With Spring just around the corner and summer not to far behind, we’re sure that there’s a lot of you planning some kind of vacation for when the weather is warmer. Regardless of whether you’re doing a multi-day event or are just looking for something to check out within a reasonable distance from the house, there’s lots of greatness to find in the United States. One such gem is the National Museum of the United States Air Force, located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, just outside of Dayton, Ohio. On a quick trip over the weekend with my wife, we realized we were close to the museum and diverted to see it. Unfortunately, we arrived close to closing time but we still managed to grasp the scale at which the museum operates, which is absolutely huge. You could get lost for days checking everything out.

If you have any love for aviation within yourself, you need to see this place. The museum holds over 360 aircraft and missiles, as well as artifacts that span from the dawn of aviation throughout today. All of the aircraft are kept in meticulous condition…unlike some aviation museums I’ve seen, you won’t see drip pans underneath airframes here. And the selection of aircraft is stunning. I only made it through three sections (Early, WWII and Korea/Vietnam) and I was nearly running to photograph what I could. The inside hangars are beautifully lit, the research behind what they have is outstanding and besides the static displays, there are flight simulators and an IMAX theater on site that plays documentaries and aviation and space oriented movies.

The museum is free to enter, with donations being accepted, and there’s a small fee for the IMAX theater. The main museum and most of the displays are off of Wright-Patterson property, but the museum runs shuttle buses to and from the two hangars that are on-base. From the earliest wood-and-fabric aircraft through the latest and greatest, it’s here. There are several aircraft at the museum you won’t see anywhere else: Bockscar, the B-29 that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki, Japan; the only surviving XB-70 Valkyrie, one of four remaining B-36s, three B-17s, and nine retired Presidential aircraft.