Today I went to the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in Seattle. I have seen quite some aviation musea by now (for example Duxford in the UK, Aviodrome in the Netherlands), but this one also has a very good collection. And also the volunteers working there are very friendly and have great stories to tell you about the aircraft.

Besides all the “usual” pieces that you will find in almost every aviation museum (like a DC-3, Piper Cub, etc) there were also a lot of pieces that made the visit very interesting. For example there was a section about the US air mail history (very interesting for an European like me). And also in the sections about the First and Second World War I spend quite some time. They had a really good mix between talking about the aircraft and about the pilots flying them in those sections. In the Second World War section especially the part about the war in the Pacific interested me, as that part usually gets less attention in Europe.

All those old aircraft with their beautifull piston engines interest me a lot, but in the museum they also had some very interesting modern pieces like a SR-71 and a Concorde. Although I have been in the Concorde at Duxford before, it surprised me again how narrow that cabin actually is. Another interesting piece was the old Air Force One 707, with most of the interior still in place as well.

And being in Seattle (and on Boeing Field) there was a section about the history of Boeing as well of course. That section was in the origional “Red Barn” where the Boeing Company started a long time ago. It was very interesting to see the kind of tools they used back then to make an aircraft. Especially when you compare it to the things I saw yesterday at the assembly line of the 777.

This afternoon I arrived at the Hilton hotel in Bellevue where the actual DevCon and FanConf conferences will be held. The DevCon will be starting tomorrow and I will also have to give my presentation on the first day. So I guess I will do a last dry-run in my hotel room tonight. I must say I am really looking forward to meet all those people I know from the internet in real tomorrow.