July 6 Ride to Chino Air Museum

[Dave]

Originally Posted by machodc

I'll even ride the whole 20 friggin' minutes to meet you there!

Whow. Then came Bronson

[ringadingh]

Cool pics, when I was a kid I had a control line P40 Warhawk and a L4 Grasshopper. It would be neat to have seen the real ones.
During WW2 my mom was a welder at GM in Oshawa Ontario. They built the Mosquito bombers there. She welded the oxygen lines in every plane produced in that plant.
I seen a Mosquito about 5 years ago in a Ottawa museum, it was quite a moving experience seeing a plane that she had worked on 60 years earlier.

My dad was stationed at Hill AFB, back when it was in full swing. They had bunkers with nuclear weapons out in the back 40. Big missiles on custom-built missle carriers. I rode within spitting distance of them many times. There was a dirt track for the local club called The Iron Ponies, and we used to ride scooters and minibikes back there before we had real motorcycles. It was just below the main runways on the east hillside, which was the back of the base.

We used to lie in the tall grass just beyond the end of the runways and B-52's would scream over the top of us taking off. They would just pound you against the ground they were so loud.

As kids we managed to sneak all over that base, to places where civilians weren't normally supposed to go. I remember buying cans of beer for a quarter, from a vending machine in the restroom building out on the officer's golf course.

Beer for a quarter. I'm really dating myself, huh?

[tomk]

We all have to get together and do some rides to these kinda places. Not a lotta miles but a tremendous amount of history.

[cactusjack]

Originally Posted by caddmannq

My dad was stationed at Hill AFB, back when it was in full swing. They had bunkers with nuclear weapons out in the back 40. Big missiles on custom-built missle carriers. I rode within spitting distance of them many times. There was a dirt track for the local club called The Iron Ponies, and we used to ride scooters and minibikes back there before we had real motorcycles. It was just below the main runways on the east hillside, which was the back of the base.

We used to lie in the tall grass just beyond the end of the runways and B-52's would scream over the top of us taking off. They would just pound you against the ground they were so loud.

As kids we managed to sneak all over that base, to places where civilians weren't normally supposed to go. I remember buying cans of beer for a quarter, from a vending machine in the restroom building out on the officer's golf course.


Beer for a quarter. I'm really dating myself, huh?

When my boys were little, I'd take them up to Hill AFB for a bi-annual open house they'd have. They'd bring in all kinds of aircraft, C130, C5 Hercules, an F117A, A10 Warthog, that sort of thing. The Thunderbirds would be there and the Army Golden Knights would give parachute demonstrations, they'd show fire fighting demonstrations, my kids really ate it up. It always seemed like it was held on the hottest weekend of the year, but it was a lot of fun.

BEER for a quarter? Those really were the good old days!