Mutley's Hangar Forums

Fantasy of Flight

You don’t get a major post from me without a lot of text. Sorry, guys, it’s a character flaw. I can’t help myself. When I post you get the picture AND the thousand words that it’s worth.

My brother and I made a visit to the Fantasy of Flight…I’m searching for a word here. Museum isn’t it, exactly. I’ve been to a lot of Warbird havens of various sorts. With the exception of those at military bases, most run on a shoestring and the posters and receptacles soliciting donations are never far away. Even the military ones don’t seem to have a lavish budget. Some charge admission, some don’t. This place is different. I think I’ve figured it out – this operation is pretty close to being a vintage airplane theme park. Theme parks are something they know about in Florida.

This one is located between Tampa and Orlando, next to the I-4 expressway and has been right under my nose for the five years I’ve lived near here. They have a few cheesy billboards along the highway up in my neck of the woods, about 75 miles away. Those weren’t too awe-inspiring and I’d never given it much thought until encountering the place when a cargo flight happened to take me there in FS. More about that later.

A gent named Kermit Weeks who doesn’t seem to be worried about where his next meal is coming from owns and operates the place. He’s very wealthy and is involved in many other business enterprises, but this one appears very much to be a hobby run as a business. He flies, of course and has flown all the flyable aircraft at this place. Based on the kinds of aircraft that are here, and the fact that he’s still walking around, I’m inclined to believe he’s a very accomplished pilot. Some of these things are certified widow-makers if you don’t know what you’re doing. He’s also the sole director and the ultimate decision maker for all that happens at FoF.

If any of you ever get to Florida, I’d advise you to put this place on your itinerary and allow at least a full day for it. You won’t regret it, though your wife, significant other or non-aviation minded offspring might. They have a web site at…

http://www.fantasyofflight.com/

…which doesn’t begin to do it justice. Maybe some of these photos will give you a better idea.

You may recall a post I made a while back when I saw this place (FA08) in FS9. At that time I declared it a jelly bean – not quite an FS Easter Egg, but close. I was struck by buildings that didn’t appear to be stock FS, but were. I did a little research and found that some how, for some reason, this place is fairly accurately modeled in FS9. I would assume the same is true in FSX, but haven’t confirmed that.

I have a ton of photos. I’ve organized them in groups and will post the first few sets now and follow up with more in new threads over the next few days. This one will contain the photos of the buildings and facilities, and taking things in alphabetical order, the various bomber types, B-nn. Sorry, Dai. I guess you know where the Sunderland ends up in that scheme, but it will be worth the wait. Rest assured that it is indeed there, and I believe I have more photos of that than everything else put together. All will be revealed in a few days.

So, off we go…

Gate


Marine Memorial

At a distance


Approaching the Entrance


Outside the entrance

Around the corner


The first hangar


Down the line



Now, I don’t know how someone goes about getting his business modeled like that in Flight Sim, but someone here has some serious influence with Microsoft, I suspect. I say again, this is not add-on scenery. This is out of the MS box.

The next set of photos requires some description. It is unlike anything else at FoF. The centerpiece is a B-17 as you shall see. You enter initially through the cargo section of a C-46 (I think) fitted out for a para-drop, including some fully outfitted manikins, cargo under nets, dim red lighting, engine noise, a wind blowing through it – you get the picture – we’re talking immersion here.

After passing through that you traverse a winding tunnel in dim light, with some vignettes featuring early aviation settings, (balloons, WWI, etc.) along the way. Soon you come to a scene where you’re standing outside a fence looking through to the parking ramp of a WWII bomber base in winter. All is in darkness, but there is a jeep, bomb carts, fuel and oil drums, a searchlight and all manner of vintage air base accoutrements scattered about. A B-17 is much in evidence parked near the fence.

Moving along the fence, the only way you can go, you encounter a rough wooden door and upon entering find yourself in a WWII bomber base briefing room. A projector starts and you receive a mission brief from a shadowy officer on a movie screen. It seems a pretty authentic-looking place, save for the room size.

Leaving the briefing room through the other door, you find yourself on the parking ramp next to the B-17 you saw earlier. All is still in darkness. The door in the side is open and you are obviously meant to enter the AC.

Right main gear

Looking over the wing toward the cockpit

Looking aft over the retracted tailwheel (No, I don’t know why it’s retracted on the ground.) Note that the tail gunner has his own entrance and cannot access the rest of the AC in flight, nor can his comrades get to him.

The waist – a cold and windy place in flight.

The radio operator’s position. This is roughly at the trailing edge of the wing. The ball turret is around here somewhere, but there was no evidence of it as this AC was fitted with a plywood floor to permit people to walk through it safely and probably also to prevent further damage to the AC, which was clearly long past being airworthy. The next compartment forward with the netting is the bomb bay.

The guy standing in the aisle giving advice to the pilots is my brother.

The flight deck.

The nose, below and forward of the pilots. There are three .50 caliber machine guns visible in this shot and there are two more below in a chin turret.

Outside again.




Some engine maintenance seems to have gone wrong here.


Next stop is the maintenance hangar where the flyable AC in the collection are cared for. This is the current home of the B-24 and a few other things.

This one is flyable. The original WWII nose art, which we were told was very risqué, has been removed and replaced with a non-authentic design that pays honor to Joseph Kennedy, Jr. who died in a B-24 during WWII.










The next AC featured is the B-25. This thing is immaculate. I don’t think they looked this good when they came out of the factory. When we returned home and compared photos, we found that one feature of this AC seemed to catch our fancy more than any other. You’ll have to take my word for it, but it did have wings and a tail, too.





If you conclude from the next photo that they have a B-29, you’d only be partly right.

I think the mission silhouettes represent X-plane drops, and I suspect that the nose art is a reference to “giving birth” to small airplanes while in flight.


This is the forward pressure vessel of the B-29. The next two sections aft of this one are un-pressurized bomb bays. An access tube connects to the flange you can see in this photo and provides crew access between the nose compartment and an aft compartment, also pressurized. The tube contained a cart on tracks and a cable along the top. Transit was accomplished by lying on your back on the cart and pulling yourself along by the cable.


I’ll make the next post in a day or two when I get them organized. Hope you’ve enjoyed this one and are still with me after all that.

John

John, you are always good value for money, thanks for posting this first chapter

I remember your post about the scenery but it's great to see it in real life too.

You mentioned about it being like a theme park, I guess there was plenty of genuine aviation interest too?

Looking forward to part 2. Next time I'm over we will have to go there!

Cheers

They look great, John.

Hey, John - what an excellent day out - and a terrific post. I remember your FS-9 scenery shot post, so I had deja-vu when reading this - if Florida wasn't so far away....
Some of those close ups are amazing - you're right, they do look after those ACs. But I couldn't work out why you concentrated on the art-work on the B25 - did I miss something?!?
Looking forward to Part 2 - and thanks for sharing.
Cheers - Dai.