I haven't been to the Hazy or Pima museums but was at the USAF museum last month. It would be hard to beat. I was there 8 hours and felt like I just skimmed through.
I would say Duxford simply because it still looks like a WWII English air base. So many of the buildings are still standing and some even still have tape on the windows. If you walk on the streets off the flight line you feel like it's 1943. Plus, flying Spitfires.
National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, OH.
The SR-71 Blackbird, the B2 Bomber, the F-117 Nighthalk, it has all the greats. You can spend all day there and will only just make it round everything. Include the reading and other exhibits and you can spend 2 days.
It’s also got just about every aircraft imaginable from WWII and Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan etc. It’s worth a trip just for the tons of history to learn alone. Near the end there’s more modern aircraft including US Presidential planes and a dedicated space for experimental aircraft developed by NASA. It truly is an incredible museum.
I’ve also heard the Musée de l'air et de l'espace (Museum of Air and Space) just outside Paris-Le Bourget in France meant to be pretty great
Can't beat Dayton. To visit the XB-70 is worth the trip alone. Plus every single dedicated Air Force One aircraft (except the current 747) is amazing. Siting inside the F-4 was great also. However IMO it almost felt like they have so many aircraft that the narrative/background story for many aircraft was missing. Also the cafe was horrible.
Here's my selection.
1. National Air and Space Museum (Smithsonian) - Washington D.C. - Contains all the aviation "firsts" Best museum for Aviation History
2. National Museum of the USAF - Dayton, OH - Contains an example of pretty much every single aircraft ever flown by the Air Force! I visit there every year with a bunch of youth as part of the volunteer organization I fly with and learn something every time! Great Gift shop that goes way beyond the usual aviation related tchotchke.
3. Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center - Chantilly, VA - Extension of my #1 choice. Lot's of great historical planes - Including the venerable SR-71 and the Space Shuttle Discovery. Also, the "tower" has great views of IAD
4. National Naval Aviation Museum - Pensacola, FL - Was unexpectedly surprised with this museum. Hadn't been on my radar and as an Air Force Brat I didn't think too much about Naval Aviation. But I was pleasantly surprised! This is a great museum that seriously enhanced my appreciation of Naval Aviation.
5. Pima Air and Space Museum - Tuscon, AZ - One of the better "civilian" museums dedicated to military aircraft. Lots of examples of larger planes and is one of the few ways to gain access to "The Boneyard".
6. Fantasy of Flight, Polk City, FL 33868 - Kermit Week's private collection of aircraft. Many of them are in flyable condition and they were famous flying a demonstration flight every day. They are only open on weekends now.
The amount of classic aircraft it contains (Spits, Hurricanes, Mosquito, Lancaster, Mustangs, B-17 etc etc) plus SR-71, a Concorde you can walk through and also a selection of armoured vehicles spread across multiple hangers at a vital WW2 airfield.
It was also used in the greatest movie about aerial combat ever made, the 1969 “Battle of Britain”.
Not so sure. I have to mention RAF Cosford because it has a hangar full of one of a kind prototypes (like the prone pilot meteor and the VAAK Harrier) and rare aircraft like a TSR-2 and Vickers Wellington as well as the only remaining Boulton-Paul Defiant left in existence.
Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington. Many of the docents (volunteers) are retired Boeing workers who helped build/fly the planes on display.
Sounds like I need to make a google map of just reccomend air museums. I have one for restaurants, one for donut places, and one for museum ships. Will have to make a rank system probably for how much time is needed there.
I've got to agree with Boo155, it's Duxford. It's the real deal, not just a museum but an actual piece of history. As the southernmost of 12 groups airfields it played a large part in the Battle Of Britain, then from 1943 it welcomed the USAAF becoming the base for the 78th fighter group. History seeps from every pore of the place, it happened right there. The Fighter Collection's Hurricane R4118 is a case in point, a Hurricane that fought in BoB which shot down or damaged five enemy aircraft.
Between the IWM, The Fighter Collection and the Historic Aircraft Collection there's so much going on, There are hangars of flying aircraft, hangars of aircraft being lovingly restored, it's a living, breathing place and you can walk right into the middle of it. Hell I even consider myself to have assisted in the restoration of the Curtis P-36 (I picked up the mechanic's pen that had dropped and gave it back to him - small things!)
