National Air Force Museum

From the beginnings of flight to current uses, this museum is amazing!

It starts with the Wright brothers

And their studies with wind tunnels and finally getting the military to understand the use of their invention. 

This museum has THE plane that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki - which wasn't actually the initial chosen target. (The first choice target, Kokura, was not able to be used because the pilot was required to have a visual of the location and it was too cloudy, so he proceeded to the 2nd option, Nagasaki.)

Next to the plane is a fat man bomb.

And nearby is a demilitarized Little Boy that was an active weapon in 1945.

Throughout the museum, we were pleased to recognize and know the stories behind what we saw. 

From the atomic bombs from Los Alamos. 

To the Tuskeegee airmen.

To the WASPs who served (that we've read about in a biography of missionary Betty Greene).

To the Doolittle Raiders (that we've read about in a biography of missionary to Japan, Jacob Deshazer). 

Scott got to attempt to connect to the Hubble telescope.

We revisited the Vietnam war, here known as the Southeast Asia war.

We saw a variety of minute man missiles (among others).

New additions to this museum include a model of a shuttle with flight simulators.

And the previous 4 Air Force one planes, which you can walk through!

We could have spent 2-3 days at this museum, and more of we didn't already know the stories behind much of what we saw. We were bummed to only give it one afternoon. This is another place we'd love to revisit someday.