The museum showcases an extensive collection of historic locomotives, classic cars, and unique transportation artifacts that highlight Virginia’s transportation heritage. For today’s story, I will focus just on a few of the aircraft collection.
First up is the Jupiter Missile on the outside right end of the museum. This missile is 67 feet tall and weighs one ton with internal items stripped out. Jupiter was the USA’s first intermediate range ballistic missile created in 1955 for ease of use aboard Navy ships. The most famous sub-orbital test flight came on May 29, 1959 when a rhesus monkey named “Able” and a squirrel monkey named “Baker” rode in the nosecone at an altitude of 360 miles at a speed of 10,000 mph and safely returned to earth. This proved living creatures could survive space flight.
Back in the 1980’s, this Carilion Clinic Life Guard uniform made of Nomex to protect against flash fires consisted of a flight suit, helmet with eye visor and ear protection, plus steel toed boots. The suit cost $100 back then and now runs around $2,000.
Some other uniforms .. a Piper Cub flight suit, 1980 American Airlines Hawaii flight attendant uniform, and a 1982 Piedmont Airlines Uniform.
A few of the planes on display are the Aero Jet Commander including cockpit view, above, the rare NASA F/A 18-e Super Hornet Research Jet below, and the Experimental RV-6, our title picture.
Also on display: the Cessna Turbo Plane and its revolutionary Cessna 182 Turbo Engine, and, last, a yellow Virginia area tourist plane.
Nuts and Bolts: The museum is open all year from Tuesday through Saturday10AM to 5PM and Sunday 1PM to 5PM. Admission is Adults $12, Seniors over 60 and Youth (13-17) $10, Children (3-12) $8, and Children 2 and under is free. There is plenty of free parking directly in front of the museum. Street address is 303 Norfolk Avenue SW, Roanoke Virginia 24016.
