Winging It

FLIGHTY: I'm still trying to catch up (and catch my breath!) from last week, which was oh-so-busy.

Friday afternoon, we had a chance to pay tourist, hanging out at The Museum of Flight with some family, including an East Coast-dwelling guest. We spent the bulk of our visit in the always-entertaining air park portion of the museum. It's outdoors, but entirely covered, making it comfortable to visit year-round. 

The photo above in the belly of a 787. We couldn't help but notice it has "hips" (see the bulges on the body near the landing gear?).

Visiting the first Air Force One jet is always a highlight. Here, CJ and Annabelle mug for the camera along with former President Richard Nixon and China's Zhou Enlai.

The jet is a specially-built Boeing 707-120, also known as SAM (Special Air Missions) 970. It was delivered by Boeing in 1959 to replace then-President Eisenhower's Super-Constellation. 

The flying Oval Office featured what was then a well-appointed galley and sophisticated communication equipment.

An "oval office" within the flying Oval Office. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon almost certainly sat here once upon a time. Those were the good old days, before presidents sat on a toilet and posted nasty Tweets.

A peek out of the window of the Concorde gives you an idea of just how packed the air park is with aviation attractions.  

Inside a vintage 747, we learned that the "black" box is actually orange.

Below, CJ and DB (Cooper, that is) strike a pose.

Below is a shot of the building where CJ and Annabelle spent most of their private pilot ground school hours.

We did spend a little time in the museum's Space Gallery. I had to laugh at the IKEA-instructions like stickers on the Soyuz capsule, instructing people how to open it. I suppose it's there because the Soyuz could inadvertently land in a remote location, and some local with no aerospace training would have to let the cosmonauts out.