The American Air Museum, Duxford

I recently visited the American Air Museum in Duxford, which is probably the finest museum of American military aviation outside the USA. The museum was largely a gift from the USA to the UK and was paid for by over 60,000 subscribers in America. Their names have been recorded in a special book on display in the museum's foyer.  The founding member was none other than Jimmy Doolittle, famous for the "Doolittle Raid" on Tokyo in 1942, he later came to England where he served as head of the 8th Airforce between 1943 and 1945.

The museum building was designed by Sir Norman Forster and contains 20 different aeroplanes. The superb collection includes the only SR-71A Blackbird on display in Europe and this particular plane set the world altitude record for a jet aircraft in 1976. The largest plane on display is the B-52 Stratofortress which flew 200 missions in the Vietnam War. The B-29 Superfortress flew missions in the Korean War and the F-111 flew 19 missions in the 1991 Gulf War. Also on display is a Douglas C-47 Skytrain which flew airbourne troops on three major operations in World War II including the Normandy landings.

The museum was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 1st August 1997 and was re-dedicated in September 2002 in a ceremony attended by Prince Charles and former President George H.W. Bush. The latter would have recognised the Grumman Avenger as it was painted in the same colours as the one that he flew in World War II.  Please see below for the photographs of my visit.

1. A F-15 Eagle stands guard outside the museum (above).

2. The museum was designed by Sir Norman Foster. The lack of supporting olumns allows aircraft to be displayed suspended from the ceiling (above).

3. A bust of the leader of the 8th Airforce, James H. Doolittle, who led the efforts to create the museum at Duxford.

4. A Spad 13, an American plane from the First World War (above).

5. A Boeing Stearman PT17 (above), another early American bi-plane.

6. A North American AT-6D Texan (above), used for the advanced training of allied pilots between 1938 and 1955.

7. A Consolidated B-24M Liberator, a strategic bomber from World War II (above).

8. A North American P-51D Mustang (above), which could escort bombers all the way to Berlin and back in World War II. It's long range was derived from it's Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, which was produced under license in America.

9. A Douglas C-47 Skytrain (above). This particular plane carried airborne troops in Operation Overlord (Normandy, June 1944), Operation Market Garden (Arnhem, September 1944) and Operation Varsity (crossing the Rhine, March 1945).

10. A Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress, the most famous strategic bomber used by the Americans in Europe in the Second World War (above).

11. A Republic P-47D Thunderbolt from World War II (above), with it's modern day counterpart, an A10 Thunderbolt suspended above it.

12. A Grumman Avenger (above), which was a carrier-based torpedo bomber used by the US Navy in the war against Japan. It was armed with a 22-inch torpedo and other weapons and had a power-operated gun turret.

13. A B-29 Superfortress of the kind used to drop atomic weapons on Japan (above). This used to be the only B-29 on public display in Europe and flew bombing missions in the Korean War.

14. A North American B-25 Mitchell, a strategic bomber from the Second World War (above).

15. A SR-71A Blackbird, used a spy-plane until the mid-nineties (above). This one broke the world altitude record in July 1976, achieving level flight at 85,069 feet (25,929 metres). This is the only one on public display outside the USA.

16. A Boeing B-52 Stratofortress (above). This one flew over 200 bombing missions in the Vietnam War as part of the 28th Bomb Wing. Between 1965 and 1973 the B-52s dropped 3 million tonnes of bombs on South-east Asia. Each plane could carry 108 conventional bombs weighing 27 tonnes. When this one landed at Duxford it landed on the shortest runway that a B-52 hasever used.

17. A Lockheed U2 (above). These were designed to fly spying missions over the USSR between bases in Norway and Turkey. They could fly at an altitude of 14 miles, which was higher than any Soviet fighter could reach.  In 1960 one was shot down in Russia and the pilot, Gary Powers, put on public trial. In 1962 they flew a spying mission over Cuba and saw that the Cubans were deploying Soviet nuclear missiles, thus precipitating the Cuban Missile Crisis.

18. A North American F-100 Super Sabre (above).

19. A Bell Huey helicopter (above). This was the workhorse of the Vietnam War, with over 2,000 in the air at any one time. It was used to carry troops into combat zones and evacuate casualties. Over 12,000 were built.

20. A McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom (above).

21. A General Dynamic F-111 (above). This one flew 19 missions over Iraq in the first Gulf War of 1991 as part of the 77th Fighter Squadron.

22. A F-111 cockpit section (above).

23. A Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt (above), which was a tank-busting ground attack aircraft from the cold war. Many were based in England at Bentwaters and Woodbridge and, of these, 144 were transferred to Saudi Arabia for Operation Desert Storm in 1991. They flew a total of 8,500 sorties against Saddam Hussein's forces, dropped 24,000 missiles, rockets and bombs, and fired over 1,000,000 rounds from their cannon. They destroyed 2,000 Iraqi tanks, 1,200 artillery pieces and 2,000 vehicles. They also shot down 2 helicopters in air-to-air combat.

24. A Lockheed T33A (above), which became America's first operational jet training aircarft in 1948.

25. A Ford Mutt ambulance, used in the Vietnam War (above).

26. A cruise missile launch trailer (above). Cruise missiles were based at Greenham Common in 1983 and Molesworth in 1987. However, they were all removed by 1991 as part of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987. There were 4 missiles to each trailer and in the event of a nuclear war they would have been taken to different parts to England to be used against the Soviet Union. Critics said that they escalated tension in the Cold War but supporters stated their use as a nuclear deterrent and as a bargaining counter in arms negotiations with the Soviet Union.

27. A General Dynamics Tomahawk Cruise Missile (above). Originally these were armed with a nuclear warhead. Some are still fired from submarines with conventional warheads.

28. A SA-2 surface-to-air missile used by the Soviet Union and their allies. Over 4,000 were fired against American aircraft in the Vietnam War but only 50 hit their target, of which 17 were B-52 bombers. A SA-2 was also thought to have been used to shoot down Gary Powers's U2 over the Soviet Union in 1960.

29. A captured Iraqi Scud-B missile from the 1991 Gulf War (above) together with a smaller American Patriot missile.

30. A F-15 cockpit simulator (above), which was used to train aircrew at Lakenheath.

31. The cap and tunic of Lieut-General Ira Eaker, commander of the 8th Airforce from 1942-44 (above).

32. The cap and tunic of Brigadier-General James Stewart (above).  Better known as movie star Jimmy Stewart, he served in the airforce during World War II. He was based at Tibenham in Norfolk and flew on 20 combat missions over Nazi Germany. He was awarded the DFC, returned to the USA as a Colonel and joined the reserve, later flying in missions over North Vietnam.