Liberal Air Museum

Just like in 'nam, Tevas and all.

The Liberal Air Museum in Liberal, Kansas resides in an old military aircraft hanger just off one of the runways on the grounds of a World War II military base. In the 1940s servicemen were trained to fly the B-24 "Liberator" aircraft from this base. Today, the runway is still in use as Liberal's municipal airport and the military buildings that once supported troops have been converted to commercial business use like the museum.

Approximately ninety percent of the indoor space of the museum is taken up by aircraft of one sort or another. The remaining ten percent is a display of support equipment, historic photos, and material from the bases operational days in the 1940s. Outside the hanger on part of the runway approximately ten large aircraft are on display as well.

They've done a good job with the museum but I was hoping for more World War II planes that I could enter and photograph. I look back at those days and see their lack of sophistication and technology as simple times. But despite not having so much technological support the designers of aircraft fromm this period were able to provide the operators with a tremendous amount of complexity using only mechanical methods like buttons, dials and knobs connected to basic electrical circuts and pulleys. Today's "fly by wire" systems are much more complex and reinforces my nostalgia for the good old days.