Museum, where they have metal benches with, you know, laser-cut names. of the planes that are nearby, but there are only a few around here thanks, this is a Lockheed cargo star. I think so, c56 load star combination. Foreign cargo transport planes and here we have a North American T-39 Saber. foreign liner ch47d Chinook twin-rotor cargo and utility helicopter troop transport all kinds of stuff yeah, those planes over there that we were looking at earlier were relocated here from where they put these new platforms for the helicopters, so I'm just confirming that that type is a Havilland Canada l20 Beaver aka U6 and the type I was referring to as an observation plane which is a Cessna o2a super skymaster observation plane and as I correctly guessed this type here is the Cessna u3a known as the Blue Canoe , so we go back to the t-39 saber liner here and this will be a Blackhawk although in the Navy livery it probably has a different name but there is no signage here for it and then again the uh the Cobra or Whatever this is, one These days I'll put some signs here or update your map.

We'll see these guys again later, there's a hustler and B-52 c47, all that good stuff will come back to them, so we have this Curtis Commando here, the c46d is always one of my favorites on here, I don't see many of these on the museums and I think this is a yt-34 beach mentor, primary trainer or maybe as a secondary trainer, I'm not sure it's a trainer anyway. and here is a Husky Cayman hh-43b interleaved twin rotor tailless utility helicopter that is used a lot for medical evacuation and also I think for firefighting at airports or air bases foreign c45 dispatcher the military version of the twin Beach .

I have a video where I took a flight on one of these uh part of the commemorative Air Force I always liked Twin Beach a lot of these still fly and the Douglas C-47 Sky Train marked here with the invasion stripes so it's like marked for uh D -Day, I think these were, of course, cargo transport and troops and medical evacuation and a million other things and here we have a foreign Lockheed f-94 Starfire b or f80b shooting star fighter

walk

ing next to the buff , any guy there tells his wife that's a B1 he's a scammer I shouldn't be too critical of other people, very few people have a completely encyclopedic knowledge of airplanes at first glance and then when it comes to fighters from the F series, I always have to look them up because I just don't know them, this should be a Republic F-84f Thunder streak and that guy is a foreign Republic F 84c Thunder jet.

I'll come back to that later, lots of dragonflies around here and this is a North American f-86h saber and this is a Northrop. f-89j scorpion again, we'll come back to these guys on the right later and this is a Lockheed t-33 shooting star primarily a training jet. I think the foreign black livery has a Northrop t-38 Talon, a lot of the big jet. The iron is back here, one of the few B-36s on display anywhere overseas. They've followed the example of the Boneyard near Tucson, neymarg Boneyard, where apparently they have a stealth fighter set up here once you have four tires. and a ladder, it's pretty easy to introduce that joke.

One thing I hadn't noticed before is that they faked the restraint chains pretty well. Someone here put a little extra work into that stealth fighter. Yeah, okay, this guy here is a McDonald f4e Phantom. 2. and this is a mig-21 fighter and back here there is an anteater fb111 fb11 from General Dynamics the heads appear to be more permanent bathrooms they are out of service they have the temporary guys here it should be an American F-100 Super Saver, like this I think I already have the super saber under me. This is a Martin EB 57a Canberra manufactured under license from England and this is a McDonald f-101 voodoo and this is a vot RF 8G Crusader.

Generally it is a naval aircraft. carrier-based and here we have a Grumman f-14d Tomcat and a Douglas A4 Skyhawk and here is a Lockheed f-104b Starfighter thank you and here is a Republic chief f-105 Thunder fighter-bomber and them, a Douglas r5d4 skymaster cargo plane, basically a version of the DC4 and I think that guy there's a foreign convair f-106 Delta Dart has that transporter look at it we'll check it out when I get closer and this is a Fairchild c119c flying Box Car one of my favorites. I always maintain that. If I were in the Air Force at the time they were operating, this would probably be my first choice of aircraft to serve.

I like the function. I like the design. I like the simple, solid, utilitarian look, but it has some pretty interesting missions. the Douglas ra3 Sky Warrior Northrop Grumman e a6b Prowler that is electronic warfare and attack and this should be a North American it is a 5c vigilante reconnaissance attack bomber I always love the look of this plane, very powerful and super elegant, the lines are great I never got the impression that they were super popular, but I may be wrong in saying that you aren't. I don't see many of them mentioned or shown, but look at the front, isn't it a beautiful thing?

