Spy Planes and 'Top Gun' Fighters: Inside the March Field Air Museum

Information technology'due south been 32 years since Maverick slipped into the cockpit of a Grumman F-xiv US Navy fighter jet, tracked a "bogey" on the radar, and missile-locked on a "MiG-28." And while the Top Gun sequel is not due out until July 2022, you tin can meet a two-seater Grumman F-14 Tomcat side by side to the real-life equivalent of the (fictional) MiGs, the Northrop F-5E, at March Field Air Museum in Southern California.

The museum is situated next to the West Coast's oldest continuously operated war machine airfield. Paul Hammond, the museum'southward executive manager, met the states in front of one of its massive shipping hangars for a tour of the planes parked exterior and the various exhibitions inside, which showcase some of the museum'due south xxx,000 artifacts. If you get, take a baseball game cap, the sun is brutal in this region.

If you're looking at these photographs thinking the whole identify looks familiar, that'south because any time a director in LA needs planes, location managers suggests Riverside. It's exterior the TMZ (Thirty Mile Zone) for unionized coiffure, just information technology does mean everyone can just about become home to sleep in their own bed before midnight. Perhaps y'all've seen Space Cowboys starring Tommy Lee Jones? It was filmed at March Field Air Museum in 2000.

Top Gun Tales

"This F-14 is non the one that was in the flick," Hammond told me equally nosotros walked around. "But it's the aforementioned make, a Tomcat, which is a Navy plane."

The museum collection includes planes from all branches of the armed forces; there are over lxxx armed forces aircraft, and the highlights (for me) included the SR-71 Blackbird fabricated by Lockheed Martin—the fastest air-animate manned aircraft, consummate with spy cameras—a magnificent 1955 B-52 Stratofortress bomber and the MQ-ane Predator, a small-scale, remotely piloted aircraft with a small radar cross section employed past the CIA.

Unlike other museums, where the exhibits go transported in crates inside temperature-controlled trucks, many of the planes hither flew in, with their own paperwork.

"This particular SR-71 flew in, yep," confirmed Hammond. "Landed here at March Field on its concluding official mission, and got moved over to the museum."

Because the Blackbird is made of titanium, with vast dimensions (eighteen by 55 by 107 feet), weighs 169,998 pounds, and flies at over 2,000mph, that must have been quite a sight (and sound) as it stormed in through Southern California skies.

Spies on Film

Next to the Blackbird is a strategic reconnaissance exhibition complete with spy cameras; two of eight that could have been mounted inside their mission trophy in the SR-71 fuselage.

"Plain these spy cameras were very avant-garde for their fourth dimension," said Hammond, who pointed out that the plane's start flight was December 22, 1964. This was all pre-digital, so the cameras shot film, which had to be processed at the lab after landing. In that location was no uploading to the cloud (pun intended).

"They had to take pictures while the plane was going at Mach three too, using reflective lenses, synchronized speed and accurate coordinates, taking images very clearly, because they were using them for making intelligence-based decisions that could alter the course of world events," Hammond pointed out.

Why Museums Matter

Hammond joined the museum in 2022 afterward a long stint as manager of the California Country Railroad Museum in Sacramento. As a graduate of the Museum Leadership Institute, sponsored by the J. Paul Getty Trust, Hammond has definite ideas nigh the role museums play, especially as nosotros examine global armed forces conflict not just through its artifacts, merely via the human price of defending nations from attack.

"I think history museums, with fact- and evidence-based repositories, are peculiarly vital today, and increasingly so, in our digital and virtual world, equally trusted sources of information," Hammond mused.

As we walked effectually the outdoor Vietnam Fire Base of operations exhibit area, I had something of an Apocalypse Now film flashback. It was re-staged exactly as it would have been circa 1972, consummate with 2 UH-1 Iroquois, H-21 Shawnee, H-34 Choctaw and OH-6 Cayuse helicopters; sandbag and barrel defensive walls, revetments and bunkers; and a sensory overlay of auditory and lighting cues, which was gravely thought-provoking, to say the least. Yous wouldn't go the same effect without the noon day sun and no sign of culture for miles (if you lot have your back to Interstate 215, that is).

"When you take on trying to communicate stories well-nigh difficult aspects of history, information technology's of import, if y'all tin, to include not just homo elements simply also give a sense of the story still unfolding, through applied science, to today's audience," said Hammond.

In what looks like a war movie set, you can walk around and trace the life (and death) of a soldier named Vincent J. Rodgers, Jr. through his letters domicile, his marching orders, kit and personal photographs. It'south very moving. But in that location'southward also a great tech-based sub-plot that's still ongoing, as Hammond explained.

"Because nosotros accept his letters, we were able to extract Dna samples and interact with agencies who are yet searching for his remains. They're getting closer. In the past year they've identified all the other crew members from the same aeroplane, and our work has contributed to this mission. Information technology's clear visitors experience invested in his story when they spend fourth dimension with his belongings, and especially when they learn about the Dna techniques and how the museum remains involved in his story."

As the drove grows, the museum often records sound and visual testimony from veterans who are altruistic items.

"Many World War II veterans didn't want to talk about their experiences until they got old, merely now they want someone to know, and we're a identify that will understand and contextualize their experience, recording information technology for posterity."

Activity Stations!

Finally, if you visit the museum, try and go before October to catch the Centennial exhibition: March of Flight: Saluting a Century of Service. As y'all drive into the expanse, you might see the sign for March Air Reserve Base and think it'll just come up alive when the US enters armed disharmonize; y'all'd be wrong.

"The reserves are very much role of US war machine readiness," Hammond pointed out. "And are an integral part of mobilization, performing a big portion of every deployment. It'south too abode to the Air Force Reserve Command's (AFRC) 4th Air Force Headquarters and 452nd Air Mobility Wing, the largest air mobility fly of the fourth Air Force.

"It has huge capabilities in terms of deployment and mission equipment, also as conveying out mid-air refueling, medical evacuations and troop mobility—getting troops to disaster zones for showtime responder roles. March also has responsibleness for the defense force of this role of the Southwest. The F-16 fighter jets here are on a 24-hour alert. They practice regularly, so we hear them take off at least in one case a day—they're loud."

Ane plane that isn't at the March Air Field Museum, considering it's very much nevertheless in performance at the base, is the MQ-9 Reaper. This is the US Air Force's chief offensive strike remotely piloted vehicle and carries AGM-114 Hellfire air-to-surface missiles. Withal, it'due south highly unlikely it'll be featured in the Height Gun sequel either because information technology's unmanned and Tom Cruise does all his own stunts, as PCMag confirmed with his war machine advisor on Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/news/21169/spy-planes-and-top-gun-fighters-inside-the-march-field-air-museum

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