FORT WORTH, Texas (dpa) – Anyone travelling south along Highway 377 from the Texan city of Fort Worth for the first time is in for a big surprise about 30 minutes out of town.
Suddenly, shimmering silver birds loom in the middle of the prairie, a fascinating collection of old transport planes, classic fighter jets and small helicopters. A Douglas C-47 sits alongside F- 4, F-101 and F-105 fighters and a host of other well-known planes.The Pate Museum of Transportation, near Cresson, is one of numerous aviation museums in the north of Texas. The planes are lovingly restored and in good condition. Entrance is free of charge too. Aviation buffs from all over the world come here, to research, to photograph or just to wonder.For foreign tourists, the Pate Museum is not necessarily the first port of call as far as Texan aviation museums go, because directly at Dallas-Fort Worth airport is the C. R. Smith Museum, run by American Airlines.Hundreds of exhibition pieces are displayed here, as well as turbines, photographs and copious information on the rapid development of commercial aviation. Pride of place is held by a DC-3, the plane that revolutionised air travel. A flight simulator is on hand for visitors to learn all about aerodynamics, wind tunnels and test computers. Admission to the C. R. Smith Museum is also free.It is no coincidence that there are so many museums and collections in the Dallas-Forth Worth area of northern Texas. Businesses linked to the aviation industry have long been settled here, among them Lockheed Martin, whose hangars mass-produced B-24 and B-36 bombers during World War II. Bell Helicopters is based here too, and the headquarters of American Airlines is also in the area. Added to that are numerous military airbases.The people in the area have also been drawn into the aviation industry. “There are probably more retired pilots and engineers living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area than anywhere else in the world,” says William Bond, an ex-Lockheed manager.“The number must be in the thousands, from industry, the airforce and the airlines. And these men stay involved: they lovingly maintain old biplanes, they rent hangars at any one of hundreds of private airfields and restore and tinker with historic aeroplanes in clubs and hobby groups.” The museums and collections in north Texas can always “call on a gigantic potential of volunteers,” affirms Bond.The Cavanaugh Flight Museum at Addison Airport near Dallas has a comprehensive collection of historic planes spanning the period from World War I to the Vietnam War.It includes a well-maintained Sopwith Camel and other rare planes from the Great War as well as a modern MiG-21. The Frontiers of Flight Museum at Love Field Airport in Dallas boasts a Sopwith Pup and hundreds of other aviation treasures: a parka worn by polar explorer Admiral Richard Byrd, porcelain from the Hindenburg airship which went down in the U.S. in 1937 and the pilot’s licence awarded to pioneer flyer Glenn Curtiss.At Meacham Airport in Fort Worth, aviation fans can marvel at a Flying Fortress B-17. Also here is the Vintage Flying Museum with its fighter aircraft from all over the world, including a British Hawker Hunter and an American F-86. Besides the museums and collections, there are also the many airshows put on every year in the area.The events are celebrated like any other popular festival. Among the top attractions are Fina Dallas Airshow and, in particular, a show held at the NAS military base in Fort Worth. The Alliance Airshow, another event in Fort Worth, celebrated its 13th showing in October 2001 and featured the Marine’s Blue Angels among other teams.There are other attractions in other part of Texas, too. Just two hours west of Fort Worth, the Aviation Museum at Breckenridge has dozens of old aeroplanes, while another hour further west is the small settlement of Coleman and its Warbird Museum’s collection of restored aircraft which saw action in World War II and the Korean conflict.And deep in the south of Texas, at the quay in the port town Corpus Christi on the Gulf of Mexico is the aircraft carrier the USS Lexington, now converted into a floating museum. It has old anti- aircraft guns and modern carrier aircraft such as the F-14 jet fighter and Huey Cobra helicopter. For more information see the www.traveltex.com website on the Internet for more information.