Brilliant. Big plane, some room for expansion back there and here we have a Lockheed mc130p transport, Special Operations version of the C-130 benefit. It's another bird. I would have liked to have served in foreign things. This area has tons and tons of ant hills. I think they are always knocking them down on previous visits. I've seen plenty of them everywhere, but there's still evidence around here. It looks like it was some kind of radar. I'm not sure. Well, this guy here is a Grumman. The S2 tracker is primarily an anti-submarine aircraft and I'm not sure this is marked, it's on a fairly new platform so it's probably fairly recent, it looks like one of those portable control towers or weather installations you probably had as a generator on there and some antennas and good stuff, they don't have it marked as to what it is so this is a model 240 transporter. known as t29 aka coast guard aircraft c131a and here is a Grumman sa-16 Albatross.

Mostly, uh, rescue craft, I think, and this one here is a McDonald Douglas F-15, an Eagle and our friend the B-36 again and here we have a General Dynamics f-16a Fighting Falcon. Thanks, that guy is indicated on the map as a rogue and that should be a gam 63 and one good thing about this b36 here is that unlike others in museums, the B-36 was armedalthough unlike WWII planes it wasn't exactly packed with weapons you could see, but here at Castle they have the top of the overhead hatches open and a pretty serious looking cannon sticking out of there, so there's more of that in these planes, they're actually pretty well put together, so anyway, this guy here is the convair rb36h peacemaker.

I'm trying to remember where this came from, yeah, so I was scratching my head for a moment and this was the same B-36 that used to be at Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois, and it was one of the aircraft lucky that it escaped from that place without being scrapped. I remember it was quite a production and they had to take everything away. Separate it and send it here. I mean in wagons like I said before. I think this is one of the ones that arrived by train, but I don't know if it should actually be wider than the cars.

It could be that I'm not sure about the fuselage, maybe some of it came by other means, on the other hand, it's not really that wide of a plane, maybe it could fit as long as they disassembled the fuselage into sections, so, the RB 36h was a strategic reconnaissance version of the B-36, of course there were many variations on the aircraft. They are doing some restoration now, at this point they are probably giving it another coat of paint. You really need it. One of the things that happens with these guys is that there's a lot of magnesium in them that tends to corrode pretty quickly once it's in a humid environment, so here's one of the recognition tricks: they have these sliding doors that They expose a window with a camera, a powerful camera behind it and in this case of a large wasp nest, it is difficult to prevent those things from being nearby unless you cover the point of the entire plane with insect or bird nets, etc. ., so this guy would not have used the bombs of this particular model, but since it was a B-36, it has the bomb base overseas, this plane is practically empty and probably always was from the factory.

There are many things inside that would not be necessary for the role this particular model filled now that I have been inside this airplane. I came here once many years ago specifically because it was open on cabin day and the promise was that you could get into the B-36 and it turned out it rained a lot the night before and they decided to cancel the opening. on cabin day because just getting on and off the planes was considered too risky with wet stairs and wet shoes, etc., but when they found out I made a trip from Chicago to see it, the curator opened it up and put up a sign saying It said maintenance. was happening so other people wouldn't come running, it was very kind of them and we got along well and actually, I don't know if it was the curator, it was someone who worked here, set it up, so I could. able to get inside this plane uh really just in the front almost everything in front of the wing as I remember thank you so I think this is one that I walked in the other direction and this should be a McDonald f4e Phantom 2, so it's like when we get down there, we've already walked a big loop, we're on that path and we're back, so now I can start talking about these guys on the left side.

This is a Boeing KC-135 strato tanker aircraft and once again. It has the flying boom in the rear this is a variant of the 707 one of the few places where you can see the flying boom up close there is our stealth fighter again it marks the high speed boom so it has a kind of V tail Wings that allow you to fly this part up and down from left to right and then you have the long telescoping arm that telescopic for that thing and finally, at least part of the nozzle assembly, I think there may be something missing there, something that makes it help docking, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was taken down because people are stealing it or maybe someone just stole it.

I'm not sure that winch looks tampered with, so it's probably not part of it. of normal equipment, something they set up here at the Museum just for display and planes like this can be tail heavy and can tilt back quite easily so they put this post here to prevent that from happening. It looks like some kind of shock absorber that would cushion its travel once it's raised and then lock it in place here when it's not in use and there's the Bulge compartment where the flying boom operator sits in one place. prone position and you have your window there to look down at the plane that is refueling, thank you oh, there is a good view of the weapons on the B-36, you can see two different weapons sets, two different weapons sets up there , foreigner, thank you, thank you and That's when we headed in the other direction.

