Pearl Harbor (Ford Field) Pacific Aviation Museum

I don't know what model A6M this is but most Japanese airplanes had reddish brown finish on the prop blades. I had the good fortune to spend an hour or so looking at the A6m that was at Langley NACA when I was there. It was not a sleek taught airframe like maybe a P-40 or P-51. There were wrinkles in the thin fuselage skin but over all it was a handsome aircraft and I had the foolish feeling that I could get into it and fly it. It was really a pretty little airplane.

 

Bob- That light construction gave really good performance and range, but lack of armor and self-sealing tanks made them really vulnerable to combat damage. I doubt you would have any trouble flying one.

 

Somehow I find that the modern aircraft detract from the atmosphere of the museum. The included collection should be WW II only; they should have a second facility for the modern aircraft away from the harbor.

 

Boy, does that look better now that they've restored it. A few years ago, the tower was so deteriorated, you couldn't go in it. It was a sad sight to see.

It also brings back many memories: While many of the buildings were repaired, there are several that have battle damage. You just have to know where to look.

There used to be an armed sentry between Pearl and Hickam as Navy and Marine personnel weren't allowed on the Hickam side. Guess we were too scary to the USAF.... ;-)

Your photos look so good, it makes me think that instead of bringing WWII Vets to D.C. so congress can make themselves feel good, we ought to be sending Honor Flights to Pearl and Hickam.

 

I read somewhere that after the prototypes, they decreased the skin thickness even more.
My uncle (flew in WWII in the Pacific) said... "Picture a Bonanza with 1,000 hp engine bolted to the front, that's what a Zero was like."


That makes me remember reading "Samurai" in school... about Saburo Sakai, a Zero Ace many times over, by Martin Caiden.
Wounded several times, was sent on a kamikaze mission, but they could not find the ships in terrible weather, so returned to base. Think I'll read it again...

 

Yes, Taz, I'm aware of that . If I remember, the Zero that I looked at had a wicker seat and something that sprung a surprise on our engineers was discovering the super light and strong spar cords made of what is now 7078 or 7075 aluminum alloy. Sort of the same type of surprise in the FW190 main spar that was a one piece aluminum forging that spanned from one main gear to the other. Something that we had no way of doing at the time because we didn't have a forging press that big or as powerful. I recall something like a 50,000 ton capacity.

 

the super-structsure ,that was cut off the battleships ,used to just lay in the weeds on ford island

and if you walk around the aprons around the hangers you could find craters from the japenese bombs

ive been there back in 79-80,i wish there was a movie about the repair/clean-up in the years after the attacks.thru the later 40-50's

 

In 2015 my son's Eagle Project was helping in the restoration of the museum's Stinson L13 Grasshopper. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stinson_L-13

 

One of the more interesting displays is the remains of the Zero that crashed on Niihau. Which became known as the "Niihau Incident". This was explained to me by one of the museum's directors as part of the reasoning behind the internment of Japanese citizens during WWII.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niihau_incident

 

Rob. Love that museum.

The guy who honcho'd the repaint of the control tower building also painted my house in Waialua...he was painting some eaves and I just started small talk about nice paint and how great the Ford Islant tower looks..."yeah, my boys and I did that"...

This is one of the coolest things in there...from the original Hornet...
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