NMUSAF not a top-ten museum?

[Django]

I got a reply back from TripAdvisor:

Hi Chad,

Thanks for your note regarding TripAdvisor's list of the top ten aviation attractions in the U.S.

The list was based on traveler ratings on TripAdvisor and the opinions of our editors and experts. Given the wealth of highly-rated aviation attractions on the site we were unfortunately unable to include all of the attractions we would have liked in our final top 10. The National Museum of the U.S. Airforce was certainly among the final contenders.

I sincerely appreciate your feedback on the list, however, and will pass it along for consideration once we revisit the list next year. Our goal was to bring attention to some of America's best aviation attractions, and we will certainly try to highlight others in the years to come.

All the best,
Justin Drake
TripAdvisor.com

[k5083]

August, the NASM is awesome. I would never argue with that. The greatest? Depends on what you are looking for.

I'm not talking about what "I" am looking for, I'm talking about who's looking. I have read that the NASM is the world's most visited museum OF ANY KIND. That's not just because of the nice planes, it's location, location, location. It's in the center of one of the world's top tourist sites, national and international. That would make it a top showcase even if its exhibits were not as special as they are.

There are other centrally located museums with aviation content in major world tourist cities, such as IWM London, but they do not have many planes. Most of the big air museums are located in places like Dayton, Pensacola, Duxford, Midland, Yeovilton, Monino, Oshkosh, Le Bourget, Vigna di Valle, Xiao Tang, "Orlampa", that are very obscure or even armpits (although the countryside around Duxford is nice). Even Udvar-Hazy, Chino and Hendon are really too inaccessible for most visitors to the big cities that they are on the fringes of. They can never draw a truly mass audience of ordinary people no matter how good they are. Which is what I meant by "aviation showcase" as opposed to "paradise for airplane buffs".

August

[Zachary]

Of course I'm biased, but I'd rank the EAA AirVenture Museum right up there. Unfortunately other than one week a year, Oshkosh is hardly a destination hot spot for most folks, and our attendance reflects that.

Zack

[mustangdriver]

Zack, I think that Bary and I would consider Oshkosh a great place to visit. Our Hops and Props trip was legendary. Can't wait to do it again this year. I hear that barry might even remember being there this year. Kidding ya Bary. Hey did she just eat off of your plate?

[mustangdriver]

But August, most visited does not equal greatest. And I am not saying that the NMUSAF is the greatest. Greatest is in the eye of the beholder. Greatest if anything should be voted by aviation nuts and not the general public. If aviation nuts vote a place or object as awesome or greatest than it really must be the greatest. It would be like me voting on the best bowling lanes.

[P51Mstg]

The "general public" (those who can't tell the difference between a Wright Flyer, Cub, 747 and Space Shuttle) voted for it, so what would you expect?

Lack of NMUSAF being the top 10, probably has something to do with the Memphis Belle "copyright" and the F-82 "grab" so they didn't get the votes they needed. I'm sure the doors are not going to be closing at NMUSAF in the near future because of it.....

However, I went to the Intrepid a few weeks back. I was far from impressed. I've been on carriers before They had some planes on the deck, the Concorde on the dock/barge and a couple inside, nothing really spectacular. Actually I thought the Midway in San Diego was better. For that matter the San Diego A&S Museum is a superb place with the collection as well as the way its presented.

The Wright Brothers Memorial is OK,but hardly an "aviation museum" in the purest sense.

The Navy in Pensacola, Museum of Flight in Seattle, and Pima have awesome collections and are well worth the trip. Pima is kind of in a class by itself with everything it has (as they said in real estate class "location, location, location).....

Boeing factory tour, is just that, and I've been there, its cool, but hardly a museum...

Never been to Hawaii or Arlington VA, but if you want to consider a "park" (airplanes on sticks and the such outside), then CASTLE AFB in Atwater CA is amazing.....

Evergreen, just there 2 months ago for the second time. It should be at the top of the list for civilian/private museums. In a class by itself and it is really incredible. Shows a real investment of effort and piles of money. Easily my favorite.

Smithsonian at the Mall and Dulles as well as the EAA should have been on it. Smithsonian is a great "museum" in that the collection is well presented to educate people, so you can leave knowing more than when you walked in. EAA, well Zach, knows well, its simply awesome, I'd have to give Paul P some real credit for having the thought to build it and then finance it without dipping into really deep personal pockets (a la Evergreen)....

