There is no other way to put it. The Planes of Fame Air Museum overwhelmed me. Drowning in the aviation history it showcases, and the aviation provenance of the airport in Chino, California, where it presents it, I don’t know where to start this piece.
So let me start with the smell. Because many of the airplanes in the museum’s collection still fly, its hangars, airplane locker rooms, have the redolent fragrance of airplane sweat. It is a lingering bouquet of hot oil cooling, the sweet scent of hydraulic fluid playing against the acrid pepper of rubbed raw rubber after it meets the runway.
It is a good smell, one worth breathing deeply at every turn because many of the wingspan entryways were open. It’s much better than the traditional climate-controlled museum atmosphere of stale, recirculated HVAC air tinged with dust and the whiff of commercial floor wax. And on this August Tuesday morning, stopping on our Route 66 way to Santa Monica, my riding partner (who’s also a pilot) and I pretty much had the place to ourselves.
Most of the airplanes on display were parked, not presented in some curated full-scale diorama. Instead the maintenance was real. Where else would you see a rare razorback P-47 Thunderbolt with its engine bared and rectangular black plastic drip pans catching the effluent from nose to (almost) tail?
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