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  • CONSTANT PEG: Secret MiGs in the Desert

    Project Constant Peg was a secret program to train US Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps fighter aircrews to fly against Soviet-designed aircraft. The USAF’s 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron (TES), nicknamed the “Red Eagles,” flew MiG-17 “Fresco,” MiG-21 “Fishbed,” and later MiG-23 “Flogger”

  • Combat Aircraft to Museum Artifact

    After the bond tour, the Memphis Belle went to MacDill Army Air Field, Florida, to be used for training.  At war’s end, it was stored at Altus Army Airfield, Oklahoma, with other surplus bombers awaiting scrapping. In 1946, the city of Memphis, Tennessee, acquired the aircraft and displayed it

  • Crippling the Nazi War Machine: USAAF Strategic Bombing in Europe

      At great sacrifice, the US Army Air Forces’ (USAAF) daylight strategic bombing campaign played a critical role in winning the war in Europe.        What is Strategic Bombing?          Strategic bombing is a strategy to destroy a country’s ability or will to fight by attacking its homeland from the

  • Combined Bomber Offensive: Summer 1943 to Victory

              In the summer of 1943, the daytime American and nighttime British bombing campaigns became loosely aligned as the “Combined Bomber Offensive.”  This plan formally established “around the clock” bombing of the enemy.   Until D-Day in 1944, the priority targets were Germany’s fighter force

  • Captain E.V. Rickenbacker Swagger Stick

    Note: This item is currently in storage.This wooden swagger stick was made in France for Captain E.V. Rickenbacker during his service in World War I.  Spiraling up the surface of the stick is a carved wooden snake marked down the back with 26 black German Crosses-representing Rickenbacker's 26

  • Capt. Reed Chambers' Calling Card

    Note: This item is currently in storage This calling card was carried by World War I ace Capt Reed M. Chambers, a flight leader with the famous 94th Aero (Pursuit) Squadron.  Capt Chambers, one of America’s most famous flyers, passed these cards to his many colleagues and admirers.  It was not

  • Curtiss C-46D Commando

    The C-46 was developed from the new and unproven commercial aircraft design, the CW-20, which first flew in March 1940. Deliveries of AAF C-46s began in July 1942 for the Air Transport Command and Troop Carrier Command. During World War II, the USAAF accepted 3,144 C-46s for hauling cargo and

  • Convair XF-92A

    The XF-92A was the world's first jet aircraft to fly with the radical delta-wing configuration pioneered by Germany's Dr. Alexander Lippisch. Convair used the knowledge learned from the XF-92 to design the delta-wing F-102, the U.S. Air Force’s first operational supersonic interceptor. The original

  • Chance-Vought/LTV XC-142A

    Five tilt-wing XC-142As were built in the 1960s to explore the suitability of Vertical/Short TakeOff and Landing (VSTOL) transports. VSTOL transports permit rapid movement of troops and supplies into and out of unprepared areas. XC-142As were tested extensively by the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air

  • Convair NC-131H Total In-Flight Simulator (TIFS)

    This one-of-a kind aircraft was an important in-flight simulator primarily used to study how an aircraft would handle before building an expensive, full-scale prototype. It was created for the U.S. Air Force in the late 1960s by the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory of Buffalo, N.Y. (later the Calspan