Minnesota Air Force & Army National Guard Open House - August 2001

By Brad Hagen

Minnesota Air Force & Army National Guard open house - August 2001
Photos by Fred & Mac Friedrichs
Text by Brad Hagen

Fred, his nephew, and I went to the open house in August 2001, typical of Minnesota it was hot, very hot, 100 degrees!! The show was actually in two areas, the one with current military equipment and a few restored Warbirds was at one side of the Twin Cities National airport which the first set of photos cover, the other area was on the other side where the museum is.

Coming through the gates was a display section of Army military equipment and some friendly reservists who patiently answered peoples endless stream of questions. Moving onto the ramp the heat didn't feel as bad with the breeze. There wasn't any flying though, except for the airliners constantly taking off and landing.

The B-52 and the B-1 sitting facing each other really showed off their differences!! With the B-52, you needed to crouch way down to get into the massive bomb bay…with the B-1, you'd have to reach up just to have a chance of touching the belly. When we were walking towards the B-52, the outrigger wheel kept spinning, Fred put his hand on it and stopped it, he took his hand off and it started spinning again just from the wind.

A couple C-130s were open so you could walk through, they also had ice cold water available which was very welcome.

We then drove over to the other side of the field to the museum which had some nice exhibits. Outside there were '60s era jets (including an A-12, CIA version of the SR-71) and a couple Hueys along with a P-51D in MN ANG colors, very colorful.

Inside there were exhibits on Minnesota's military aviation history, models (mostly those small scales unfortunately), some planes under restoration, including an early MiG, and they were building an exact replica of a J-4 Jenny. There were numerous piston and jet engines on display also.

One month later, the world changed with the attack on 9-11.

The museum closed but is expected to reopen again this spring. As we were leaving, we noticed they also had an armor display which would have been interesting to look at, but we were running out of time. It was a very enjoyable time and I would recommend anyone in the area to stop in and have a look. Maybe we'll go back, hopefully we won't get lost on our way home again…

© Brad Hagen

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This article was published on Wednesday, July 20 2011; Last modified on Saturday, May 14 2016