Joy's Jaunts
If you’re an airplane and aviation fan like me, you sure live in the right place. A lot of folks know about the big local collections of planes and memorabilia, such as the Frontiers of Flight Museum at Dallas’ Love Field and the Cavanaugh Flight Museum in Addison, but how about this: There are so many aviation-related museums and collections hereabouts, there’s actually a North Texas Association of Aviation Museums, which I recently stumbled onto while searching for something else (thank you, Google). On the association’s website, notaam.org, it lists 21 organizations across a broad swath of North Texas.
So if you’re already feeling overwhelmed with Thanksgiving and Christmas madness, which began even before Halloween this year, and want to take flight into something else, here are a few suggestions. One’s in Terrell and one is in Tyler to the east, if you’re looking for an easy day trip, and one offers Christmas-light flights if you’re in an elfin mood despite the aforementioned madness. Note: Many venues will be closed or have special hours on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day; call or check websites before going.
AMERICAN AIRLINES C.R. SMITH MUSEUM
Curators call this venue “a window-seat view of aviation through hands-on science and history exhibits, memorabilia, a restored 1940s DC-3 Flagship Knoxville and a large-format HD film, The Pursuit of Flight.” Through Jan. 3, it has a special exhibit, “Super Kids Save the World,” which encourages children to use the “four R’s: reduce, reuse, repair and recyle.” The museum opened in 1993, and is dedicated to past and present American Airlines employees and the late C.R. Smith, longtime American Airlines president and aviation pioneer.
4601 State Highway 360 at FAA Road, Fort Worth. Open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. $7 for adults; $4 for children 2-17, active-duty military, seniors 65 and older and students; free for children under 2. Closed Dec. 21-Jan. 1 for the holidays. 817-967-1560. crsmithmuseum.org.
CAVANAUGH FLIGHT MUSEUM
In Addison, visitors can see a collection of aircraft that are all flyable. “We don’t have relics that can’t go up,” says Scott Slocum, director of marketing. The museum’s aircraft range from World War I-era through Vietnam. One special item is a Fokker D.VII from World War I, and the area’s only P-51 Mustang (nicknamed “The Brat”). The museum hosts two annual events where visitors can watch the planes in flight, Warbirds Over Addison each spring and Fall Fly Days in the autumn, as well as several other exhibits and activities throughout the year. Cavanaugh also has a Sherman tank whose gun can still be fired. Six different planes are also available for skyward trips with passengers.
4572 Claire Chennault, Addison. Hours are Mondays through Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. $10 for adults, $8 for active military and seniors 65 and older, $5 for children 4-12, free for children under 4. Passenger flights range from $120 to $1,900 per person, depending on the aircraft. 972-380-8800. cavflight.org.
FRONTIERS OF FLIGHT MUSEUM
If you’re driving along Lemmon Avenue beside Love Field in Dallas, you can’t miss this venue — it has a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 sticking half-in, half-out of the more than 100,000-square-foot hangar in which it resides. Among the museum’s eye-boggling collection of fascinating aircraft and memorabilia are the Apollo 7 command module (on loan from the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C.), still bathed in space dust. It was the first manned flight of the Apollo program, carrying Walter Cunningham, Walter Schirra and Donn Eisele into space Oct. 11-22, 1968. The module traveled a total distance of 4,539,959 miles, making 163 Earth orbits in its 10-day mission. There’s also the must-see-to-believe-it V-173 “Flying Pancake,” which looks just like it sounds, and is a one-of-a-kind test aircraft dating to World War II. Frontiers of Flight also has North Texas’ only moon rock, on loan from NASA. The museum has frequent public events and speakers, some of whom don costumes and personalities such as Amelia Earhardt, Orville Wright and Dr. Moonwalker.
6911 Lemmon Ave., Dallas. Hours are Mondays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m. $8 for adults, $6 for seniors 65 and older, $5 for children 3-17, free for children under 3. 214-350-3600. flightmuseum.com.
GREATEST GENERATION AIRCRAFT
GGA is a nonprofit organization that restores vintage military aircraft, which then go on display at the Vintage Flying Museum (see Page 32). At Christmastime, to help fund the restorations, the group offers flights in a World War II Douglas C-47 Skytrain (a.k.a. the military DC-3) to see holiday light displays.
Holiday-light flights are nightly Nov. 28-Dec. 31 (no flights Christmas Eve or Christmas Day) at 6, 7, 8 and 9 p.m. from American Aero at Meacham Airport, 208 Lear Road, Fort Worth. $99 per person, $189 per couple. Limited to 17 passengers per ride. Reservations necessary by calling 817-659-9249 or emailing greatestgeneration@yahoo.com. gga1.org.
