The Joy Of Flying.

I love to fly. I've been fascinated by the idea since I was a child. So I've always been attracted to aircraft in much the same way my friend Steve Stern is attracted to automobiles. I learned to fly sailplanes when I was in my early 40s, and those silent solo flights are still one of the high points of my life.

O and I are also fascinated by WWII memorabilia, so when we discovered the Warhawk Museum in nearby Nampa, we resolved to check it out. It took us nearly a year to get there, but it proved to be well worth the trip.

The place isn't huge, but it's crammed with all sorts of interesting memorabilia that people in the area have donated.

Of course, the aircraft collection is the highpoint, starting with this full-size replica of a 

 WWI Fokker triplane.

Naturally any place calling itself the Warhawk Museum would have to have a fully-functional
P-40 Tomahawk, made famous by the American Volunteer Group (the Flying Tigers) in China
prior to Pearl Harbor.

Arguably the best fighter of WWII, the P-51 Mustang, whose combination of supercharged
engine, heavy armament, and huge fuel capacity made extended missions over Germany
possible.

And the state-of the art during the Korean War, the F-86 Sabrejet, American's first transonic jet
fighter. Its controversial swept wing design made it the only U.S. fighter able to take on the
agile MiG-15. I remember it as the jet that was always shot down in droves in the many 1950s
flying saucer movies I loved so much as a kid (still do, actually).

I grew up reading and dreaming about these and other similar vintage planes. Their names
and those of their engines were like magical incantations to me. LIke this supercharged V-12
Rolls Royce Merlin V 1650 engine that gave the P-51 its power.

Or the Allison engines that powered everything from the P-40 to my favorite fighter,
the P-38 Lightning. The P-38 was designed by one of the greatest aeronautical
designers ever, Lockheed's Clarence "Kelly" Johnson, later director of the famous
"Skunk Works," and the brains behind the U-2 spy plane and the SR-71 Blackbird. 

As a bonus, check out this History Channel video of a WWII dogfight 

between two P-38s and fifty (that's right, 50) Me-109s.

My favorite type of engine, though is the piston-driven radial used by many
of high-performance aircraft of the 1920s and early 1930s.

These simple, reliable engines were the state-of-the-art for many years, reaching its
culmination in probably my favorite aircraft of all time, the GeeBee Racers. They were

essentially a huge Pratt & Whitney radial engine with wings and tail added.

The fuselage actually acted as a lifting body, anticipating the space shuttle 

designs of the 1960s. This allowed the plane to make knife-edge turns 

without losing altitude, making it ideal for pylon racing.

Jimmy Doolittle, later famous for leading the 1942 raid on Tokyo, 

established a landplane speed record or 296 mph in his GeeBee Racer in 1932.

An even-stubbier version.

A modern version of a radial engine, with stacked sets of radiating pistons, powers the C-130

Globemaster heavy-lift cargo plane.

Interestingly, almost all of the planes at the museum are still flyable. We watched this guy 

working on an old biplane Navy trainer.

Amongst the many cases of mementos, are many examples of vintage propaganda,

complete with offensive racial caricatures.

The museum also has many examples of aviation art, including this example featuring my 

favorite WWII bomber, the B-25 Mitchell. This model B-25 was outfitted with six .50 caliber 

machine guns and a 75mm cannon in the nose for strafing missions.

Duane Beeman, a multiple ace who joined the Eagle Squadron of Americans flying 

for the RAF before the U.S. joined the war, was known as the Boise Bee. He flew P-47

Thunderbolts and P-51s before being shot down over Germany in April, 1944, 

and spending the rest of the war in a POW camp.

I include this beautiful 1931 Packard Straight Eight as a shout-out to Steve Stern. 

A gorgeous car.

Check out the picnic trunk attached to the rear bumper! 

They just don't make cars like this anymore.

Or cockpits this simple.

P.