Falcon Field Open House

Last fall we found ourselves in Mesa when picking up something I bought from Craigslist.  We were waiting at a stoplight when this really cool old airplane flew over the intersection.  It was pretty low, so there was no way to miss it!  My husband commented on how rare it was to see one of those old planes flying.  I remembered reading on Busy Bee Lauren that there was an aircraft museum in the area and wondered if it was nearby.  A quick search on the phone confirmed it was!

We headed over and sure enough, we got to the museum just in time to watch that beautiful old plane land and taxi in to it's spot.  We thought about going into the museum to look around, since airplanes are up there on the list of vehicles with which the boy is fascinated, but decided that the admission for the three of us was more than we wanted to spend that day on maybe an hour or two of entertainment.  Another time.

Well, last week while I was reading I Heart Mesa, I saw that they were having an open house at Falcon Field.  It said that there would be emergency vehicles, model train displays, and vintage warbirds.  Best of all?  It was free with a canned food donation!  I wondered if this was the same place where we saw the museum, but forgot to check before Saturday rolled around.

We were so happy to find that it was once we arrived!  Hooray for being patient and getting stuff free!

Along with a couple of regular modern fire trucks, there was this cool old one that had been restored.  The firefighter there let Bubba get in and ring the bell.

From there we walked over to the museum buildings.  We got there toward the end of the day and didn't want to miss out on that.  As we approached, there were some airplanes outside that you could check out.

This is the one we saw flying that day last fall.  Isn't it pretty?

After checking out all the planes outside, we headed indoors for some AC and some seriously cool old planes.

35 lbs vs. 1000 lbs.

I love that this one says "Cripes A'Mighty" in the front.  That cracked me up!  Also, check out how many enemy planes this guy got.  Wow.

Of course, this ended up being Bubba's favorite display.

Big engine, tiny kid.

This thing was about three or four inches long.  People think our version of one cent is a pain!

I love this.  This is a "flight computer."  HA!

The cockpit of one of the planes.  I swear the inside of this thing was more like a car than the other airplanes.

Brad and Bubba took a turn to check it out.

I never knew that the wings on airplanes could fold back like this.  Brad explained that it's so they could fit them on aircraft carriers better.  Brad's father used to be an engineer for Boeing back in the day so apparently he learned a lot about airplanes when he was a kid.  I was surprised when he could tell me what kind of plane most of these were.  I never knew that he knew that and we've been together for 12 years!

This plane was used to evacuate injured soldiers during the war.  Talk about not wanting to be claustrophobic!

There was one other really cool plane I wanted to talk about, but I'll  save that for it's own post tomorrow.  After we were done in the hangars, we headed back over to the field so Bubba could check out the classic cars.  Unfortunately, they all decided to leave before the event was over so there were only about four left when we got over there.  Lame.

We headed into the other building where Bubba was once again transported to a happy place.

It was full of model trains.

I found a chair and got comfortable while he happily bopped between displays with his father.  It didn't matter to him that they were just going in circles.  Each pass was greeted with the same enthusiasm and delight.  His favorite was the one that puffed real steam, just like Thomas.

They had a little booth (sponsored by Boeing, natch) selling little trinkets so we picked him up a die cast Blue Angel plane as a souvenir.  We ended our outing with a trip to Sonic for slushes, a little thrifting, and buying  Bubba a big boy bed (sorta - more on that later too) on the way home.  It was a pretty good, albeit extremely tiring, Saturday!