1949: TOS USAF, assigned to 10th Rescue Squadron, Elmendorf AFB, AK. 4/59: Ft. Leavenworth, KS, Army Flying Club, with c/r N4928E (cancelled 14 September 1962). By 1995 the Air Force Museum had it undergoing restoration.

Taken up in March 1955 by the USAF as standard C-131B 53-7793, this Convair was later used at Griffiss AFB, NY as a radar test-bed and after being contracted out to Calspan of Buffalo, NY in Dec 1966, was redesignated as an NC-131B. It was re-engined with Allison turboprops at Burbank and made its first flight as NC-131H Total In-Flight Simulator in July 1970. During a long career, the unique TIFS simulated the flight characteristics of many aircraft in development, including the X-40, Tacit Blue, Space Shuttle, B-2, YF-23, C-17, SST, MD-12X and Indonesia's N-250. Ferried to NMUSAF in Nov 2008

After flying with the 58th and 405th Tactical Training Wings at Luke AFB, AZ this Eagle was transferred to the Louisiana ANG at New Orleans. When struck off from active service in 1991, it was redesignated as GF-15A and used at Langley AFB, VA for ground instructional training. Following a period on display at Hampton, VA it was moved to the NMUSAF in 2013

1949: TOS USAF, assigned to 10th Rescue Squadron, Elmendorf AFB, AK. 4/59: Ft. Leavenworth, KS, Army Flying Club, with c/r N4928E (cancelled 14 September 1962). By 1995 the Air Force Museum had it undergoing restoration.

This C-46 is painted as a Commando flying the "Hump" between India and China in 1944, after the Japanese had closed the Burma Road. Although the C-46 carried more cargo than the C-47 and offered better performance at higher altitudes, under these difficult flying conditions they required extensive maintenance and had a relatively high loss rate. 44-78018 was retired from USAF service at Howard AFB in Panama in 1968 and was flown to the museum in 1972 - my 1973 photo in its grey livery here

The museum obtained this F-86H from the New Jersey ANG in 1964, now exhibited with part of its stressed skin removed to show the internal structure and placement of equipment

This tanker was rolled out as a KC-135A-BN in January 1961 and was first based at Wurtsmith AFB, MI, going to the 70th BW, Clinton-Sherman AFB, OK by 1967. While on refuelling ops in the Gulf of Tonkin in May 1967, it received an emergency request from six Navy aircraft which were dangerously low on fuel while helping with the rescue of a downed airman. A daisy chain via two A-3 tankers allowed the F-8s and F-4s which otherwise could not get back to their carrier to be refuelled, winning the USAF crew the 1967 Mackay Trophy. Re-engined to KC-135R spec in 1986, to USAFM April 2022

Rolled out in August 1961 as a C-135A, after service with MATS, 60-0374 was converted to an EC-135N Apollo Range Instrumention Aircraft (ARIA) by Douglas Tulsa and Bendix as a mobile tracking and telemetry platform to support the Apollo space program and other unmanned space flight operations. After the Apollo program ended it was renamed Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft and was transferred from Patrick AFB to the 4950th Test Wing, Wright-Patterson AFB, being TF33 re-engined to become an EC-135E in 1982. Passing to the 412th TW, Edwards in 1994, it was retired to the NMUSAF in Nov 2000

Arriving at the NMUSAF as recently as April 2024 from its last duty station at Travis AFB, this KC-10A served as mother ship for an element of F-111s attacking a Libyan terrorist network command centre in Tripoli in Operation El Dorado Canyon, including the F-111F on display in the museum. This marked the first time since WWII that US aircraft had taken off from RAF bases in the UK for a bombing mission, the KC-10 allowing the strike force aircraft to refuel eight times

This is the prototype of the Globemaster III, built by McDonnell Douglas as the YC-17A and intended only developmental test and evaluation with an estimated life span of five years. Having set many airlifter records with the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, it was rebuilt in the 1990s extending its life substantially. After being featured in several major movies, it was ferried to Wright-Patterson for the NMUSAF in April 2012 and is now preserved in the outdoor airpark

