Warbird Information Exchange

It is a different type of museum, had to put into words, but sure has a different feel (intentionally) than a typical aviation museum where much of the emphasis is just on displaying the aircraft. This is more of an "experience" type walk through with lots of interactive displays, focus on people (some famous, most not), displays and the stages of the war on all fronts. Likely much better at educating an entertaining a wider array of visitors, but for me as a warbird fan, it felt a little too Disney like for me. The aviation pavilion is a small part of it. Don't get me wrong, very well done and professional, I'm just the type who would rather be in musty hangar or ramp and up close with the aircraft. They do have some walkways, but the suspended aircraft can be tough to get close to and I have never been a fan of suspended aircraft. And yes I understand the warbird enthusiast is not the target audience. Great place to learn about the war, maybe not so much for the diehard equipment aviation fan. I digress, sorry for the ramble.

That's pretty much my take on it as well.

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Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)

Me too, and that whole submarine living experience was a little strange to me..

Phil

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A man's got to know his limitations.

The "B-24" (as mentioned above, actually a PB4Y-2) is.....well, it's better than nothing, I suppose. At least it's been preserved. The top turret is sitting way too low for some reason, and the nose greenhouse is a rather crude-looking homemade affair (I know, I know...99% of visitors wouldn't know the difference, and the place isn't aimed and s and nit-pickers like us.) Anyway, here are a couple of pics I took of it when we visited in 2019.

SN

I assume this is covered elsewhere - is there a single source or thread that gives the history of each of these aircraft? Are any replicas?

Ken

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"Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves."

The easy one is My Gal Sal, recovered off of the Greenland ice cap and restored by Bob Ready up in Cincinnati. Mr. Ready gave me a tour of the restored aircraft (in unjoined major sections) when I passed through Cincinnati on the way back from Oshkosh in 2004 or so. A museum to house it and other WWII artifacts was supposed to be built on or near the Blue Ash airport in Cincy, but that project fell through and the airplane was acquired by the Nat'l WWII Museum.

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/media ... my-gal-sal

I really want to know the answer as well. I've been wondering about this myself for a while now. I actually searched this thread hoping someone had a definitive answer.


I've always felt like they have an oddly high percentage of replicas/composites for a museum of their stature. Nothing against them, but its hard to find a background on a number of the aircraft at the museum. The P-40, P-51, Spitfire, Bf 109, and a number of others sort of appeared out of nowhere. Not they're not legitimate or that you can't find some provenance on them if you go digging, but none of them really seem to be examples of aircraft where you go, "oh, I remember that plane when it used to be at such-and-such museum".

At least it's not like the Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Russia. I remember reading the signs there and basically all of their aircraft were replicas.


More like the airport fell through and the project followed, but yeah, that's the gist of it.

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Tri-State Warbird Museum Collections Manager & Museum Attendant

Warbird Philosophy Webmaster

Not sure if it is true, but I read somewhere that some type of corrosion inhibitor was sprayed on the interior during the plane's restoration and it has slowly leeched through the rivet lines causing the dark, oil staining areas on the exterior paint.

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"Everyone wants to live here (New Jersey), evidenced by the fact that it has the highest population per capita in the U.S..."

I noticed in photos of My Gal Sal on the icecap, the national insignia with its red center meatball was clearly visible. In the restoration, they chose the insignia without the red center. I know that the insignia was amended by order on 5/28/42 and My Gal Sal went down on the ice in late June of 42.

Question, when the orders came down to remove the red center from the insignia, were all those planes painted over near immediately? was it as simple as some hastily applied white over the red center, and after many years on the ice the white-over vanished revealing the red center? Or did it take awhile for crews to get to painting? I would think that a group departing the states for Europe would have up to date specs on insignia.

Beats me but I wouldn't be shocked. I was quite unimpressed with all the replica personal items they had on display. My wife told me to quit saying, "Geez, I have a real one of these at home!" after a while on out visit. And I mean stuff they should have plenty of originals. Two that stood out was a display of plastic castings of canteens, and a morphene syrette with box. Neither are hard to find for originals!

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Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)