Just three miles away from Huffman Prairie, Ohio, where the Wright brothers experimented with controlled flight in 1905, is the Air Force Museum, a dynamic tribute to the ingenuity, technology, and courage that lifted man to the skies and then on into space. THE AIR FORCE MUSEUM is a pictorial tribute to the astonishing history of this huge, $7-million showcase for aircraft and aviation. This new, revised, and expanded edition has been made necessary by the extensive remodeling of the museum in 1977, reflected in a number of permanent changes.With models, sketches, photographs, paintings, and other pictorial elements, the world"s largest military museum is brought fully to life, showing why over a million people visit it annually. Beginning with a history of the museum itself, the authors go on to discuss the museum"s representation of early aviation history-man"s early concerns about aerial flight and his first attempts to slip the bonds of earth. Here are many of the fascinating aspects of the part aviation played in the two world wars: the first aerial circumnavigation of the earth, diaries of legendary pilots, depictions of the first in-flight refueling, and the actual plane that dropped the second atomic bomb on Japan.Some of the fascinating pictures included in the book are of President Truman"s airplane, the Independence; the most famous U.S. World War I airplane, the Curtiss JN4-D Jenny; Britain"s best fighter, the Mark V Spitfire; America"s first jet-propelled airplane; a display of astronaut food and menus; and Glenn Miller"s trombone, which has brought a surprising amount of mail to the museum. For the first time there is in print a photo of the Mark 17, the thermonuclear bomb that was carried on the B-36 and the B-52 and until recently classified Atomic Top Secret.