Transferred from the US Navy and modified to fulfil a counterinsurgency role, the first USAF Skyraiders were two-seat A-1Es which arrived with the 1st Air Commando Squadron at Bien Hoa AB, South Vietnam, in May 1964. In March 1965 this one, ex BuNo 132649, crashed during an interdiction mission near Can Tho, but was recovered by a CH-54 Skycrane. Repaired at Tan Son Nhut and transferred to Pleiku AB, in March 1966 it flew a Medal of Honour-winning mission to rescue a downed airman. In September 1967 it was repatriated to Hurlburt Field, FL and ferried to the USAFM

Arrived from MASDC a year earlier having been retired from service with the 605th Air Commando Squadron, 24th Composite Wing at Howard AFB, Panama in 1968. Now restored as an aircraft operating over the 'Hump" in WWII as per my December 2024 upload

This is actually P-82B 44-65162, modified and marked as a 68th FIS F-82G which shot down a North Korean La-7 in June 1950, near Kimpo AB, South Korea. The F-82G was a radar equipped night fighter version of the Twin Mustang which was adopted by the USAF after WWII as a replacement for the P-61

Mounted as gate guard to the NMUSAF since around 1995, this is actually 56-0754, which was used by Air Research and Development Command here at Wright-Patterson, modified to JF-104A and transferred to the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB before retirement to MASDC in 1967

Although the C-142 did not go into production, it foreshadowed future operational V/STOL transports such as the V-22 Osprey. Tested extensively by the US Army, Navy, Air Force and NASA, the XC-142A first transitioned from vertical take-off to level flight and back to vertical landing in January 1965 and could be flown from airspeeds of 35 mph backwards to 400 mph forwards.The aircraft seen here, the only example remaining out of five, was flown to the museum in 1970 and was one of many types kept outside until indoor accommodation was expanded sufficiently - my 1973 photo here

A rarity indeed, displayed in the Research & Development Gallery. The Fisher Body Division of General Motors developed the P-75 Eagle to fill an urgent need for an interceptor early in WWII. The original P-75 design incorporated the most powerful inline engine available and components from other aircraft as a way to expedite production. Only eight XP-75s and six P-75As were built, the type's mission being changed to long-range escort after shortcomings in performance were found - an order for 2,500 was cancelled in favour of P-47s and P-51s.

Who said flying saucers don't exist? The Avrocar was the result of a Canadian effort to develop a supersonic, VTOL fighter-bomber in the early 1950s. This is one of two scaled down test vehicles using the exhaust from turbojet engines to drive a circular "turborotor" which produced downward thrust for takeoff and landing, directed rearward for level flight. Severe instability above three feet high dogged the program at NASA's Ames Research Center and a speed of only 35 mph was attained before the project was abandoned in 1961. After storage at Silver Hill, MD it went on show at NMUSAF in 2008

Seen some 51 years after my first photo here, this Kestrel was flown for two years from 1964 as XS688 by pilots from the UK, USA and West Germany in the Tripartite Evaluation Squadron (TES) at RAF West Raynham. Six of these trial aircraft then came to the US where the US armed forces conducted additional testing designated as XV-6As. Although the USAF did not order it, the US Marine Corps and RAF did of course operate the follow-on Harrier for several decades. In 1970 64-18262 became the first aircraft to be airlifted in a C-5 Galaxy when it was flown from Edwards to the USAFM

Not for nothing was this extraordinary offspring from the jet F-84F design known as the Thunderscreech, by some reckoning the loudest aircraft ever, apparently audible on startup 25 miles away! Intended to combine the speed of jets with the long range, low fuel consumption and low landing speed of propeller-driven aircraft, of the 12 flights made by the two XF-84Hs in 1955/56, 11 ended in emergency landings. Around 1958 this first one was pole-mounted at Bakersfield, CA with an electric motor to turn the prop. After restoration by the Ohio ANG it moved to the USAFM in 1999

The T-41 was a standard Cessna 172 and over 200 were procured for preliminary flight screening of Air Force pilot candidates. Although originally allocated USAF serial 65-5251, as this one like many was operated by a civilian flight school under contract to Air Training Command in Texas it was given an N registration derived from the serial. It was ferried to the USAFM in April 1993