Two Great Flying Aircraft Collections of the Northeast

Aeronautics has a great tradition in the US, as witnessed by the many air museums and collections pointing the territory of the Country from coast to coast, with a density unrivalled in any other place of the world.

Some of these, like the museum of the USAF in Dayton, OH, the Udvar-Hazy branch of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. or the museum of the Naval Aviation in Pensacola, FL, stand out for their size and the completeness of their collections, as well as for rare or unique items they preserve – not just prototypes or experimental aircraft, but also ‘last exemplars’ of once widespread species.

Among less extensive collections, all with something interesting to showcase, there are some featuring not only a static exhibition, but also shops for carrying out restoration work, and capable of maintaining a group of flying aircraft. The following photographs are from two such places I visited in Pennsylvania and upper New York state.

National Warplane Museum – Geneseo, NY

Also known as ‘1941 Historical Aircraft Group Museum’, this museum is located at the end of Big Tree Lane, to the west of the little town of Geneseo, home of a campus of the State University of New York – actually the museum can be spotted from the campus. The collection there is hosted mainly in a single large hangar, located to the south of a field with a fairly long grass runway.

The collection is made up of flying aircraft and aircraft awaiting restoration to a flying condition. This makes the place unique, in the sense it is basically an active airbase for historic aircraft more than a museum.

At the time of my visit there were two examples of great Douglas designs, a C-47 Skytrain and an A-20 Havoc. The former is a surviving WWII veteran, more recently flown back to Normandy – where it had dropped paratroopers during the operations of the D-Day – for the 70th anniversary of the disembarkment. Both are in flying or almost-flying conditions.

Other Douglas aircraft here are an A-26 Invader and a more rare B-23 Dragon, a twin-engined bomber of the pre-war years awaiting restoration. The A-26 suffered a nose gear collapse in summer 2016.

An interesting sight is an exemplar of North American B-25 Mitchell, in the attack – possibly ‘G’ – version with a monster 74 mm cannon in the nose compartment.

A more unusual sight in this part of the world, an Antonov An-2, which at the time of my visit was having the engine refurbished.

Most notably, the place is the home base of a Boeing B-17, but I couldn’t see it on my visit for it was away for taking part in an airshow.

I am not totally sure all aircraft actually belong to the local collection, as due to the quality of the shop I guess they bring in some aircraft from other places for restoration or specific maintenance.

On the outside there are a handful of statically preserved aircraft. These include another C-47 used during WWII for the perilous flights between India across the Himalaya to continental China and the British colonies occupied by Japan, and a Fairchild C-119 Boxcar, having served in many continents in the years following WWII, and presented here in the colours of the RCAF.

The site is busy with historical rides and airshows, you can find news and further info on their website.

Mid-Atlantic Air Museum – Reading, PA

This museum is located on the northern side of Reading Regional Airport, an intermediate size infrastructure with two asphalt runways for general aviation and regional commercial flights.

In the museum it is possible to find many aircraft in flying or nearly flying conditions, together with an extensive collection of planes on static display.

Among the highlights of my visit, I could see a beautiful North American B-25 Mitchell in perfect flight condition. Another interesting aircraft is a Douglas R4D, a naval version of the C-47. I came to the museum looking for this exemplar in particular, since I had seen a photo of it in my childhood on the great book by Arthur Pearcy ‘Sixty Glorious Years’, and also flew in the virtual version of it on many trips in the good old MS Flight Simulator 98… Plus I always liked the bare metal colors with minimal trim adopted by the NATS.

A truly unique sight of the museum is the Northrop P-61 Black Widow. As of late 2016, this aircraft is still undergoing a lengthy restoration notably to a flyable condition, which would make it the only flying P-61 in the world – of the only four surviving today.

Another very uncommon sight is one of the two surviving prototypes of the Custer “Channel Wing” from the early Sixties. This design was based on the idea to exploit the acceleration of the flow nearby the propellers to generate extra lift on purpose-designed, circular shaped wing sections. Unfortunately the aircraft failed to enter the market, but the idea was not just fancy, for blown flaps and accelerated aerodynamic flows are solutions not seldom used on aircraft today. A wind tunnel model of the same aircraft can be found in the entrance hall.

A rare aircraft in the US, you can spot a Vickers Viscount turboprop formerly of Capital Airlines, a company with its roots in the Northeast and Pennsylvania, later to merge into United. Another liner on display, a 1952 Martin 4-0-4 in the colors of Eastern.

A Fairchild C-119 Boxcar formerly of the Marine Corps and many other aircraft can be admired in or around the main hangar of the museum. Some very knowledgeable volunteers help with the tour and are available for questions. At the time of my visit, I could not see all the aircraft in the collection for some of them were away to take part in airshows.