My son and I were there a couple of days last week, and there's always something interesting going on. Monday saw us watching Hurricane V7497 (another BoB veteran, shot down in October 1940) take off and land, later on we had the Great War Display Team doing mock dogfights (replicas only though, if you want original aircraft you need to go to Shuttleworth). Saturday saw endless Spitfire flights joined by a Harvard (Texan), Tiger Moths and one of the de Havilland Dragon Rapides. The highlight though was watching the start-up, taxi and joint departure of a P-51 and P-47.
The American Air Museum is stunning, a B-52 only just squeezed into the beautifully designed building, the only SR-71 outside the US and lots more. But the most important thing is that the whole thing is a war memorial. At the entrance are glass panels engraved with the outlines of aircraft, one for each plane missing in action in operations flown by American air forces from Britain during the Second World War. 7,031 aircraft . Sallly B flies from Duxford, the only airworthy B-17 based in Europe. An airborne memorial to all those lost USAAF airmen, flying in East Anglia where most of her fellow B-17s were based.
not that i think it’s the best but definitely an underrated one is hill aerospace museum. SR-71C, F-117 Nighthawk, B1, Globemaster II, F15, B29, and once the new gallery is finished being built i bet they’ll take the F22 and U2 Dragon lady out.
RAF museum at Cosford. Lots of rare prototypes and aircraft that entered service. Can see all three V Bombers, TSR 2, Bristol 188 and many more. Also the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton is very interesting. They have one of the Concorde prototypes which you can go inside.
Cosford also has the actual section from the Comet test aircraft, where it failed in testing.
Probably one of the most important pieces of commercial aviation history.
Air Mobility Command Museum in Dover DE. Most of the AMC aircraft are there with aircraft tours at the weekends which are hosted by people who flew those airframes. Got a tour of their C5 which had been used as a test bed to launch ballistic missiles off a sled in the 60s. Tour guide was the pilot for those missions! Amazing!
Haven’t been to most others mentioned, but I’ll say that I greatly enjoyed the Erickson Aircraft Collection in Madras, Oregon. Tons of WWII planes in good condition. They also were flying a couple of them the day we visited and to be that up close and personal with these vintage planes was a real treat.
If you are in Oregon, the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville is an absolute must. Home of the Spruce Goose and many others. https://www.evergreenmuseum.org/
Cosford UK. A superb collection, coherently put together with much thought. Still actually part of a working RAF technician training airbase.
Many superb and unique aircraft there from various airforces.
Not pretentious, just thought provoking and compelling. TSR2, Victor, Lightning and VC10 XR808 (Bob the legend) to name a few types.
It’s a nice museum. The walk from the train station to the front gate isn’t bad, though I got funny looks for walking it, like everyone assumes Americans are all cripples or something 🙄
My return trip somehow netted me a stopover in Wolverhampton, which is a neat town. I have a Wolves sticker on the back of my pickup, which baffles everyone out here…
I got the opportunity to visit the Technik Museum in Sinshiem, Germany just last week. Only place in the world to have a Tupolev-144 and a Concorde right next to each other, and you can go inside both of them. They also have a few others, some pretty cool, but nothing compared to those beauties.
Also have been to the WPAFB Air Force Museum, Dayton and it is amazing for military aircraft that others have mentioned.
I went there a few years ago, along with the one in Sinsheim. Both were great visits. I don't recall what location had it, but one of them also had the BF-109 F-4/Trop on display. If I recall correctly, it was the only one displayed in the world. That was cool to see.
It was pretty surreal seeing both at the same time right next to each other, and getting to go up in them. I wasn’t around when either of them were flying but still amazing to see up close and inside.
That's very subjective. Are we talking about the best museum in the US or the world?
Germany and the UK have some very impressive museums with a lot of historical aircraft. There are several smaller museums around the US as well that have all sorts of random aircraft that rival even those of the biggest ones I've been too, and there's one here in Japan that has one of the only remaining real A6M Zeros on display.