HISTORIC AVIATION MEMORIAL MUSEUM
This Tyler venue boasts 18 airplanes, with 13 on static display and the rest in various stages of restoration. With more than 7,000 square feet of memorabilia, the museum has existed since 1990 and been in its present location, the old North Terminal Building at Tyler Pounds Regional Airport, since 2006. “We have thousands of items, so many that we have a storage area at our hangar. We can’t have everything on display at once,” says board president Carolyn Verver. The museum’s items span time from the beginning of flight through the Space Age, set up as a timeline as one traverses through. Included is the entire collection of photos from the U.S. Air Force’s 2d Photographic Reconnaissance Group that operated during World War II. The late Elmer Dixon of Tyler, a member of that group, donated his collection to the museum, including photos of the atomic bombing runs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The venue also owns a Norden bombsight, the analog computer used for directing bombing runs; an
F-4 Phantom II bomber jet; and the Vietnam-era Lockheed F-104 Starfighter that was once displayed at Six Flags Over Texas. It also has nonaviation war-related memorabilia donated by military men and women, including such items as a swastika-emblazened flag riddled with bullet holes.
At Tyler Pounds Regional Airport, 150 Airport Drive, Tyler. Open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. $5 for adults, $4 for seniors 65 and older, $3 for teens 13-17, $2 for children 6-12, free for active military and children under 6. 903-526-1945. tylerhamm.org.
NO. 1 BRITISH FLYING TRAINING SCHOOL MUSEUM
This venue is dedicated to the 2,200 Royal Air Force and 148 Army Air Corps cadets who learned to fly there during World War II. An agreement between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill paved the way for the program, which allowed Royal Air Force pilots to train in the U.S. without risk of enemy interference. The six U.S.-based British Flying Training Schools opened starting in June 1941, and Terrell’s was the first. Curator Michael Grout says the venue boasts the largest collection of RAF memorabilia in the U.S., and that the museum also stands as testament to “the relation between the RAF and the people of Terrell, which stands today. We meet people all the time whose parents or grandparents were somehow involved in the program.” Among its treasures is a Harvard AT-6 aircraft, now on display while being restored.
119 Silent Wings Blvd., Terrell. Open Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and by appointment. Free; donations appreciated. 972-524-1714. bftsmuseum.org.
UTD HISTORY OF AVIATION COLLECTION
This University of Texas at Dallas archive focuses on the early days of aviation through the present, and is the official archival repository for the Civil Air Transport, which began in China under Gen. Claire Chennault. In 1950 the CAT was purchased by the Central Intelligence Agency and became Air America. Many of the UTD collection’s artifacts are on loan to the Frontiers of Flight Museum (see Page 31), including the radio operator’s stool from the airship Hindenburg. At UTD, displays include memorabilia and a memorial bronze plaque with the names of the 240 people who died in the service of the CAT/Air America, all of whom were civilians. “It’s their Vietnam Wall,” says Paul Oelkrug, coordinator of special collections.
At the University of Texas at Dallas, Eugene McDermott Library, 800 W. Campbell Road, Richardson. Open Mondays through Fridays from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the second Saturday of each month from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., or by appointment. Free. 972-883-2570. utdallas.edu/library (click on “Special Collections”).
VINTAGE FLYING MUSEUM
This Fort Worth venue boasts several one-of-a-kind aircraft, such as a Boeing B-29 Superfortress World War II bomber named “FiFi” that’s the only one in the world that still flies, as well as a Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber that’s one of only two in the world that still flies. The museum also displays a Douglas C-49J Southern Cross and about 500 pieces of memorabilia such as uniforms and ephemera that have been collected since 1959, all displayed in rotating exhibits. The B-29 is currently in maintenance, but museum directors expect it to be flying again by February.
505 NW 38th St., Fort Worth. Hours are Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sundays from noon to 5, with special tours available by appointment. $8 for adults; $5 for active military, seniors 62 and older, and teens 13-17; $3 for ages 6-12; free for children under 6. 817-624-1935. vintageflyingmuseum.org.
WASP ARCHIVE AT TEXAS WOMAN’S UNIVERSITY
The Denton university serves as the official archive of the WASP (Women Air Force Service Pilots) program that ran from 1942 to 1944 during World War II. The WASPs were the first women to fly aircraft for the U.S. military. Some 25,000 women applied for the program; 1,830 were accepted, and 1,074 graduated. The program disbanded in 1944 and no women flew for the U.S. military again until 1976, says Kimberly Johnson, TWU special collections coordinator. “We have more than 1 million pieces of paper, about 25,000 photographs, 700 oral histories recorded and on paper, uniforms, artifacts and other wartime memorabilia,” she says, “along with more than 600 personal collections of pilots’ diaries, letters, scrapbooks and more.” Included is the flag that graced the casket of Irene Kinne Englund of New Hampshire. She was the first WASP who was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with military honors, on June 14, 2002. The group was militarized in 1976, and family members can now get official military grave markers for them.
At Blagg Huey Library, 304 Administration Drive at Bell Avenue on the TWU campus, Denton. Hours are Mondays through Fridays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Group tours available by appointment. Free. 940-898-3751. twu.edu/library.
Story and Photo Gallery: http://www.dallasnews.com
Cavanaugh Flight Museum
Visitors can take rides in some of the vintage aircraft at Cavanaugh Flight Museum in Addison.
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