|
Atterbury-Bakalar Air Museum
Ernie Pyle WWII Museum
Five Points Fire Museum
Fort Wayne
Firefighters Museum Freeman
Army Airfield Museum
Virgil "Gus" Grissom Memorial
Hoosier Air Museum
Indiana Military
Museum
Indianapolis Fire Museum McClain
Military Museum
Military Honor Park and Museum
Museum of the Soldier
National
Military History Center/Automotive and Carriage Museum National
Model Aviation Museum
Rolls-Royce Heritage Center, Allison Branch
Ropkey Armor Museum
Wayne County
Historical Museum
Indiana
Museums - Aviation, Military, Automotive and Fire
Hoosier
Air Museum
Auburn, IN
Date visited: 8-21-2013
The
Hoosier Air Museum closed on December 9, 2019. Several of the
aircraft were moved to the Kruze Education Center several miles away.
Many of the aircraft were sold off or given to other museums. It
is unknown at this time what aircraft and displays are now at Kruze,
which is a former shadow of the really good museum it used to be.
I am afraid most of the displays and aircraft were sold, and the new
Hoosier Air Experience at Kruze will be a major disappointment as is the
rest of what remains in the building.
This is
the fourth Indiana Museum to close since I started publishing in 2013.
The Hoosier Air Museum was one of the first museums I visited and did a
report on.
I will
leave this webpage open for historical purposes. This was really a
cool little museum. It is sad to see it go.
DDJ 5-19-2020
The Hoosier Air Museum is
one of two dedicated aviation museums in the state of Indiana, and one
of four museums located in Auburn, IN. It is located on the south
side of the DeKalb County Airport and is a ten minute drive from any of
the other three museums located in the area, which includes two
automobile and one combination military/automobile museum. The
Hoosier Air Museum is the smaller of the two aviation museums in the
state and has limited summer hours, so one needs to check its web site
before visiting.
The museum has this combination
hangar/meeting room building located on a its own tract of land on the
south side of the airport. The actual airport complex with FBO and
hangars is on the north side of the field. The hangar section
contains all of the aircraft displays, while the meeting room is for
member meetings and to be rented out for other occasions.
Originally the organization started as
Hoosier Warbirds and then became the Hoosier Air Museum.
Stepping inside the museum one finds a new, clean and well lit aircraft
display area.
Every time I go to a museum, I always discover something I had not seen
before. While the Hoosier Air Museum is not that large, it did
have this WWII B-24 auto pilot. What a mechanical nightmare!
The unit is about 2.5 feet square and 10-12 inches in height.
Unfortunately there was no other documentation on the device, and the
docent on duty could not provide me with any addition information on the
unit. I was not able to determine by looking at it where the
inputs and outputs to the device were.
This photo shows a cross section of the unit.
Included among the engines on display is
this R-3350.
This Allison V-1710-89 was primarily used on
the right engine of the P-38J and P-38L.
Sometimes one can learn something from an ID
tag. I was unaware that Allison did not number its cylinders one
through twelve as an automotive engine would be numbered.
The cylinders are numbered for the left and right side, one through six.
That then brings up the question as to which is the left and right side.
On display is AH-1G, serial number 67-1570 which served in Vietnam.
This Hiller OH-23B Raven is in the markings of the Michigan Army
National Guard and is on loan from the Kalamazoo Aviation History
Museum.
This T-50, N672, is one of the original aircraft in the museum and is
registered to Hoosier Warbirds. About fifteen years ago this aircraft
was flyable and taken to events. However, I have not known of it
flying in recent times. This particular T-50 came off the
assembly line in Wichita, KS in 1944.
The large meeting room has aviation displays of interest around the
perimeter of the room.
|