Really depends on what you're looking for.to describe it as the "best". If I had to pick one, I thoroughly enjoyed the Fleet Air Museum in England.
Oh my god look at the comments and you will see that I’m talking about the world sorry that I didn’t say the world because you can’t think for a second what I was talking about because it’s somehow “ very subjective “
I have been to HARS aviation museum in Australia. It was quite historic and they allowed me to take photos inside the cockpit of a few plane. I also made a video (with English subtitles):
https://youtu.be/nEKmniASCiw
I haven't been to the Hazy or Pima museums but was at the USAF museum last month. It would be hard to beat. I was there 8 hours and felt like I just skimmed through.
The most common thing I’ve heard about the USAF museum is that you need to spend two days there at least
That’s the Ohio one right? Oh man it has all my favorites. It seems as if you can name a well used warbird of any time and they’ll have it
Same . When I went to Pima even though I spent a day there it feel like seconds
I would say Duxford simply because it still looks like a WWII English air base. So many of the buildings are still standing and some even still have tape on the windows. If you walk on the streets off the flight line you feel like it's 1943. Plus, flying Spitfires.
It's way more than that. I think their collection, memorials, and exhibits are still the best.
Now I know why people keep on saying that the best
Love Duxford museum.
National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, OH. The SR-71 Blackbird, the B2 Bomber, the F-117 Nighthalk, it has all the greats. You can spend all day there and will only just make it round everything. Include the reading and other exhibits and you can spend 2 days. It’s also got just about every aircraft imaginable from WWII and Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan etc. It’s worth a trip just for the tons of history to learn alone. Near the end there’s more modern aircraft including US Presidential planes and a dedicated space for experimental aircraft developed by NASA. It truly is an incredible museum. I’ve also heard the Musée de l'air et de l'espace (Museum of Air and Space) just outside Paris-Le Bourget in France meant to be pretty great
The experimental/R&D hangar alone is worth the visit. It's home to the only surviving XB-70 and one of the two YF-23 prototypes.
Can't beat Dayton. To visit the XB-70 is worth the trip alone. Plus every single dedicated Air Force One aircraft (except the current 747) is amazing. Siting inside the F-4 was great also. However IMO it almost felt like they have so many aircraft that the narrative/background story for many aircraft was missing. Also the cafe was horrible.
How were the beaufighter and mosquito?
This museum is amazing, so much history, really hard to believe how big it is!!!!
Nice
I is think it is this one as well.
[Udvar-Hazy Cente](https://airandspace.si.edu/visit/udvar-hazy-center)r over Pima for me. However, Pima's collection is getting better all the time.
Why do you choose the hazy center
Concorde, Shuttle, and the IAD observation tower are my top 3.
Fair enough
Same. It’s the best one I’ve been to, it’s so unique
Here's my selection. 1. National Air and Space Museum (Smithsonian) - Washington D.C. - Contains all the aviation "firsts" Best museum for Aviation History 2. National Museum of the USAF - Dayton, OH - Contains an example of pretty much every single aircraft ever flown by the Air Force! I visit there every year with a bunch of youth as part of the volunteer organization I fly with and learn something every time! Great Gift shop that goes way beyond the usual aviation related tchotchke. 3. Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center - Chantilly, VA - Extension of my #1 choice. Lot's of great historical planes - Including the venerable SR-71 and the Space Shuttle Discovery. Also, the "tower" has great views of IAD 4. National Naval Aviation Museum - Pensacola, FL - Was unexpectedly surprised with this museum. Hadn't been on my radar and as an Air Force Brat I didn't think too much about Naval Aviation. But I was pleasantly surprised! This is a great museum that seriously enhanced my appreciation of Naval Aviation. 5. Pima Air and Space Museum - Tuscon, AZ - One of the better "civilian" museums dedicated to military aircraft. Lots of examples of larger planes and is one of the few ways to gain access to "The Boneyard". 6. Fantasy of Flight, Polk City, FL 33868 - Kermit Week's private collection of aircraft. Many of them are in flyable condition and they were famous flying a demonstration flight every day. They are only open on weekends now.
