Oakland Air Museum, Part 1

On Sunday, we went to the Western Aerospace Museum out by the Oakland airport. They have all kinds of cool stuff, including excellent displays on aviation pioneers in Oakland and the rest of the Bay Area, naval aviation, and women aviators. The folks at the museum are very friendly and laid back. They have some tables under an awning outside, and they let us bring in our cooler to have sandwiches and sodas for lunch. Not many museums are so visitor-friendly.

Mainly, the museum has loads and loads of planes, from a 1911 Wright biplane through personal and passenger planes from the first half of the 20th century to kit planes and naval fighters from recent decades. London's favorite was this Bede kitplane. The engine is behind the cockpit and drives a pusher propeller at the back of the plane. If the lines seem familiar, it may be because the Bud Light Jet, billed as the 'world's smallest jet', is the same airframe with a tiny jet engine instead of a prop. James Bond used the same plane as a getaway vehicle in the movie Octopussy.