PIREP CAF Museum

PIREP CAF Museum, Midland, TX

It's a long ways from the population centers, but it's hardly off
the beaten track: the track is being beaten to pieces by big rigs.
Passing the time by keeping statistics for some miles, I found about
75% of the traffic to be semi trailers, 25% pickups and SUV's and
passenger cars adding a negligible percentage.

Anyhow, the museum is at Midland airport, just off I-20.

There are three main parts to the museum.

The first is a series of video and static displays starting with the
run-up to WW II, starting with some information on the Spanish Civil
War and ending with the atomic bombings of Japan, including full-scale
mockups of Fat Man and Little Boy. There's a cockpit of a four-engine
transport that is open, you can sit in the pilot's seat, push the
levers around, make airplane noises, etc. There's also the
glider-transport "No Visible Means of Support" hung from the
ceiling.

Being in western Texas, it has to include a few displays of guns. Both
20 mm and 40 mm antiaircraft guns are there. An exhibit featuring
airborne troops also has several display cases of infantry weapons,
submachine guns from both Allied and Axis powers and a few bolt-action
rifles as well. Including them in an aviation museum seemed a bit of a
stretch, but it is Texas, so I guess they're obligatory. They
explained that airborne troops sometimes carried the sub-guns, but even
they could not figure out a good caption for telescopic-sighted
bolt-action sniper rifles.

Really this display has a lot of good WW II aviation information, text,
pictures, video and memorabilia.

The next big room is dedicated to nose art. At the entrance is the only
sour note: there's a sign saying that no cameras are permitted in the
room and that the images are copyrighted and owned by the museum.
There's also a warning about the mature content of the room. Just how
pictures done by GI's defacing government property becomes anyone's
private intellectual property isn't clear to me.

No matter who owns it or claims to own it, it is a fine display. There
are dozens of original panels, some whimsical, most erotic. A few
panels were missing, I presume for restoration, but most were hanging
in place.

As it happens, I had about half an hour totally alone in the room. I
also happened to have a two megapixel camera in my pocket. 'Nuff
said. The gift shop does sell a CD of the nose art, undoubtedly better
done than anything your correspondent could do with a pocket camera.

The next attraction involves a short walk across a little memorial
plaza. There are a couple pieces of WW II-era armor on the way and on
the far side, a display honoring Viet Nam war aviators, including a
Huey, a Phantom and a Cobra

The main hangar includes over a dozen beautifully-restored warbirds and
warbugs, some dating from well before WW II, and a few more in various
stages of restoration, from nearly done to very rough indeed. There are
also a variety of engines and propellers on display.

On the apron behind the hangar are several more airplanes, including
some antiques and some much more modern fighters. This does not appear
to be part of the museum and it does not seem that museum visitors are
invited to wander out there.

In summary: well worth a stop. Well done, CAF.