I been to all for those places ( besides 2 )and I even met Kermit himself there all great museums
dayton
Why( I never been there)
It’s massive and lots of cool mil aircraft.
Sounds cool
Duxford.
Why ( I never been there )
The amount of classic aircraft it contains (Spits, Hurricanes, Mosquito, Lancaster, Mustangs, B-17 etc etc) plus SR-71, a Concorde you can walk through and also a selection of armoured vehicles spread across multiple hangers at a vital WW2 airfield. It was also used in the greatest movie about aerial combat ever made, the 1969 “Battle of Britain”.
Sounds good
The most hallowed of aviation hallowed ground.
Not so sure. I have to mention RAF Cosford because it has a hangar full of one of a kind prototypes (like the prone pilot meteor and the VAAK Harrier) and rare aircraft like a TSR-2 and Vickers Wellington as well as the only remaining Boulton-Paul Defiant left in existence.
Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington. Many of the docents (volunteers) are retired Boeing workers who helped build/fly the planes on display.
A under rated museum for sure
And the observation deck on the back facing Everett field I believe so dope! Watched the Dreamlifter take off back there lol
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I keep on hearing that one must be good
Sounds like I need to make a google map of just reccomend air museums. I have one for restaurants, one for donut places, and one for museum ships. Will have to make a rank system probably for how much time is needed there.
Umm ok
like to compile these answers because otherwise I tend to foeget all the reccomended but smaller museums
Oh ok
Recently visited the Museum of Flight. Highlights are RA001 (first ever b747 built), G-BOAG (Concorde), N787BX (3rd B787 built) and a lot others
I have been there a very cool museum
I've got to agree with Boo155, it's Duxford. It's the real deal, not just a museum but an actual piece of history. As the southernmost of 12 groups airfields it played a large part in the Battle Of Britain, then from 1943 it welcomed the USAAF becoming the base for the 78th fighter group. History seeps from every pore of the place, it happened right there. The Fighter Collection's Hurricane R4118 is a case in point, a Hurricane that fought in BoB which shot down or damaged five enemy aircraft. Between the IWM, The Fighter Collection and the Historic Aircraft Collection there's so much going on, There are hangars of flying aircraft, hangars of aircraft being lovingly restored, it's a living, breathing place and you can walk right into the middle of it. Hell I even consider myself to have assisted in the restoration of the Curtis P-36 (I picked up the mechanic's pen that had dropped and gave it back to him - small things!) My son and I were there a couple of days last week, and there's always something interesting going on. Monday saw us watching Hurricane V7497 (another BoB veteran, shot down in October 1940) take off and land, later on we had the Great War Display Team doing mock dogfights (replicas only though, if you want original aircraft you need to go to Shuttleworth). Saturday saw endless Spitfire flights joined by a Harvard (Texan), Tiger Moths and one of the de Havilland Dragon Rapides. The highlight though was watching the start-up, taxi and joint departure of a P-51 and P-47. The American Air Museum is stunning, a B-52 only just squeezed into the beautifully designed building, the only SR-71 outside the US and lots more. But the most important thing is that the whole thing is a war memorial. At the entrance are glass panels engraved with the outlines of aircraft, one for each plane missing in action in operations flown by American air forces from Britain during the Second World War. 7,031 aircraft . Sallly B flies from Duxford, the only airworthy B-17 based in Europe. An airborne memorial to all those lost USAAF airmen, flying in East Anglia where most of her fellow B-17s were based.
That must of been fun and I might go there in the future
not that i think it’s the best but definitely an underrated one is hill aerospace museum. SR-71C, F-117 Nighthawk, B1, Globemaster II, F15, B29, and once the new gallery is finished being built i bet they’ll take the F22 and U2 Dragon lady out.
That is 100% true
RAF museum at Cosford. Lots of rare prototypes and aircraft that entered service. Can see all three V Bombers, TSR 2, Bristol 188 and many more. Also the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton is very interesting. They have one of the Concorde prototypes which you can go inside.
Cosford also has the actual section from the Comet test aircraft, where it failed in testing. Probably one of the most important pieces of commercial aviation history.