This is a B47 stratojet manufactured by Boeing. In some ways it is a kind of proof of concept for the B-52. It is also a transitional aircraft between the B-36 and the foreign B-52, the T37b, as it is called. Tweety Bird is a twin-engine training aircraft, but it uses what do they call themselves? The Snowbirds, the Canadian Precision aerobatic team they use. I think these types of aircraft are perfectly capable aircraft, but they are not fighters, but they can do pretty decent aerobatics. I remember these guys shouting quite annoyingly when they are operating and now we have the Boeing B52 D astride Fortress.

I think this is just a pretty big fuel tank and you have these training wheels that weigh it down. at the wingtips, the wings are quite flexible, especially when fully fueled and with the bicycle landing gear, it wouldn't take much to make the plane tilt a bit and you need some kind of stabilizer here to keep The end of the wing barely hits the runway, you can see how thin the wing is. At this point, there is barely enough room to fold this mechanism with the landing gear door and put the wheel there, right on the other side of the runway. the skin, the top skin and then you have the other door that crawls under the wheel wells like this like before.

They've been making a lot of improvements here about where they want people to go and where they don't. 't and here we have a convair b-58 scammer that we mentioned in the previous path thanks it looks like they don't have all the engines they still have the internal capsules but not the external ones and those are Sitting on the ground right now, I don't remember if they had this guy here the last time I was here or if they're just doing a restoration that's a little bewildered and I think I've already reached the t-american. 39 saber liner coming in the other direction now we have this group of planes up here we already looked at the Lockheed c56 cargo star from behind passing by the Connie and so on and I already mentioned that I like the Fairchild c119 flying Box Car. whereas when we passed by, but a relative of theirs is the supplier Fairchild c123k, kind of the same thing but smaller, there's the lodestar again, this is a Saab j35 tf-35 draken or draconite draken.

I suspect it was that Swedish Interceptor Attack fighter. plane and this is an Avro Canada cf-100 Mark 5 Canuck. I think we've probably talked about that guy from the back and here we have another one with one of those strange fill-in-the-gaps planes, the Douglas B18 Bobo. I don't remember the story, it seemed like it was based on another Douglas plane. I don't want to say it was DC2 or anything like that. I don't know, maybe they had some parts in common. I just don't remember it. Here we have a Boeing wb50 super Fortress, this is the elegant follower of the B-29 with much improved engines and many other things that many people maintain that this is just a modified B-29, but everything I have read that, although the basic shape is the same, there are so many different things that it should really be called its own thing, not a tweak from a previous model, just one thing that comes to mind that is different is that the C is the B. -29 had a rotating nose gear, it couldn't be steered, whereas the uh b50 type and like this one has a steerable nose wheel and there are countless things that are different, much more reliable engines, more powerful, faster, etc., and this one is a b45a tornado from north america.

It is a bomber and there is a foreign Douglas a26b invader Boeing B-29 again related but it is not a copy of the b50 the B-29 this one is marked Raisin Hell and there is a North American B-25 J Mitchell and a volte bt13 brave another trainer and then the Boeing uh b17g Flying Fortress that we saw coming in one of the first planes on this little tour and we go back to the B-24, which is all the planes that are overseas, so we have this secondary building. it's mainly just the entrance to the museum and the gift shop here there is nothing else there there is a Cessna 150 here otherwise military jargon t-51a thank you this here is just the tip of a B-52 that is configured so you can look looking at it from the inside foreign foreign there are no planes in the secondary building but a lot of smaller details we're going to go out and take a look at these other two planes on the other side of the parking lot and I'm going to hurry because there's a chance that I'll barely make it to the Jimmy Doolittle Museum at Travis Air Force Base.

I noticed that it looks like they are in the process of building the Castle Air Museum Memorial brick park. It looks like a lot of that is still under construction. maybe a little incomplete. I'm not sure there's a cinder block here, but I have a suspicion what they plan to do is cover it with etched brick faces like all of these, thanks, so, as mentioned before, a Lockheed sr-71a blackbird. I love that they have one of these, but I also don't like that it has to sit outside in the weather and get dirty. They have definitely fixed this the last time I was here it was like this below.

I've put a walkway around it, it's got weird gravel, it doesn't look like they're going to let anyone in this guy today, so we'll look at it from the outside. Presidential plane. You have to do tours, they may charge extra. So, I'm not sure it was foreign, they used to have a little restaurant here with, you know, a few tables where you could eat simple things like hot dogs and grilled cheese sandwiches and things like that which I always appreciated, but the last two times . at least I've been here that's been closed and doesn't seem to be using it anymore, on the way to the Travis Air Museum, also known as the Jimmy Doolittle Air Museum.

Aviation Museum, whatever it is, I had a good time. The visit here at Castle took me all morning, but you can actually do it in a couple of hours if you're looking primarily at just the outdoor exhibits.