Kalamazoo Air Zoo

10 August 2022

posted 13 April 2023

A fascinating day with aircraft before heading south to Truma’s facility in Elkhart.

We woke to sunshine illuminating a spiderweb on our bicycle rack. The Air Zoo, a Harvest Host, was a fine place to spend the night. We look forward to exploring the inside of the Air Zoo today.

Check-out yesterday’s post to see some of the outdoor exhibits.

Open at 0900, we were some of the first Air Zoo Aerospace & Science Museum customers in the lobby.

I’ll share a sampling of the variety of beautifully restored planes on display.

A very pink Curtiss P-40 Warhawk (1943) hangs over the reception area. This plane was owned and flown by Sue Parish, an Air Zoo museum founder.

One of the premier exhibits is an SR-71 Blackbird spy plane. A platform let us get up close to the cockpit.

An SR-71 engine is displayed without the cowling. These pushed the plane to speeds over 2,000 miles per hour. This particular plane was used by the Air Force until 1990 and then again by NASA in 1999 to study future supersonic and hypersonic engines and aircraft.

A very realistic, operating, model of the SR-71 sits next to the prototype. The model starts on propane, runs on kerosene, and can fly 200 mph!

Here’s a link to the model in flight.

https://youtu.be/XHmL_My0_A4

The warpaint on this B-25 Mitchell Bomber and the array of 12 nose guns would strike fear into any enemy.

Less common, this Curtis-Wright XP-55 “The Ascender” (1943) is the only remaining one of three built during WWII.

Moving into the jet age, there is a Vought F-8J Crusader. These were the first carrier based aircraft to break the sound barrier.

A Ford 5-AT Tri-Motor (1929) This particular plane was flying up until 2013!

Something we hadn’t seen before was a Milner Motors Aerocar. After flying, the wings could be folded to allow driving on regular roads.

Aerocar details

(Click any image to enlarge)

This huge satellite photo serves as a backdrop in the main airplane museum building.

If you visit, take the time to walk across the parking lot to the nearby Restoration Center.

Volunteers were happy to take us behind the barriers and talk about their work.

Two planes were undergoing restoration. Both were found in Lake Michigan. We learned that the Navy converted 3 ships by adding carrier deck replicas to train pilots in WWII. Unfortunately, a lot of the planes ended up in the lake!

You can get a little appreciation for how much work remains by looking at the mineralization on these gears.

In this photo, the recovered part is on the right. It is being used as a template to fabricate the replacement on the left.

One of the partially reconstructed planes is supported by this gantry that allows for rotation of the aircraft.

Grumman FM-2 Wildcat, damaged in 1944.

Here’s my favorite plane of the day. We’ve had great adventures in a sailboats and RV’s. Think of the adventures we could have in this Grumman G-73 Mallard (1947-Present).