Castle Air Museum at Castle AFB, Atwater CA

i spent this past week in california on vacation. we drove up to the mountains for three days of snowboarding and on the way down stopped to see a freind at the former Castle AFB in A****er, CA. since we were there we decided to stop in at the air museum. my camera ended up spending a lot of time out of my hands and most of these pix were taken either by my sister or my buddy's sister Lana. enjoy...

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we were greeted in the parking lot by an SR-71

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B-17.

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the B-29. lore is this airplane is haunted, people have reported seeing lights turn on and faces in thier photos taken after dark.

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the WB-50, powered by four massive R4360 engines.

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the F-86

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F-84

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the B47... this was awesome, i've never seen one in person. they're relatively small though.

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C-123, pre-jet engine installation.

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the BUFF. it's amazing just how big the B-52 really is. that's my sister and i standing under the tail for scale.

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the KC-97... i always thought this was built off the B-29 frame when it was actually fathered by the B-50.

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F-89

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i think i was most excited about this, the B-36 peacemaker. wow!

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C-46 and C-47 in the bacground. i was surprised that the -46 is actually bigger than the -47

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SA-16

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C-131 in the process of getting a repaint.

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C-119

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C-54. looks like they forgot one "T" from my name... =)

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A-4

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F-104

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F-101

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F-100. this has got to be my favourite fighter, hands down.

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ah, the beautiful F-4. some of our group were surpirsed to learn this airplane was designed and built on LI.

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F-102

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F-111

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i was surpised to only see one helicopter at the museum, this one being a HH-43. i guess that fling-wing-flying-things weren't all that popular back in those day.


these last few are for moose. this airplane is one that was actually based at Castle AFB back during the SAC days. the nose art refelcts it. moose, is the scale in that last picture acurate?
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The engines should be the same size...hope that helps :wink:

Great photos, Matt! I spent about 4 months at Castle in 1985, while going through KC-135 flight training. They had a few old airplanes parked outside at the time, but not a formal museum as they now have. Those models in the last shot look pretty close - the BUFF is only about 25 feet longer than the KC. From the looks of it, I would guess the KC model is the old 1/72 scale AMT kit (first released in the early '90s - I have one half built in the basement) and I know there were a couple of B-52 kits in the same scale.

Great shots Matt,
What an impressive lineup of aircraft. That B-36 is ONE amazing plane. It would have been the highlight for me as well.
Senga

I really hate the outdoor weathered look but they really have a great assortment of stuff. I like the Buff shot size comparason! That is some set of shots you have there. I love the B-47....it is probably cuz the duke flys it! :lol: