A Walk Through Travis Air Force Base Aviation Museum

Once again, we can cross a series of hills, I'm not sure which ones exit I-80 at Air Base Parkway, which also has the exit with another name like Waterford or Waterton or something, but Air Base Parkway is the one . to be on and then you have to go a few miles before you get to the actual

base

entrance so the air

base

is right in front there I can see planes and hangars and it looks like a kc-10 I think that's the name . Tanker plane based on the DC-10 floating around and that seems to be the main door here, so okay, the entrance to the Travis Air Force Base Aviation Museum, formerly known as the Jimmy Doolittle Aviation Museum or something like that previously known. like two or three other names, but the current name is

travis

air

force

base

aviation

museum

, you can hear the sounds of the planes because the runway and apron are right there, they come to pick you up at the visitor center Travis Air Force Base with his transport vehicle is a KC-10, so we have some cockpit trainers in the back room here.

What do we have here? It looks like an engine from a Titan 2, probably well it's from the Titan 4. Okay, so yeah, a single twin nozzle engine and here we are. I have a T-37 cockpit trainer and there is a kind of miniature model of an Apollo and a miniature Gemini type capsule and a kind of rough model of a Mercury capsule, a T-28 cockpit trainer and an F cockpit -100. trainer complete with all the connectors and relays and stuff to go to the Travis fire department fire truck training console and this is the so called engine room.

It's supposed to be like a diagnostic/training model for a c5 thrust reverser. engine undoubtedly of the old type such as its own hydraulic pump and tank center console with only the minimum to operate and then the hydraulic system for the actuation of the thrust reverser and here we have a tf-39 engine of the original type of the c5 that does not No They look so big when they are hanging from the plane, are they general electric TF-39 turbofan and this is a Pranton Whitney TF-30, a low bypass turbofan engine originally designed for the F6D missile plane? f-111 and the f-14 tomcat this is a soviet jet engine like the one used in the mig 19 and the yak-25 and a pratt and whitney j60 or jt-12 this type was used in airplanes like the t-38 saber liner the sikorsky s69 or eight pratt whitney r 4360 major wasp or is the major wasp this aircraft powered uh like the straddle freighter boeing c97 the douglas c-124 Globemaster ii the boeing b-50 super fortress the convair b-36 piecemaker the flying wing northrop b-35 the corncob the correct r1820 cyclone that powered things like the dc-1, the dc2, early versions of the dc-3, some of the dc-5, the boeing b17, the douglas sbd dauntless dive bombers and some helicopters, etc. ., so it is not a very deep engine. front row and this is a twin cyclone r 2600 on the right that powered things like the douglas a20 that wreaked havoc on the north american b-25 mitchell used in the first bombing raid on tokyo.

I think there could be other types of engines that could have been used by the Grumman TBF adventure, the Curtis SB 2C Helldiver and the PBM Mariner seaplane. This is a Prant and Whitney J57 jet engine powered by the North American F-100 Super Saber, and the F-102. delta dart chance fought f8 u1 uh the u2 reconnaissance aircraft the republic f-105 thunder chief prototype and northrup's snark intercontinental guided missile the pratt whitney t-34 turbo wasp the first use of this engine was on the boeing yc-gang freighter 97j which was later used as the super guppy of the aerospace line then also used as in the douglas c-133 cargo master the general electric allison j33 which was used in things like the t-33 the p80 the xf-92 the a2 savage the f-94 and a couple of cruise missiles here we have a 340 horsepower six cylinder supercharged lycoming g5480 b186 o es b1b6 used in things like the beechcraft l 238 l 23d o es the l23b.

