Several old war birds flew into Tyler airport and air museum for the weekend. Thought it would be something interesting to check out.

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Timmy is good at hamming it up for the camera .... guess when your dad is a photographer you get use to having your picture taken. This is one of Tim's photos.

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While I was looking at the model airplanes one of the museum docents asked me if I wanted to hear an interesting story about them. Of course I said yes. Apparently, shortly after the US entered WWII blocks of wood were given to boys and they were asked to carve models of the fighter airplanes. The models were then used to train the pilots to identify friendly and unfriendly planes so they would know which ones to shoot at when they were flying. If you think about it, WWII was the first war where airplanes were heavily used and new planes were being introduced quickly. Electronics was in it's infancy so identification had to be by sight.

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This display brought back fashion memories .... some of them not so good.

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This is a B-17 Flying Fortress. The fellow in the front on the right flew in this plane. He says it looks exactly the same as when he stepped out of it.

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The plane was opened up so you could walk through it. Darryl found some places a tight fit ... actually so did I. The men who flew these planes worked in very small quarters.

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The B-24J Liberator also allowed people to walk through it. That's Tim inside aiming the gun at his mother.

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Sarah and Timmy giving the gun a try.

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The Messerschmitt Me 262, the first jet fighter. This is one of three replicas that are still flying. The Messerschmitt could have changed the war for the Germans, but it was too little too late. The allied forces managed to grind maintenance and production to a halt with continued bombing runs. There are no original Me 262s are left flying.


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You could buy rides on this Huey.

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Some of the planes always on display at the museum.

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Zaph relaxing at Carol's home.