General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIf for some crazy reason, you are ever passing through Dover, Delaware...
Delaware gets a lot of traffic through a northern sliver of the state along I-95, but there's little reason for most people to drive the length of it - all 110 miles or so. You can, of course, ride your bike across it, since it's about 25 miles wide at some parts.
But, NASCAR fans do drop into Dover once in a while, and just south of Dover is the Dover Air Force Base, home of the 436th Airlift Wing.
And you can't miss that if you spend any time in the area, since they seem love doing touch-and-go's all day long in their amazing C-5 Galaxy transport aircraft - the largest transport aircraft the US has.
It's hard to visualize just how freaking huge they are, and how much they can hold. But, you don't have to imagine since, just south of the base, is the Air Mobility Museum. Among their collection of historical transport aircraft is a decommissioned C-5 that you can walk into and get a feel for just HOW FREAKING CAVERNOUS they are inside.
The nose of that monster on the right flips up, and you could play football in there:
If I was the Commander-in-Chief of the US military, and I had a hankering to get a whole bunch of something from one place to another, I think I'd give Dover a call.
leftieNanner
(15,659 posts)And they can put stuff inside of them and go up in the air and take that stuff to where it's needed.
Wow! Learn something new every day.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)There's a great one out in Pueblo, Colorado that I visited a couple of years ago.
mahatmakanejeeves
(60,515 posts)going to and coming from Joint Base Andrews.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_C-17_Globemaster_III
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)There's been a slow process of rotating them out of service, removing all the avionics, and giving them a new brain.
The museum has an original cockpit in the indoor section.
Ah, I found my tweet of the original cockpit:
Link to tweet
?s=20
Laelth
(32,017 posts)I took a picture in front of the First National Bank of Wyomingbased in Delaware, naturally. I missed the museum though.
-Laelth
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)The bank was named for the area west of Dover...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming,_Delaware
Wyoming is a town in Kent County, Delaware, United States. It was named after the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania. It is part of the Dover, Delaware Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,313 at the 2010 census
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But, that's okay. A lot of people seem more familiar with Delaware County, Ohio and Wilmington, North Carolina.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)My old picture is somewhat less ironic, now, but I treasure it all the same.
-Laelth
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)There are probably more people reading this thread than live in Wyoming, DE.
uponit7771
(91,355 posts)... America said we can do and was getting punched in the grill by the Russians with the space race and then punched back harder by landing on the moon.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Go do the Voodoo that you do...
The museum is staffed by retired vets who flew those things.
csziggy
(34,189 posts)It had to have taken off from MacDill AFB in Tampa so by the time it went over the Florida Presbyterian campus (now Eckerd College) it must have been at a good altitude. Even so, it looked like a regular plane only a few hundred feet up.
They didn't take it that flight path often - I could tell by the reaction of even the professors who were local residents. Of course it was way new - Wikipedia says they were introduced June 1970. The one I saw was between September 1970 and July 1971 before I left St. Pete for good.