Its hard to come up with a top ten list of museums most could agree upon...

Mark H

[Pat Carry]

The NMUSAF is at least in the top 5 and in my opinion its no. 2.

[Obergrafeter]

what the CAF Museum in the tourist Capital of Texas not on the list????Sacralidge.

[andyman64]

living in cobourg ontario canada i would like to put the canadian air force museum in trenton on the list of my favourites with an hounorable mention to the aircraft museum at calgary airport (awsome aero engine display)!!!

[6trn4brn]

Hmmm....I will throw in the Grissom Air Museum for the simple fact that I have not visited another museum anywhere that has a B-58 Hustler on display beside an F-14 Tomcat

Personally, I don't know why we have to rank and rate things as being number 1 or the biggest, coolest, fastest...etc. As an aviation enthusiast, I have loved visiting the EAA Museum, The NMUSAF, The NASM, The parade grounds at Lackland and even the Marine Museum at Quantico. My opinion is that ranking anyplace that has any airplanes is like asking me to rank which of my family I love the most...I love them all equally.

Now...back to arguing...

[mustangdriver]

Lack of NMUSAF being the top 10, probably has something to do with the Memphis Belle "copyright" and the F-82 "grab" so they didn't get the votes they needed. I'm sure the doors are not going to be closing at NMUSAF in the near future because of it.....

I doubt that. Besides they were right times.

[P51Mstg]

Chris, you fail to catch the sarcasm in the "copyright" and "grab" line I used. The general web searching "lets go to the airshow and see the boats" public doesn't have a clue any of that happened.

However, a combo of the USAFM and Grissom, shouldn't let one of (6 or 7) B-58s left (and the ONLY TB-58), sit outside and ROT.... Don't say that Grissom doesn't have the money, because if they can't take care of it, they should send it somewhere where it can be inside or at least in a dry climate. Someday someone will get the idea to raise $$$ to save it when it could have been saved with a bit of planning.

100 years from now, you will not be seeing any of the planes on outside display, mostly because they will have all rotted away....

Mark H

[mustangdriver]

Mark, I know. Sometimes it is hard to get sarcasim in how something is written. As far as the B-58, there are a few things that need to be known about that aircarft. One is that it was burned in a fire in an accident during that ended it's operational career. That is how the museum got it. It is basically a shell. No engines, no cockpit, no systems. The Grissom Air Museum managed to put it back together to look like a whole aircraft. As a matter in fact the whole nose is just a replica made from the drawings. It looks pretty convincing though.
You mention the aircraft that sit outside, but you have to remember that with some of these aircraft, everyone is doing the best they can. There is a B-47 outside of the NMUSAF restoration shop at the museum which is free to be requested. However the costs of moving the aircraft and housing it has prevented anyone from doing so. So where are all of these buildings and groups that want to take on projects like this?
I know what you mean about seeing these aircraft in rough shape, but I am not sure there are tons of people standing in line to really work on them.

[airknocker]

The list from Warbird Alley appears to be the most inclusive worldwide. Maybe the WIXers could assist in filling in any gaps.
http://www.warbirdalley.com/museum.htm

[Garth]

Never been to Hawaii or Arlington VA, but if you want to consider a "park" (airplanes on sticks and the such outside), then CASTLE AFB in Atwater CA is amazing.....

Gravelly Point, in Arlington, really is a "park". Several soccer fields along with a large parking lot and a ramp for launching boats into the Potomac.

No airplanes on sticks or on outside/static display.

What it does offer is a plane watching location about 150 yards from the Northern end of Reagan National's main runway. It's not a bad location to see commercial airliners arriving and departing ... especially when planes are using the down-river approach and have to bend and weave their way between Rosslyn and the Pentagon on one side and DC on the other. And there's a decent crosswind

However Ft. Mifflin outside Philly is MUCH better for plane watching, since the largest aircraft Reagan-Nat can handle are 757s. Was up there a few weeks back to see the ex-USS Olympia (before they close her down) and stopped off at the old fort. There was a 747 that left one heck of a slipstream squeal/whine after it passed over.