When I proposed this blog, I planned to devote a post to each of my 10 favorite museums and provide links to virtual tours of each museum. Unfortunately, many of the top 10, including the top three: The Deutsches Museum in Munich, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago and Bletchley Park, don’t offer virtual tours. By expanding the candidate museums to my top 20 and including museums that provide images and captions of most of their artifacts, even if they lack the immersive experience of a virtual tour, I’ve selected eight candidates. I have visited all of these museums, most of them more than once; the collections are large enough and updated frequently enough to justify repeat visits when I am in the town/city where they’re located. The final list is exclusively STEM sites, and each will be introduced in subsequent posts.
Today’s museum bills itself as the World’s Largest Military Aircraft Museum. I can’t confirm that -- I’ve never been to Duxford or Russia’s Central Air Force Museum (if it’s still open) -- but the U.S. Air Force Museum is big! As the name implies, it is limited to military aircraft (including four generations of presidential aircraft). In addition to USAF aircraft, the collection includes aircraft flown by allied and enemy air forces from WWI to the Gulf Wars. Because of its affiliation with the Air Force, the museum has been able to obtain one-of-a-kind experimental aircraft. The galleries are well laid out, easy to navigate and have excellent signage. The same can be said of the virtual tour, which has been enhanced since the beginning of the COVID pandemic. As the website states, “Being temporarily closed as a public health precaution in relation to COVID-19 has not stopped us from sharing the Air Force story with online visitors from around the world. In addition to continuing our heritage stewardship duties, we have expanded our digital museum experience through the virtual tour. The virtual tour allows visitors to take a 360-degree, self-guided tour of the entire museum. Icons indicate hotspots where the visitor can get additional information such as videos, audio and even access online educational activities such as lesson plans, word searches and coloring sheets.”
From the museum’s website National Museum of the USAF click on visit and select virtual tour from the pull-down menu. I recommend exploring all of the links on the virtual tour page.
The museum is located outside of the gate Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. When we can travel again, it can be accessed by car or Dayton Regional Transit Authority buses.
Stan Kalemaris, Adult Services Librarian