Katrin & Jojo

October 4, 2008

So we left NY state this morning and headed south-west, using the I-87 south and then switched onto the Massachusetts Turnpike until we hit Springfield, MA. A few exits later we were in Windsor Locks, where the first thing we did was to visit the New England Air Museum near the Bradley Intl. Airport. Although I have seen my fair share of aviation and military museums, this one is definitely worth a visit. The number and variety of different aircraft (civil and military) is overwhelming, as are the sizes of some of their planes. They have everything from small one-man-helicopters, over Hueys, an F-14 to a B-29 Superfortress. Also the have small photo-and-text exhibitions and miscellaneous stuff like Jeep’s, a 1-megaton nuclear bomb and and a large amount of motors and aircraft-guns. All the planes look very well in shape, and not like they haven’t been looked after since they were put of out service. The F-14 was just 3 years “old” (decommissioned 3 years ago), and the oil was still dripping from it. A lot of the planes were in horrible shape (or in pieces) when they were donated, but thanks to a lot of volunteers and donations they were renovated and parts reconstructed in a lovely manner.

After the museum we first got ourselves a room near the airport (right in the flightpath of landing planes). Since it was still early we took the interstate south again and paid a visit to Hartford, CT, where we walked around town and had a look at the really nice downtown and the simply amazing State Capitol building (which was, unfortunately, closed).