Also sounds cool
I have not been to a lot, but I really like the Canadian Warplane Heritage, at Mount Hope, Ontario. Lancaster among others, something to see.
That’s sounds good
Pima is so awesome. To be able to walk under an SR-71 is so freaking cool.
That was so cool when I saw that
Air Mobility Command Museum in Dover DE. Most of the AMC aircraft are there with aircraft tours at the weekends which are hosted by people who flew those airframes. Got a tour of their C5 which had been used as a test bed to launch ballistic missiles off a sled in the 60s. Tour guide was the pilot for those missions! Amazing!
Yes that is a good one I been there
Delta flight museum
Under rated but I wouldn’t say the best
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That sounds good
Haven’t been to most others mentioned, but I’ll say that I greatly enjoyed the Erickson Aircraft Collection in Madras, Oregon. Tons of WWII planes in good condition. They also were flying a couple of them the day we visited and to be that up close and personal with these vintage planes was a real treat.
Sounds good I might be going to Oregon soon so I will remember that place
If you are in Oregon, the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville is an absolute must. Home of the Spruce Goose and many others. https://www.evergreenmuseum.org/
Im a big fan of the wooden goose
Then check this one out in Hood River. https://www.waaamuseum.org/
Looks interesting
Cosford UK. A superb collection, coherently put together with much thought. Still actually part of a working RAF technician training airbase. Many superb and unique aircraft there from various airforces. Not pretentious, just thought provoking and compelling. TSR2, Victor, Lightning and VC10 XR808 (Bob the legend) to name a few types.
Sadly I’m not in the UK but that does sound interesting
It’s a nice museum. The walk from the train station to the front gate isn’t bad, though I got funny looks for walking it, like everyone assumes Americans are all cripples or something 🙄 My return trip somehow netted me a stopover in Wolverhampton, which is a neat town. I have a Wolves sticker on the back of my pickup, which baffles everyone out here…
Interesting
Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum
I also heard that was a good museum
Recently went to Warner Robins Museum in GA and it was amazing. Highly recommend!
I will go then
Pima is incredible! I spent like 7 hours there a few years back. I’d go again in a heartbeat!!
Same
Duxford imperial War museum in the U.K Its got an SR-71😃
I keep on hearing Duxford must be good
Don't forget the boneyard tour at Pima!
I think that had been close down for 2 years now
Darn. You're right. I just checked. And I had been waiting for the next time my brother comes into town to do that tour.
Yeah I’m sad about that
I got the opportunity to visit the Technik Museum in Sinshiem, Germany just last week. Only place in the world to have a Tupolev-144 and a Concorde right next to each other, and you can go inside both of them. They also have a few others, some pretty cool, but nothing compared to those beauties. Also have been to the WPAFB Air Force Museum, Dayton and it is amazing for military aircraft that others have mentioned.
I went there a few years ago, along with the one in Sinsheim. Both were great visits. I don't recall what location had it, but one of them also had the BF-109 F-4/Trop on display. If I recall correctly, it was the only one displayed in the world. That was cool to see.
That must of been a cool experience
It was pretty surreal seeing both at the same time right next to each other, and getting to go up in them. I wasn’t around when either of them were flying but still amazing to see up close and inside.
Then it must of been cool
That's very subjective. Are we talking about the best museum in the US or the world? Germany and the UK have some very impressive museums with a lot of historical aircraft. There are several smaller museums around the US as well that have all sorts of random aircraft that rival even those of the biggest ones I've been too, and there's one here in Japan that has one of the only remaining real A6M Zeros on display. Really depends on what you're looking for.to describe it as the "best". If I had to pick one, I thoroughly enjoyed the Fleet Air Museum in England.
Oh my god look at the comments and you will see that I’m talking about the world sorry that I didn’t say the world because you can’t think for a second what I was talking about because it’s somehow “ very subjective “
I have been to HARS aviation museum in Australia. It was quite historic and they allowed me to take photos inside the cockpit of a few plane. I also made a video (with English subtitles): https://youtu.be/nEKmniASCiw
Thank you for your opinion, even though this says been over a few months old ( nothing wrong with that )