Air Force Museum - The Early Years
A replica of The Wright 1909 Military Flyer, first U.S. military heavier-than-air flying machine. The original is in the Smithsonian.
The Military Flyer was purchased on August 2, 1909 by the Army Signal Corps for $30,000 and flew for two years. It had a 30 horsepower engine and used wing warping to control roll. It had no wheels, just a skid. It used a catapult and rail for takeoff.
A replica of the Curtiss 1911 Model D, second airplane purchased by the Army Signal Corps. The original was scrapped long ago. The Curtiss Model D was among the first aircraft in the world to be built in any quantity. Unlike the Wright Flyer, the Curtiss had ailerons for roll control, which are not visible in this picture. The Curtiss also had wheels, as opposed to the skids of the Wright Flyer.
[Note: this was also the aircraft type which made the first takeoff from the deck of a ship (flown by Eugene B. Ely off the deck of USS Birmingham on November 14, 1910, near Hampton Roads, Virginia) and made the first landing aboard a ship (USS Pennsylvania) on January 18, 1911, near San Francisco, California.]
This is the actual German-made basswood cross that marked the original gravesite Quentin Roosevelt, youngest son of President Theodore Roosevelt and First Lady Edith Roosevelt. Inspired by his father and siblings, he joined the United States Army Air Service where he became a pursuit pilot during World War I. He was killed in aerial combat over France in a Nieuport 28 on Bastille Day (July 14), 1918. He is the only child of a U.S. President to have died in combat.
Eleven years after the World War II American Cemetery was established in France at Colleville-sur-Mer, Quentin's body was exhumed and moved there in 1955. Quentin's remains were moved in order to be buried next to his eldest brother Ted, who had died of a heart attack in France in 1944, shortly after leading his troops in landings on Utah Beach on D-Day as Assistant 4th Infantry Division Commander (an act which would earn him the Medal of Honor).
I don't have to tell you what plane this is!
The replica is painted in the markings of Lieutenant Arthur Rahn in April 1918 when he served with Jagdstaffel 19. Rahn had six kills.
A replica of a Martin MB-2 bomber, the primary heavy bomber of the U.S. Army Air Service until the late 1920s. It has three engines, a crew of four, can carry 3,000 pounds of bombs and has a max speed of 99 mph.
MB-2s were used in the Billy Mitchell inspired anti-ship bombing demonstration of the ex-German World War I battleship, Ostfriesland, on July 20, 1921. The battleship sank 22 minutes after the first of numerous bombs hit.
The Boeing P-12 / F4B was an American pursuit aircraft that was operated by the United States Army Air Corps , United States Marine Corps, and United States Navy. Boeing supplied the Army Air Corps with 366 P-12s between 1929 and 1932. Production of all variants totaled 586. The P-12 remained in service with first-line pursuit groups until replaced by Boeing P-26s in 1934–1935.
The P-12 pictured below served with the 6th Pursuit Squadron in Hawaii during the 1930s.
A colorful P-26A Peashooter. This was the Army Air Corps' first all-metal monoplane fighter in regular service. The P-26 was the Army Air Corps front-line fighter from 1933 to 1936. The P-26 was actually flown in combat against the Japanese by the Chinese and the Phillippine governments.
This P-26 has the markings of the CO of the 19th Pursuit Squadron stationed at Wheeler Field, Hawaii in 1938.
A Fairchild PT-19 goes up on its nose in a training accident; a fairly common occurence for any primary trainer! Introduced in 1940, 7,700 were built. It served as a primary trainer during World War II for the United States Army Air Forces, RAF and RCAF. The PT-19 had multiple designation(s) based on the powerplant installed.
Who can forget the Cox PT-19 U-control model plane with the .049 engine from when they were a kid.