I can't read your typography here, the beechcraft d50f and other things. This is a pratt whitney. The r 2800 cut of the same is used in the douglas a26 martin b-26 curtis c-46 fairchild c-123 convair c-131 and republic p-47, so it is basically the double wasp engine, but in cut this is a correct r3350 cut again of this type. it was used on the b-29 the b-19 the b-32 the c-119 the c-121 and the dc7 these are some carburetors and other cuts and this type here looks like one of the first types of cruise missiles complete with the pylon that it would normally be attached to for launch and apparently this is some kind of cutaway showing some of the electronic equipment that was used on it a guidance computer and a control and conversion unit guidance system power supply amplifier assembly stable platform um ammonia tank to cool a heat exchanger yes this is the pounded dog shows a couple of them under a b52 this is a general electric j-31 turbojet this type was used in things like the p era comet -59 era p-59 comet, well that's the same plane that the westinghouse j34 used in things like the f7u cutlass, the experimental xf 85 goblin, the f6u pirate, the xf-90, the x3 styletto and the f3d sky knight and then the last engine here is the general electric j47 turbo. jet used in things like the b47 the b36 for the um for the jets that were in it the f-86 know the b-45 tornado the xf-87 blackhawk well here we have a Vietnam era in 17 that is the tip of a stabilizer vertical of a B17 that crashed while on weather patrol off the Oregon coast, was lost and crashed into the mountains of southern Oregon in October 1942.

The tip of the stabilizer was found in 1953 by a boy scout troop while I was on a hiking trip, so the red area shows the part that is right here and then surrounding at17, there are various things like a Norton bomb site, a B-17 automatic computer weapon site , various

aviation

equipment from a b17, it seems to be a radio transmitter. Yes, it is a General Electric bc bc 375e radio transmitter and this is a polar converter to convert the calculated vertical and horizontal rectangular components of the distance from the aircraft position to the target point or destination point, converting them into coordinates polars to use in solving navigation and bombing problems and here we have one of the fat boy or fat man bombs, rather fat man um, this is the type of nuclear weapon that was donated in Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9 1945, which was the second and last time a nuclear weapon was used. it was used in the war this is a real shell but there's nothing inside but it's not a mockup it's real minus the explosive part and there's a lot of other little things, airplane models, tons of stuff you could spend a lot on time.

Here there is a trainer liaison with the student and the instructor. A small printing press and the typographic desk. A popcorn machine. Military-looking passenger seats. A cockpit section of a Waco or Waco CG15 combat glider. air

force

base an exhibit on wasps an exhibit on china burma india or cbi a good alcoholic beverage for the tuskegee airman and this is the mockup of comrade bay air base for operation homecoming it is a cessna o2 with a gatling gun forward air control since the vietnam war again many cuts to improve observation capabilities rear equipment area plus the president's display of pilots of various air force uniforms this should be a l5 here a stinson l5 sentry from the wwii era and then there's a piper l4 grasshopper here like Well, lots of nice exhibits, if you have time to look at them, there's a nice scale model of a kc-10 refueling a c-141.

This is the reception. This is a BT-13. In other words, the defective BT-13 Valiant. it's a pt-19 fairchild pt19 cornell and a very nice exhibit on aerial refueling including the business end of a boeing aerial refueling boom it doesn't say what it is what particular aircraft nice picture of a c-131 pictures of a b-36. I like that, so now we're at the air park outside the

museum

and the first plane we find is a C47. Oh, let's take a moment. Here's a KC-10 sitting in the distance. You can see the third engine in the tail. Anyway, we have a C-47 here, well, the Douglas C-47 skytrain, they have this area cordoned off, so you can't, maybe you can, yeah, it looks like we can.

Well, they have an at11 here at the museum. It is located in the former Travis Air Force Base Commissary Building, which was vacated and has been used as a museum ever since. They still want to relocate, but there is always some problem to prevent them from doing it again, so a beach or beach boats in 11. can cans kazanus k-a-s-a-n-s if it is a spelling mistake or if I don't remember correctly and here is a c131 this is a convair plane the c131d samaritan and um back there we have a blue u3a canoe here we have a convair f-102 delta dagger and there's an f-101 here made by mcdonnell called voodoo, it's actually an f-101b and then we have an f86 back here , a North American f-86 l saber and then I think this is an f-84 republic, f-84f thunder.

There's a C141 over there, but I don't think it's actually considered part of the museum. Another KC-10 taking off last time I was here, I counted about 20 KC-10 takeoffs and not a single C5, although many. of the C5's operate out of Travis Air Force Base so coming here about where the white truck is it should be an F-100 unless I'm getting nervous we'll check it out when we get to the sign yeah F -100 North American. super saber and right next to it there is a t-33 manufactured by Lockheed known as the shooting star, so once again we return to the c-47 and enter the largest part of the air park, now they greet us from the bat with a c124 , I think it's a Globe Master II.

