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The Great and the Small
The Air Mobility Command Museum is a study in contrasts. Take, for example, its largest artifact and one of its smallest. The biggest plane in the museum’s collection – indeed, the biggest military aircraft in any museum in the world – is a C-5A “Galaxy.” Over 247 feet long and six stories high, C-5s have served as important military cargo planes since 1968. The Air Mobility Command Museum’s Galaxy, displayed outside along with over twenty other aircraft, is so large that it’s hard to fit into a single photograph.
Dedicated to telling the story of Air Force transportation and refueling, the museum also collects and displays smaller objects ranging from uniforms to cargo containers. One of their most remarkable small objects seems ordinary at first glance, and certainly not as impressive as the C-5. But this small, bomb-shaped piece of aluminum has an equally impressive story. In many units during World War Two, each time a B-17 “Flying Fortress” returned from a bombing mission, crewmen added a painted bomb to its side. They used stencils, including this one donated by a veteran of the 91st Bomb Group. Some of the most famous B-17s of the war flew in the 91st, including the Memphis Belle and Shoo Shoo Baby (both now owned by the Air Mobility Command’s sister museum, the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio).
From World War Two to the present, and from small stencils to gigantic planes, the Air Mobility Command Museum uses its diverse collections to tell a big story.
Visit the Air Mobility Command Museum
Location: 1301 Heritage Road, Dover Air Force Base, DE 19902
Phone: (302) 677-5938
Hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 9AM-4PM
Admission: Free!
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