Seattle Museum of Flight

If you haven't figured it out by now, I am a huge aviation buff. I love planes. Seattle is home to one of the largest airplane companies in the world and when I heard there was a Museum of Flight there, I had to go check it out.

The Museum is a bit out of town and is pretty close to the airport. It is also nestled between a couple Boeing factories. Anyways....

Part of the Museum is the original Boeing factory restored. This is one of the early Boeing planes in the process of being built. This part of the museum was also pretty neat because it had some of the tools they used to build the planes.

These are some wing sections before they are put together on the plane. There was also a fixture so that the wings would be right.

This is an early prototype model of the B-52. Originally it was going to have a bubble canopy and the pilot and copilot would almost sit like a fighter. That was changed to the current configuration.

This is the front of the restored factory. It was called the red barn for some strange reason.

This is one of the versions of Air Force One which is a specialized 707. The color scheme came from Jackie Kennedy who thought that the plane could use some spicing up.

The Museum also had a Concorde and this was the cockpit.

This was the first 747 flown.

This is the cockpit of Air Force One. The rest of the plane was pretty neat, it had a specialized communications setup so the President could stay in contact with his staff.

This is the nose art of a P-40 Warhawk.

This is the Concorde I mentioned above.

This is a P-51 Mustang, one of the better fighters of World War II.

This is a Spitfire.

The museum had a pretty extensive World War I collection but unfortunately, that's not my balliwick, so I'm not sure what many of the planes are.



One of my favorite shots of old planes.

This is a Mercury capsule.



One of the things I really liked about this museum is that they had a well lit SR-71. Most Museums have it in a dark corner and I can never get a nice shot of it.

This is an F-4 Phantom.

MiG-21

And of course, my favorite plane, the F-14 Tomcat.

Overall I was pretty impressed with the museum. It was nicely laid out and I learned quite a bit about Boeing (the man) that I didn't know before. It had a fair number of planes and many of them were pretty well lit. It also had a mockup of a control tower that you could go in.

Seattle - The Space Needle

Probably the iconic landmark in Seattle is the Space Needle. It was built for the World's Fair in 1962 and was kept afterwards. It stands at 605 feet tall and has an observation deck at 520 feet.

Looking up at the tower.

Looking towards Downtown Seattle.

Getting a closer view.

Another spot in Downtown.

And another.

Riding back on the monorail. I thought this had a science fiction look to it.

Seattle - The Music Experience

In the same building was a music museum of sorts. It didn't have too many displays but it did have quite a bit dedicated to Jimi Hendrix who came from Seattle.

This is one of Jimi's guitars.

This is one of Jimi's guitars after it was smashed.

This exhibit was pretty neat, they had a column of musical instruments that went to the cieling. Unfortunately, I couldn't capture the full breadth of it.

They also had a large movie screen showing various Jimi Hendrix appearances.

I actually thought this was a little neater than the sci fi museum.

Seattle - The SciFi Museum

So I made it to Seattle and one of the places I heard about was a Science Fiction Museum. It was a fairly neat place and had a few neat displays. One of the coolest was the simulation of a space station and they had movies of different ships docking there. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good picture of it.

They had a few props from different movies and they had some other watersheds of science fiction.

A model of R2-D2.

One of the models of the Galileo Shuttle used in the TV show.

The robot from Forbidden Planet.

The exo-skeleton of a Terminator.

The costume used by Patrick Stewart in the Borg episode.

A model of the Enterprise used on the show.

They also had a science fiction hall of fame.

Empire Builder - Part 6 - Washington

Morning brought us somewhere into Washington (I think it was pretty much the eastern end of the state). It was a pretty nice sight to wake up to at any rate.

This was a waterfall somewhere.

The clouds rising up over the mountains. I thought this one made for a beautiful shot.

Another cloud shrouded mountain. I believe the river is the Columbia River.

I wish I knew what mountain this was.

The granite face of another mountain.

Another shot of the mountain.

The Columbia River again.

As we were rolling by, I looked out the window and saw this plane which is a Russian plane.

This is the USS Abraham Lincoln in Everett.

The USS Ford which is a frigate.

A head on shot of the harbor.

Looking out across the bay.

As we are coming into the railroad station in Seattle.

So that concludes my trip on the Empire Builder. Overall, it was a pretty pleasant experience. The staff on the train was pretty good. The food in the dining car was pretty good as well. Although, I think I should have gotten a sleeper car as I couldn't sleep that well on the chairs, but they reclined enough that I eventually got to sleep.

Empire Builder Part 5 - Western Montana

So the train continued on into Western Montana. It was getting dark, so I didn't have too much time left to take pictures.

This is a shot of the sun setting over some lake. I loved the look of the picture.

Sometime at night, we stopped at Spokane and the train got shorter. Part of it continued to Seattle and the rest went on to Portland.

Whitefish, Montana

After Glacial Mountain National Park, our station stop was in Whitefish, Montana. It was a pretty neat place and had a pretty neat station.

This statue is similar to the logo of the Great Northern Railroad which used to run the lines of the Empire Builder. I thought it was pretty cool and in the back is the train.

This is the statue from an other angle.

This is the train depot. It was built by the Great Northern railroad in 1927. In the 1980s, the Burlington Northern was going to scrap the station but the town decided to save it. They renovated it and use rental fees from various railroads (including Amtrak) to keep it maintained.

In the 2000's, they painted it in its original colors. It is a very nice depot. That is one thing I noticed on this trip, there were alot of old depots. Some are being used now and some just sit there rotting with the Amtrak Station right next door. In some cases its a shame because those old depots looked really nice.