US Air Force Armament Museum, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida

Situated outside Eglin AFB, this excellent outdoor aircraft collection is ungated and unfenced, allowing 24-hour access. The area is commonly known as Valparaiso. The museum building itself, which has got opening/closing hours and a shop, is crammed with paraphernalia of all sorts, with many bombs, guns, rockets and missiles along with four complete aircraft.

We had as our guide William Walter, author of "Ghostriders", the two-volume bible of the AC-130 Spectre covering 1968-75 and 1976-95. He gave us a cabin and cockpit tour of First Lady, the very first production Hercules, later converted, first to a JC-130A space vehicle tracker and later to an AC-130A gunship and now on display here. Many thanks, Bill!

It's taken me quite a while to get here, but it was well worth the wait.

Aircraft Reg'n Thumbs Notes
Air Force Research Laboratory GBU-43/B MOAB   Mother Of All Bombs.
Bell QUH-1M Iroquois 66-15186 ET Ex N703TF
Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress 44-83863 Marked as 42-30180 AW-C
Boeing RB-47H Stratojet 53-4296  
Boeing B-52G Stratofortress 58-0185  
Cessna O-2A Super Skymaster 68-6864 Ex N37555
Douglas NEC-47H Skytrain 44-76486 USN 39103
Entrance    
Fairchild A-10A Thunderbolt II 75-0288  
General Dynamics AGM-109 Tomahawk MRASM   Medium Range Air-to-Surface Missile: never entered service.
General Dynamics F-16A Fighting Falcon 80-0573 ET  
General Dynamics F-111E Aardvark 68-0058 ET  
Lockheed AC-130A Spectre (Hercules) 53-3129 "First Lady" - the first production C-130A Herc. Last photo shows Bill Walter, Spectre expert.
Lockheed T-33A Shooting Star 53-5947  
Lockheed F-80C Shooting Star 49-432 Marked as 49-713.
Lockheed F-104D Starfighter 57-1331  
Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird 61-7959 "Big Tail" with a nine-foot (3m) extension designed to carry sensor equipment which proved unhelpful and wasn't fitted to other airframes.
Lockheed Martin AGM-158 JASSM   Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile
Martin CGM-13B Mace 59-4860  
Martin EB-57B Canberra 52-1516  
McDonnell F-4C Phantom II 64-0817 Marked as 40813
McDonnell RF-4C Phantom II 67-0452  
McDonnell F-15A Eagle 74-0124 EG-33  
McDonnell F-101B Voodoo 56-0250  
MiG-21F   Possibly ex Indonesian AF, falsely marked as Soviet AF 85
North American (Cavalier) Mustang T2 68-15796 "My Buddy" Ex P-51D 44-13571
North American AGM-28A Hound Dog 59-2794 92794  
North American B-25J Mitchell 44-30854 Marked as Doolittle's 02344
North American F-86F Sabre 52-5513 Marked as 51-2910 FU-910: right side "Betty" left: "Beauteous Butch II".
North American F-100C Super Sabre 54-1986  
Northrop F-89D Scorpion 53-2610 FV-610 Composite airframe with parts of 52-1899
Republic P-47N Thunderbolt 44-89320 126 "Expected Goose", ex N345GP
Republic F-84F Thunderstreak 51-9495  
Republic F-105D Thunderchief 58-1155 Marked as 58-1771 (58-771) JV "Foley's Folly"/"Ohio Express".
Sikorsky MH-53M Pave Low IV 73-1652  

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