The Great Escape - Day 11: Historic Flight Foundation & Boeing Factory Tour

Saturday was a typical Pacific North West day, heavily overcast, and wet.

Good day for indoor activities. 

First came a tour of the Historic Flight Foundation's planes and exhibits at nearby Payne Airfield.  All their aircraft are in flying condition and get to fly often we were told, unlike most aviation museums where those old warbirds and such just get to sit around.

We were given basically a personal tour of the aircraft by one of their Docents, Tom, who did a great job and we did learn a lot.

 Bearcat, designed as a Japanese Zero killer, didn't quite make it

into the Second World War before it ended.

 Spitfire, this one with Czech insignia, flew as part of the

Czech contingents of the RAF

 P51-B, The Impatient Virgin

 Grumpy

B-25 Bomber 

We were able to board her and check out the interior

 DC3

I think it was either a similar model or a DC10 which

I rode in my first aircraft ride when I was a kid in Honduras

 This particular DC3 was used as an executive's plane 

by Johnson & Johnson, pretty nice

 A lot of history crowded into a relatively small building

After lunch we toured the Boeing Aircraft factories but as no pictures were allowed, none can be presented.  More info here: LINK

Here's an idea of how huge the buildings are:

Found via google

source: LINK

Both tours were good, I preferred the one with the vintage planes of course.  The Boeing tour proved too crowded for me to fully enjoy it.  If you can only do one, I suggest the Historical Flight Foundation's offerings.

Heck, if you've go the money you can arrange to fly in one of their aircraft!