[Ken]

A Yak 3 in the museum in santa monica - it may be closed now not sure who got the aircraft.. they had an Me109E and a Hurricane as well as I believe a Fairey Swordfish.. Next is the Duck and a Kingfisher in the Palm Spings Museum. then back to Chino for their Jack and Betty wreck recreation. Spring HIll has a Betty nose cone in the warehouse maybe someone coudl do a restoration..... The Me109 is in the Fighter Pilots Museum outside Phoenix. where there is another museum devoted to bombers if I remember. ... Take a long weekend and dependable car and you can see a lot. Next best thing to the new museum in Washington DC and the new Marine Corps museum just below washington. The aircraft in the MArince center are there but a bit harder to see the way they are hung from some of the rafters. Wright Patterson in Dayton OH overall is probably the best single one that exists showing the entire history of military flight . the B-10 to Stealth.

[jim]

Great photos Ken,
I like that Kingfisher.

[Ken]

Thanks Jim. Its been a while since I have been out there but I liked the Kingfisher and the Duck as they are unusual examples and there do not seem to be that many that were saved post war.

There is such a great string of museums out there starting with the Santa Monica one ( I think now closed,) run out to Chino, hit March AFB and the little 475ft FG hanger who's vets lost their P-38 to one of the Microsoft tycoons. , down to Palm Springs.

I think Chino and Palm Springs were about 1.5 hours apart if I recall. It's a 3.5 hour shot to Mesa AZ and the US fighter pilots museum and a bomber museum that was getting started a while years back.

Sounds like a good road trip for a bunch of forum members who want to see the museums. 4-6 of us rent a van, split the gas, eat the artery clogging breakfast at Dennys......with a group like that we would probably be mistaken for the FLOMAX commercial guys.

I'll post more from the Garber facility later this evening. Its closed now to the public as I understand it, but I found my old list of everything they supposedly have stored there from a brochure when I toured it years back. They call the Smithsonian the nations attic but the Garber facilty truly is the attic.