They operate a very informative interesting website.

Appendix: Local Airshow in the Amish Country

As I was visiting the area of the Amish tradition in southern Pennsylvania, about 35 miles southwest of Reading I came across a curious airshow at the Smoketown Airport S-37.

For sure the strangest thing flying that day – and for many days before and after – is a kind of paragliding, propelled flying-jeep. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about this curious project, but as you can see from some pictures below it really can fly.

Aerospace Museum of California – Sacramento

Albeit being a rich and fine collection of military aircraft, possibly among the best in California, the Aerospace Museum of California, located a few miles north-east of downtown Sacramento along interstate 80, is still a somewhat unusual place – at least, it’s not so famous as other attractions in town, like the State Capitol, the Railroad Museum, Sutter’s Fort and the area of the former river port.

The museum is located on the eastern side of the area of McClellan airport. McClellan used to work as a support Air Force base and a station of the Coast Guard. The latter is still operating from this airport today with Lockheed C-130 Hercules, but the Air Force left in 2001.

The following photographs were taken during a visit to the museum in August 2014, and portrait some highlights of this interesting and often overlooked collection.

Sights

The museum is made of a relatively small hangar, where you pay and can also find some nice books. The hangar hosts a few more delicate aircraft, like a refurbished example of the ubiquitous Boeing Stearman training biplane, as well as a nice collection of piston, jet and liquid fuel rocket engines from various ages of aviation.

Also preserved inside is an escape unit of a General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark, which was unique in the sense that it was a totally detachable part of the aircraft. Instead of having jettisonable seats, the pilots would trigger separation of the whole cockpit unit, leaving the canopy intact. This section of the aircraft then descended gently with a parachute. The canopy is open, so you can have a look to the cockpit.

You can board a Dassault Falcon 50 of the Coast Guard, and inspect a North American F-86 Sabre.

The collection outside is hosted on a relatively small fenced apron – good if you don’t want to walk – differently from the USAF museum at Wright-Patterson in Ohio… – but not so good for taking pictures of single aircraft. Among the most unusual sights here, you immediately come across a FedEx Boeing 727 freighter, which can be boarded on some days.

More usual aircraft on display include a North American F-100 Super Sabre, Fairchild A-10 Warthog, Lockheed F-104 Starfighter – a NASA aircraft -, Grumman F-14 Tomcat, McDonnell F-101 Voodoo, Republic F-105 Thunderchief, Sikorsky Jolly Green Giant helo and others.

More unusual types here include two Soviet MiGs, a MiG-17 whose history is not clear – it was acquired reportedly by the Air Force –  and a former Czechoslovakian MiG-21, purchased at the end of the Cold War by a private businessman.

Other interesting American aircraft include a Lockheed EC-121 Warning Star of the USAF. The day I visited it could be boarded. The housing for the early warning radar equipment of this four-propeller aircraft, highly modified from the Constellation liner, is a very distinctive feature of its shape. Inside it is still possible to have a look to the radar and transmission equipment from the early stages of the Cold War, as well as taking the pilot’s seat in the cockpit.

There is a Douglas C-47 – this exemplar is a veteran of WWII and served in the European theatre of war in the brave, perilous operations of 1944. Also this can be boarded, allowing to take a look at the very simple cockpit and the rugged structural construction of this great workhorse.

A more unusual piece on display that unfortunately couldn’t be boarded was a Douglas C-54 Skymaster, the front product of Douglas at the end of WWII and in the first years of the Cold War. The exemplar of the museum spent much of its operative life with the Navy in various parts of the world, until falling into private hands as a cargo plane. It is painted in the colors of the Air Force at the time of the Berlin Airlift, to which the Skymaster contributed substantially.

Finally, I had the chance to board for the first time one of the most iconic – and eye-catching – aircraft of the Coast Guard, a Grumman HU-16 Albatross. This beautiful amphibious aircraft was active for about 30 years until the end of the Seventies as a rescue aircraft. Boarding from the back you pass through a small passenger area, a medical/communication area, and finally you reach the cockpit. The layout is different from many similarly sized aircraft, in having a passage between the pilot and co-pilot seats leading to the front hatch. Part of the control gear, mounted on a moving arm, can be lifted to allow reaching the front hatch. The engine control levers are placed on an overhead panel.

While leaving, I assisted to some operations of the Coast Guard, including a takeoff and landing of a C-130. The doors of the hangar of the Air Station have a particular shape, possibly to cope with the fuselage and tail of the Hercules.

All in all, this collection has an average size, so it’s good also for curious but not aviation-minded people, and has something also for more experienced aviation enthusiasts. I recommend visiting if you are in the area!