Some F9F Cougars survived into the 1960s in the US Navy as F-9s, especially F9F-8T two-seat trainers, and this example is marked with the new TF-9J designation. The Blue Angels had already replaced the Cougar with the F11F Tiger by 1957. However, since the Tiger came single-seat only, the team retained one two-seat Cougar as its ship 7. Historic photos show BuNo 142470 in this capacity so the paint job of 146417 here may be presumed to be fake.

First flown in 1956, the ROE Rotorcycle was an innovative, collapsible, air-droppable one-man helicopter developed for the USMC. While Hiller claimed that anyone could fly the craft after just a few hours of training, it was actually far from easy and Hiller chief pilot Richard Peck found each flight very exciting. ROE and Gyrodyne RON airframes apparently assigned four-digit serials in a special series.

The British DH.4 was one of the best light bombers of WWI. A huge number were built in the USA in 1918. This airframe was rebuilt for the US Post Office by Boeing in 1923. It was later owned by movie stunt pilot Paul Mantz.

The F-86H was a fighter-bomber Sabre with a deepened fuselage. 473 'Sabre Hogs' were built, equipping five active duty USAF wings for only a few years between 1954 and 1958, and then ANG units until 1972. This airframe used to be preserved at Cannon AFB.

The Pietenpol Air Camper was typically powered by a 40-hp Ford A engine with the radiator bang in front of the cockpit! This airframe was never completed by its original owner and has been assembled by the staff of the Evergreen Air & Space Museum.

NYP replica built by Century Aviation in 2011. Bill Bryson's book One Summer made me realise how great Lindbergh's achievement really was, especially navigational.

Early Bell 47 in the space hall of the Evergreen museum.

Another, much smaller, and metal Goose in the Evergreen museum, home of the Hughes H-4. Delivered to the US Navy in March 1945 as 87728, this JRF-5 flew as N7811 in Alaska for decades. It is seen painted as an early JRF-2, V176 (c/n 1065) which was delivered to the US Coast Guard in October 1939. Based at CGAS Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula, Washington, it fatally crashed into nearby Blyn Mountain on 6 April 1943. Capt Schuldt piloted not that aircraft but a C-5 Galaxy which crashed in Germany in 1990.

This aircraft, the CW-A22, is the prototype of the CW-22 Falcon scout and trainer, which sold to the Netherlands East Indies, Turkey and a few South American countries. The unarmed CW-22N trainer was used by the US Navy as the SNC. N500G was originally registered NX18067. It supposedly first flew in 1940 although the FAA gives 1938 as the manufacture year. It is seen here in the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum under the wing of the 1936 Douglas DC-3A, NC16070.

This Jurassic helicopter was a great surprise to me at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum.

The first USAF fighter to have an afterburner, the F-94 Starfire was an all-weather interceptor derived from the F-80 and T-33 although the F-94C was much modified. Machine guns were replaced in the F-94C by a neat ring of 24 unguided rockets around the nose behind four doors that moved inwards for combat, as shown here. Firing them tended to flame out the jet engine, however, and they had to be moved to underwing pods.

Unfortunately I found the Tillamook Air Museum closed as they had just shifted to winter hours, but at least I could get some shots of their Guppy and of Dirigible Hangar B, one of the largest wooden structures in the world. Naval Air Station Tillamook only functioned for a few years from 1942, housing patrol blimp squadron ZP-33. Hangar A was destroyed by a fire in 1992.

My first Buckeye, courtesy of the large Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in western Oregon.