I always knew him as a shaky old man. I didn't have much respect for these as a kid and they had them at Scott Air Force Base, but they were carried by the reserves. at the time, but in later years I came to appreciate it much more, yes it just says Globemaster here, but I thought this was the Globe Master II anyway Douglas, the wings and engines and such are supposed to be related to one of his others. Planes like, the fuselage is oversized, but there are a lot of other parts in common, really, after you get just a few meters behind the real engine, which of course is right here, that's the real engine, then there are bombs and fuel tanks. oil and stuff here. probably why there is an oil leak from there and then you have a firewall and then this whole section of the nacelle is for landing gear storage and for the landing gear mechanism and after that the cell fades back into the wing, there are some flap mechanisms, yes I like these types, they don't restrict your access, you can get close to them and look closer if you want, so you have retractor mechanisms here, a very simple mechanism compared to today's airplanes , there is your address. mechanism and basically just a big empty hole.

Then we have a C-45, basically another version of the civilian beach or twin beach aircraft. I've always liked this airplane, it's the kind of thing I thought if I ever wanted to fly and had enough money for a twin engine, this is probably the kind I'd want to fly, so it's the Beach C45h Expediter. I have a video about this plane, not this one exactly, but one like the one operated by the commemorative air force where I had the opportunity. flying in it in the cockpit from Janesville Wisconsin a few years ago and here we have an AT26, the Douglas, a 26k WWII invader plane.

Something makes a lot of noise there every time I come. I would like to be able to see it. the flight line a little better, i think it would be great because of the types of aircraft that operate here, this type is a sa16, i think it is made by a grumman amphibious aircraft, yes the grumman sa-16 albatross, so This type could land in water or take out its landing gear and taxi on runways from the water or the beach itself or take off from difficult runways. Pretty simple landing gear. I always thought it was cool that the entire landing gear was supported from the wing, just being the engine. the cell area and then it has a break in the middle that is dragged by this ram or hydraulic piston and that breaks it in half and swings towards the junction of the wing and the fuselage right at the fairing. and then this part of the landing gear goes down here and then of course the wheel goes into that space and then the stabilizer mechanism goes into this space, it all fits together pretty well, but it's not waterproof, so if you are, We are operating the thing out of the water, this area gets wet all the time, not sure what that did to maintenance and the c-119 fairchild.

If you've seen my recent video about the castle air museum, I was discussing it in some detail. about how much I love this aircraft and wish I had the opportunity to serve on it. This one is in better cosmetic condition than the one in the castle, but it hasn't been here as long. I think it has had a more recent paint job. Work the flying van and then here we have a C-56 made byLockheed. It's the Load Star 17-passenger civil aircraft. That's what it's based on. It was delivered to the US or the United States Army Air Corps in June 1941.

It was equipped. for executive transport duties, its first assignment was to the Washington DC bowling green, which served in the army until 1945. A perfectly good aircraft, but not very well liked, we return to the C-119 again, it had those high arms, for so the lines were completely out. out of the way, but a big, authoritative tail for a serious airplane and then you had clamshell doors that also had side doors in the clamshell so you could open the ones that made sense if you were just bringing personnel or smaller cargo or if you really had to open them and lower a ramp and Once again we can look at the landing gear, once again it folds into the nacelle, in this case mainly under the wing, very solid, stabilized landing gear intended for difficult off-field operations, very strong and of course that's the kind of job this plane would do.

I have had one of my favorites and one of the few places where you can see a C-133. This is the last C-133 that flew. It was one of the few that was owned by the only civilian C-133 operator that Los had on a limited use agreement where they could only use them for certain types of things. The US government still had some regulations regarding using it for other things. The aircraft was not considered as safe, but it was a gap between other aircraft and replaced by the c5 until the c5 came into operation, the c-133 was the largest cargo lifter in the us air force and has engines very powerful turboprops, but there were design problems, the square-bladed propellers at these rpm these things were launched simply by punishing shock waves against the side of the fuselage and caused many fatigue problems, since it was said that this one was operating in Canada or Alaska , more like Alaska, for many years hauling equipment for pipelines etc. not sure what it is all about and then it finally flowed down and landed right on

travis

air force base travis air force base during a air show and that was the last time a c-133 flew.

