One Man’s Perspective: USAF Museum

The United States Air Force (USAF) museum is at Wright Patterson Air Force base near Dayton Ohio. It is a huge facility housing 360 planes. It is fantastic and we spent two days there. It is free but there are restrictions and closings such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Day. Having been a gunner on B-29’s and a boom operator on KC-97 for 4 years you can understand my interest.

They had a wonderful display of the B-29. Even a cutout where you could go inside and get a feel of what it would be like. They also had a couple of aircraft without gunnery. The only thing that I didn’t like on the B-29 was that if you had to bail out you had to go through the bomb bay. The B-29 was pressurized, and the B-17 (used in WW II) was not. The gunners were subjected to 30-40 degrees below zero while flying. That is why they wore fur lined leather suits.

The one drawback of the B-29 was when they told us the jets were flying faster than the gunnery system in the B-29 and we would have to use Kentucky windage. This is where you lead or shoot in front of the jet so they fly into the bullets.

We saw C-97’s but none were converted for refueling. The KC-97 has fuel tanks inside the aircraft and a pod and boom installed. The operator lay on what we called an ironing board and flew the boom into the aircraft being refueled. This would involve talking to the other pilot, extending and retracing the boom as well as flying the boom into the receptacle on the receiving aircraft.

They also had several Air Force 1 there. Two or three of them, and you could walk thru them and see the luxury the Presidents traveled in.

One of the things that really got me was the experimental aircraft. Most of them I knew nothing about. There were flying wings and all possible shapes as well as the high-flying U-2 which was used for reconnaissance. It could fly at 60,000 feet. Today planes fly at 85,000 feet The reason they fly higher is the air is thinner and the planes fly faster with the same amount of thrust.

We now have rocket planes like the X-15 which can go five times the speed of sound and fly over 100,000 feet. The aircraft industry is among the fastest growing in the world. They have even added the SPACE FORCE, to the ARMY, NAVY, MARINE, AIR FORCE, and COAST GUARD.

We love our country and have the force to defend it.

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Charlie Schuler

Charlie is an Air Force Veteran who joined the Bell System telecommunications company after his honorable discharge. He was an installer/repairman, engineer, technical writer, and a manager. He had 33 years’ service with New York Telephone, Western Electric, AT&T General Departments and Lucent Technologies. He and his wife, Marianne, retired before they were 55 so that they could pursue their dream of sailing. They have sailed over 20,000 miles and at one time lived on a 42’ sailboat for four years. Some of Charlie's other accomplishments include, being a leader and teacher in the United States Power Squadron, aka, America's Boating Club for over 30 years; Started a new squadron in 2000, which is still in full operation; Was a leader and teacher in the church for 30 plus years; a leader and teacher in the “Walk to Emmaus” for over twenty five years; And they moved to the Lake Norman area from Little River, SC after living there for 30 years. They are adventurers and love sharing their stories. You can find his articles in LKN Magazine under ‘One Man's Perspective’.

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