Inside the museum
The halls behind the flight line The aircraft sit outside. Inside, five decades of the Aviation Cadet program are on the walls and under glass — uniforms, foot lockers, flight helmets, training rigs and the men who wore them.
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The cadet pipeline in pictures: civilians step off the train, and sweat and study turn them into Army Air Corps pilots, navigators and bombardiers. Primary flight training, 1960. The foot locker of Aviation Cadet Robert E. Bialas, left exactly as it was the day he was killed flying an AT-6D, beside a P-12 pilot's helmet. Basic flight training at Vance AFB, Enid, Oklahoma, 1960 — cadet bush jacket and shoulder boards, the red “Red Bird Squadron” PT hat, and Errol's own graduation program. The Link Instrument Trainer itself — the “Blue Box” that taught a generation of cadets to fly on instruments alone, red-white-and-blue tail and all. The Link Instrument Trainer plotting table, opened up to show the linkage inside — with hand-built trainers and fighters hanging above it. The AeroBall SimCab rig where visitors fly, with the red Link trainer drum in the foreground and an F-22 model on the deck. The Swift Training Rifle — a WWI marksmanship trainer that taught recruits to shoot before live ammunition was ever issued. The Swift Training Rifle in its rack, a scale model of Silver Wings Field under glass, and a YF-22 model taking up the aisle. A full ejection seat display: a cadet in flight gear, helmet and oxygen mask, set against a carrier deck at sea. Silver pilot wings and the one-and-only original “Smiling Jack” storyboard hand-drawn by Zack Mosley for the June 15, 1958 Sunday papers. A 1930s USAAC Flying Cadet leather flight jacket above a WWII cadet uniform case — wool shirt, white gloves, dark blue hat band and a wartime sewing kit. Pursuit-plane prints flown by Flying Cadet Ed Tindall in the 1930s, over a navigator cadet's case: E-6B computer, air navigation manuals and the first shell fired from the USS John Hood. WWI cadet gear — a 1918 footlocker, doughboy helmet, dogtag and mess kit, 1917 summer uniform and a Royal Air Force recruiting poster. The WWII corner: a history-of-the-war board, a naval signal lamp off a warship, and a period console radio. Target Kite, Mark I — flown off the carrier USS Wasp so anti-aircraft gunners could practice on a Japanese silhouette. “The Flying/Aviation Cadets are marching off into history.” A letter of thanks from the French cadets who trained here hangs alongside it. The reference library, a T-6 trainer painting, a shark-mouth P-40 overhead, and the poster for Errol's book “The Last of a Breed.” A wartime pin-up cutout, hand-built model aircraft, and the WWII pre-flight training wall. A signed F-22 Raptor print and a scale terrain diorama near the front counter, with a WWI dogfight display beyond. A WWI summer uniform coat with Sam Browne belt and campaign hat — the white hat band marks a Flying Cadet — under hand-built Spitfire and Flying Tigers models. “Bryan's Room” — a 1940s boy's bedroom recreated down to the airplane wallpaper, bomb-casing lamp, school desk, model kits and a “Dave Dawson with the Flying Tigers” novel. The museum's working 1940s Coca-Cola bottle machine, beneath prints of the Curtiss Hawk P1-C and Boeing P-12E flown by Flying Cadet Ed Tindall at Kelly Field. The front counter and gift shop, where Errol's books and museum apparel are sold and every tour begins.