Airforce Museum and Start-up Trouble


For work I was in the Detroit, Michigan area. I had myself checked out before in de Diamond DA20 from Crosswinds Aviation in Howel (KOZW).

I had a whole day to waste, so the plan was made to fly to Dayton, Ohio to visit the National Museum of the US Airforce ! This is grand museum with four halls of airplanes completely dedicated to the Air Force !

As it was almost wintertime, the first snow became apparent on the ground.

I made an approach to runway 19 of the Dayton International Airport (KDAY).

And I parked at the FBO of Aviation Sales Incorporated. They are a bunch of nice folks that offered me their crew car for free. I topped up fuel there too.

So I drove to the museum … it was large, it was glorious and it was for free ! All aircraft that every flew in the Airforce’s inventory were represented, plus a whole lot more.

F-22 Raptor

B-2 Spirit

The most beautiful and rare one: the North American XB-70 Valkyrie.

The AC-130 Gunship

Cessna O-2 Skymaster.

The toilet in the Space Shuttle

The F-117 Night Hawk

HU16 Albatross

A real flying saucer !

The real Memphis Belle B-17 bomber

It was a very nice museum !

So I drove the crew car back to the FBO, and I got myself installed in the airplane. Temperature had dropped to about the freezing point … and the battery gave a couple of swings of the prop and then died on me … I was stuck in Dayton !

The folks of the FBO helped me by recharging the battery with jumper cables. Alas … it didn’t help: the engine just did not want to start up !

So I called the owner of the airplane back in Detroit. He explained me that it was basically too cold of the engine to start up anyway … so I was for sure stuck !

So I developed the idea to park the airplane in a heated hanger, take time to allow the engine to heat up in the hangar and recharge the battery during the waiting time.

In the meanwhile it got dark outside …. and I had to get back to work the next morning !

So I gave the airplane an hour to heat up. We pulled the airplane outside the hangar, I thanked the folks at the FBO … and I had one shot to start up the engine. I cranked the starter and yes, it started up !

So I flew back during a very smooth night flight to the north to Detroit.

The return flight was further uneventful, and I landed on runway 31 in Howell.

It was a nice day … with some adventure to get the airplane started again. But boy: I did saw a lot of fancy hardware in that museum !

And I want to thank the FBO folks again…


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