There are videos of this plane flying and landing on that flight that you can see on youtube there is a pretty good documentary video of the entire flight although sometimes people split it up and only show part of it and then there is at least one video of the landing taken by people on the ground and another video of the landing here taken from the cockpit, so it's a pretty well documented flight since the last time I was here, they repainted it, looks like they need to do something with the burst locks on the elevator, looks like They are falling apart and the rudder is out of place at the moment.

Time seems to be lying on the ground. I'm not sure if this thing looks like it suffered any damage, right? It looks like the elevator collapsed and hit the metal. I'm not sure how it happened. but they have their rudder big and somewhat damaged, yeah, look at that something bent where it shouldn't, obviously moved more than it should, hit the stops and broke a sheet of metal, something big operating back there, I just can't see it in these buildings, you can see they put in some kind of jury prepared frame to protect it and then this should be, I think it's the most recent addition and it should be a c140.

I need to use a summary of this. apron here and then of course we have a B52 over here that looks great with the back of a B29, like a lot of air museums, they don't have enough space and have to fit a lot of airplanes into a pretty small space, which makes it difficult. to get far enough away from them to see everything, at least with a camera, so this is a b52d stratofortress made by boeing in the front landing gear area and remember that the b-52 landing gear folds up quite uniquely , twist and change. and all to get them into this fairly small area of ​​the landing gear in what is actually a fairly narrow fuselage, so one of these folds up nicely, it's clearly this guy that folds up and goes into this space that takes up quite a bit. part. it comes in at an angle and then a cropped mirror image is back here, where this guy similarly folds into this space and there's a big, heavy frame member there, you can see it in green that's carrying a lot of the load. the landing gear to the airframe, so the landing gear doors are somewhat asymmetrical and then the landing gear towards the rear is exactly the same.

You can see some kc-10s, there's one there and then there's a couple more that you can see. see the queues there but everything else is elevated or there is a building in the way it's not a great place to see the planes flying and this is a C123 another Fairchild cargo plane it has a lot in common in its philosophy with the C119 which I like, but I always find this type a little less interesting, which is just my impression, not necessarily historical fact and I probably wouldn't have minded serving in one of these, but I think I would have preferred the 119, but the type of missions that they have, it still has the same type of mission, so here we have a c7 that should be a de havilland caribou.

There are no signs for this one, but I'm sure it is what it is and then we have a c 118 here. there is a fly that is showing particular affection from my hand it wants to land on it and bite me again a relatively simple landing gear on this pup goes all the way to the nose it folds forward and all that is left is just a little space up there to the aluminum radome and then fiberglass, I think the c-118 is a douglas dc-6, I think it is a military version and it is called lift master.

It is an improved version of the c54 originally designed as the dc-6 airliner, yes it uses the same wing as the c-54 the fuselage of the c-118 was lengthened and the aircraft was redesigned with a more powerful pratt whitney r 2800 2,500 horsepower The 19th production DC-6 was designated VC-118 and modified to replace the aging C-54 Sacred Cow presidential aircraft differing from the standard DC-6 configuration in that the aft fuselage became a state room the vc-118 was nicknamed independence in honor of the president's troop president truman's hometown in missouri, but that is not this plane, but it is the same basic type, so the remaining plane that we haven't seen it yet here is the b29 oh yeah, i was going to stick my head in the landing gear before going overseas, so once again the b-29 is marked miss america 62, but it's like miss like you're losing america, i think so, this plane, i think most of the planes here are technically on loan from the united states air force museum at wright-patterson air force base in ohio, as big as that museum , technically they own a There are many more planes that are scattered in various museums, some of them quite large and at any time they could be removed, sent to another museum or whatever, but it is a good plan, I think it allows the museum of the air force has many planes. saved in one form or another and still display them in more places so that people can see them without having to travel just to write to Patterson to see them and of course keeping them indoors would be hugely impractical and expensive, of course it would. you have a video of me flying in the cockpit of the air force commemorative b-29 fifi.

If you ever wondered what it looks like to be on the nose of this thing while it flies, you can look up that video, so it took me almost two hours to casually

walk

around this museum inside and out without stopping or studying anything, so Spectators, if they come here, should allow at least a couple of hours plus time for protocol at the main gate if they want a chance to see everything.