Travis AFB Museum Visit, 1991

[Paul Bradley]

As promised in Tony's recent thread, here are my photos from the Travis AFB museum, but from 1991 - checking my spotter's log from that period, it was February 1st, 1991, to be precise. Many of the aircraft featured in Tony's 2013 photos were there in 1991, but I had limited film and was rather choosy about what I photographed. It is interesting to compare the schemes and condition of the airframes from both visits. 

 

F-102A 61247:

 

 

 

 

Lockheed C-56 Lodestar 4119729:

 

 

 

 

 

A-26K 43652:

 

 

 

A-26B 435440

 

 

 

Piasecki HH-21 0-28688:

 

 

 

VH-34C 571705:

 

 

 

 

Cessna LC-126 (Model 195):

 

 

 

 

F-101 80285:

 

 

 

 

F-102 and F-105 62299:

 

 

 

My spotter's log notes 25 airframes onsite, and it's a shame we didn't have digital cameras back then! 

 

Later in the year, I went to their airshow, which included one of the first public airshow displays by the F-117A. But that's another story....

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 24, 2021 by Paul Bradley

[canberraman]

A lovely set of images Paul from a pre digital age! It's interesting to see the changes that occurred between the two visits.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

Mark

[Army_Air_Force]

Those pics bring back some memories. I called in to Travis on my Honeymoon in 2000. Here's a few of my pictures. I was also shooting with film and since I went to a number of other aircraft museums including Pima/Davis Monthan, Hill AFB, Castle AFB, Boeing & Museum of Flight and others, I was limiting how many pictures I took, trying to save shots for unusual aircraft or those I was unlikely to see in the UK.

 

 

 

Edited August 25, 2021 by Army_Air_Force

[Paul Bradley]

Cheers, guys. 

 

You must have a very tolerant wife! Mine was bemused and not terribly amused by my spotting from the hotel balcony on our honeymoon - P-3s doing circuits and bumps was too hard to ignore....... She still reminds me 28 years later.......

 

I also did a Grand Tour of California museums - in a week in late November 1991, we did Castle, San Diego, Chino, Palmdale, Mojave and March - exhausting! If only we'd had digital back then..... Earlier in my stay, we'd done Travis, Beale and Oakland as well as a number of airshows. I need to get scanning.....

Edited August 25, 2021 by Paul Bradley

[Army_Air_Force]

1 hour ago, Paul Bradley said:

You must have a very tolerant wife!

 

Our honeymoon was planned around aircraft museums and national parks. We did 6,000 miles in 3 weeks through 9 states. Quite an adventure! 21 years later, we're still together so we must be doing something right!

[Paul Bradley]

She's a keeper, alright!

 

[F-32]

Great shots! Glad to see the collection is stable as well, most of those airframes were still there during my visit.

[Swamp Donkey]

Never made it to Travis, enjoying all the photos

 

As for film…my first trip to MASDC in the dark and distant past you could get off the bus and wander around. I think I may have had a maximum of 20 rolls of film for the entire 2 week trip - impossible to decide what to shoot, so ended up with very little, a few recently arrived F105’s and the field was stacked with tall tail B52’s. As others have said, oh for digital. On a similar trip 4 or 5 years ago I shot about 2000 rubbish images from inside the bus - it’s annoying!!!

 

SD

[Paul Bradley]

And today, you can't even open the windows on the bus, as I was able to do back in the 90's when a school bus was used. Now it's air conditioned coaches. Mind you, they aren't running boneyard tours at the moment due to COVID. 

 

Mind you, a colleague of mine has done this in the past:

 

https://www.raceentry.com/desert-boneyard-10k5k/race-information

 

https://www.dm.af.mil/Media/Article-View/Article/1970208/boneyard-run-2019/

 

He took his camera and walked most of the course.....😉

Edited August 27, 2021 by Paul Bradley

[Swamp Donkey]

Oh wow! I’ve just turned in to a 17 stone Mo Farah!! Never even heard of this event, brilliant!

 

SD

[Army_Air_Force]

Moving on from Travis, here's my Davis-Monthan pictures from July 2000. At one point, the tour guide pointed to an empty piece of desert and told the tour that this was the jigs for the stealth fighters. Several people took pictures of the empty ground! 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This might have been Pima.

[Paul Bradley]

Cool! The C-46 looks as if it's in one of the scrap merchants' yards just outside the fence. 

[HOUSTON]

Gentlemen,  Thank you for Wonderful  Superb  photos.