San Antonio, Texas

 San Antonio, Texas - 1/17 - 1/19/2025

We stayed a Harvest Host for two nights called the Texas Air Museum at Stinson Field.  The museum was on one side and the municipal airport was on the other.  The lights of the airport were cool at night.  Also no loud planes because it was a municipal airport.  Lots of small planes and helicopters taking off. 

The museum recorded the history of Kelly Field in addition to having lots of military artifacts, planes, some space information and all kinds of memorabilia.

Here is the history of the establishment of Kelly Field and the role of the airfield.  Easier for me to provide the pics if you are interested in reading than trying to summarize. 

The Aztec Eagles were a group of Mexican pilots who assisted the United States in WWII.  It is an interesting story if you care to look it up.  It is something neither Dave nor I had known about.

Operation Little Vittles with Uncle Wiggly Wings is a happy story from the war. 

These are just for fun.  Can you imagine sitting in these cockpits and flying up in the air?

Interesting facts learned throughout the museum:

* How young some of the military personnel were, Veterans of Underage Military Service.  One sign they had showed a 12, 14 and 16 year old who served.  There were over 1,000 underage military service men.

* HAM was a chimpanzee that rocketed 155 miles high and 420 miles downrange aboard a Mercury Redstone rocket on January 31, 1961.  Ham’s Orbital flight paved the way for the flight made by the first astronaut, Alan Shepard on May 5, 1961.  Ham was trained to manipulate the two levers in the couch whenever the light appeared beneath them.

* The museum had a collection of books which included archived information from all space activities from Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Space Shuttle Missions and International Space Station Missions.

Enjoy some additional pics.

Gas refill station for planes

Till next time