Lisbon maritime museum Lisbon is a great place to visit, but its streets and hotels are so crowded and noisy that some might find it best to stay outside the city, for instance on the beachfront at Cascais (try the Hotel Baía), and take the excellent train or other public transport into the city for […]
Boeing aircraft factory and museum Psst! Wanna see the biggest American airliners being constructed in the biggest shed in the world? Go North, young man, from San Francisco to Seattle, the traditional home of the Boeing Aircraft Company. Boeing web site Visitor information is on http://www.futureofflight.org/visitUs/planVisit.html#tourInfo. Boeing charges US$10 for a booked tour or US$5 […]
Cradle of Aviation, Bethpage In less than 100 years New York’s Long Island has seen aviation and aerospace grow from a group of virtual backyard tinkerers into centres of excellence that produced many of the best aircraft and spacecraft in the world. Although 240 Long Island companies still produce a wide variety of aircraft and […]
Getty Museum, Los Angeles The Getty Museum entrance, from the tram terminal. It’s not a maritime, military or aircraft museum, but the J. Paul Getty Center in Los Angeles is mind-blowing. Its unique position in the Santa Monica mountains, together with Richard Meier’s deceptively simple-looking and clean-cut architecture, stamp it as one of the best […]
Spies and counterspies museum, Washington Visitors to the new International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, see an introductory movie and are encouraged to choose one of a dozen or more “spy identities”. Additional identity information may be gathered during the self-paced tour and a computerised interrogation towards the end evaluates how successful they might be […]
National Air and Space, Washington It’s not all high-tech space wizardry at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in Washington DC, but there are so many spectacular sights demanding instant attention that it’s hard to focus on a single object when entering the front door. For instance, on the left might be a […]
National Air and Space, Dulles Out near Dulles Airport, Virginia, about 40 minutes by car from Washington, DC, is an important new Smithsonian aerospace facility, the huge Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center (left). A shuttle bus ($5 to $7 per person) runs between the National Air and Space Museum in Washington and the Udvar-Hazy. One of […]
FAA Museum, Nowra Ex-805 Commanding Officers Fred Lane (left) and Nat Gould admire the Museum’s Sea Fury after the sad 2008 ceremony de-commissioning 805 Squadron. Coincidentally, Nat Gould converted Fred Lane to Sea Furies at Nowra in 1950. The RAN has assumed responsibility for the aircraft museum at Nowra and renamed it the Fleet Air […]
RAAF Point Cook (Williams) Museum The otherwise immaculate F-51 Mustang looked decidedly dejected, with a big hole where the engine used to be. “It will be flying next week in the Air Show,” said the optimistic guide at the RAAF Museum, Point Cook. This confidence is built on years of experience at this, the oldest […]
Museums in Sitka, Alaska Mount Edgecumbe. This now-dormant volcano features prominently in Tlingit history and culture. Two virtually adjacent museums are well worth a visit for anyone travelling the Gulf of Alaska: the Sheldon Jackson Museum and the Sitka National Historic Park. Both are within easy walking distance of each other and the two […]
