News Anchor Road Trip

Frank and Rob here or is it Rob and Frank Here?

We will worry about that later, so yesterday after work Rob and I decided to take a road trip up to Dayton to visit the US Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. I have had a love of airplanes since I used to play airplane in my parents basement as a little kid, by setting up a few chairs and making my brother be the co-pilot. I also use to toss my GI Joe Plane out of my bedroom window thinking it could fly. Now, Rob and I share a love for planes and the history of them in fact sometimes during commercial breaks we pull up old airline commercials on Youtube, Sheila really gets a kick out of it. LOL So Rob has wanted to visit the museum since he arrived in town back in 1995, so we finally took the one hour trip North and we were truly impressed.

The museum consists of 4 very large hangers that have aircraft from the first planes ever built to World War I, World War II, The Cold War, Modern Air force Planes, and Presidential Aircraft. One of the most impressive aircraft was the B-29 Superfortress, named Bockscar. It was this aircraft that dropped the "Fat Man" atomic bomb on Nagasaki at the end of World War II. It was very impressive to think the aircraft in front of us actually flew in battle and was such a important part of history.

One of the other highlights for myself was walking aboard Air Force One. The plane on display is the first Air Force One as we know it today, with it's powder blue and white color scheme. This Boeing 707 was the official presidential plane during the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. It was also used during the Ford and Carter administrations. This plane was symbol for our country on the day that President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas. This plane brought the president to Dallas and then brought his body home from Dallas, in fact you can see where they had to cut a part of the interior to carry the presidents casket home, because they did not want to put his casket in the cargo hole. This is also where President Johnson was sworn in with Jackie Kennedy standing by his side. We have all seen the famous photo of his swearing in and it is amazing that you can actually stand in that same spot.

On a personal note: Rob and I almost got in a fight because he lost all of the pictures of me doing my presidential wave on the steps of Airforce One, I was very upset and it will take some time for me to get over!!! I think he did it on purpose, so I sang in the car on the entire way home just to annoy him.

Well, these are just two of many of the stories that Rob and I learned yesterday but you could easily spend a couple of hours learning and walking through aviation history. The museum is open from 9am to 5pm daily and is FREE. Click here for the official website http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/ .

So I suggest you make a day of it with your family, then you could do what we did, we stopped for dinner at a pub and had fish and chips, then headed back I-75. I think people at the station took bets if one of us would not make it back alive but we did, I think Rob was surprised to, that he didn't get to annoyed with me in a car for 2 hours....hahaha.... Have A Great Day!!