The Western Museum of Flight (WMOF) is an

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

located at

Zamperini Field Zamperini Field is a public airport three miles (5 km) southwest of downtown Torrance, in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The airport is classified by the FAA as a Regional Reliever (not for interplanetarien vehicle) and ...

, the municipal

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

Torrance, California Torrance is a city in the Los Angeles metropolitan area located in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, California, United States. The city is part of what is known as the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay region of the m ...

. WMOF is operated by the Southern California Historical Aviation Foundation. It houses not only historic aircraft, many of which were built in Southern California, but also has an extensive collection of historic photographs and blueprints.Parker, Dana T. ''Building Victory: Aircraft Manufacturing in the Los Angeles Area in World War II,'' Cypress, CA, 2013. . The museum has several rare aircraft among its collection, including the second

Northrop YF-23 The Northrop/McDonnell Douglas YF-23 is an American single-seat, twin-engine stealth fighter aircraft technology demonstrator designed for the United States Air Force (USAF). The design was a finalist in the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter ( ...

Advanced Tactical Fighter The Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) was a demonstration and validation program undertaken by the United States Air Force to develop a next-generation air superiority fighter to counter emerging worldwide threats, including Soviet Sukhoi Su-27 ...

(ATF) 5th generation stealth fighter demonstrator. Also on display is the first

Northrop YF-17 The Northrop YF-17 (nicknamed "Cobra") is a prototype lightweight fighter aircraft designed by Northrop aviation for the United States Air Force's Lightweight Fighter (LWF) technology evaluation program. The LWF was initiated because many in ...

Cobra, a lightweight fighter which was the basis for the

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

(originally

McDonnell-Douglas McDonnell Douglas was a major United States, American Aerospace manufacturer, aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor, formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its o ...

)

F/A-18 Hornet The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather, twinjet, twin-engine, supersonic aircraft, supersonic, carrier-based aircraft, carrier-capable, Multirole combat aircraft, multirole combat aircraft, designed as both a Fighter aircraft, ...

currently used by the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

and

Marine Corps Marines, or naval infantry, are typically a military force trained to operate in littoral zones in support of naval operations. Historically, tasks undertaken by marines have included helping maintain discipline and order aboard the ship (refle ...

. In addition, a

Grumman F-14 Tomcat The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is an American carrier-capable supersonic, twin-engine, two-seat, twin-tail, variable-sweep wing fighter aircraft. The Tomcat was developed for the United States Navy's Naval Fighter Experimental (VFX) program after the ...

and

Douglas A-4 The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk is a single-seat subsonic carrier-capable light attack aircraft developed for the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps in the early 1950s. The delta-winged, single turbojet engined Skyhawk was designed a ...

A, plus numerous other notable jet- and propeller-drive

airplanes An airplane or aeroplane (informally plane) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and wing configurations. The broad spectr ...

. The WMOF is one of two museums that house the only surviving

Jack Northrop John Knudsen Northrop (November 10, 1895 – February 18, 1981) was an American aircraft industrialist and designer who founded the Northrop Corporation in 1939. His career began in 1916 as a draftsman for Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Com ...

flying wing A flying wing is a tailless fixed-wing aircraft that has no definite fuselage, with its crew, payload, fuel, and equipment housed inside the main wing structure. A flying wing may have various small protuberances such as pods, nacelles, blis ...

s (

Northrop N-1M The Northrop N-1M (''Northrop Model 1 Mockup''), also known by the nickname "Jeep", is a retired American experimental aircraft used in the development of the flying wing concept by Northrop Aircraft during the 1940s. Design and development J ...

at the

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, also called the Udvar-Hazy Center, is the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM)'s annex at Washington Dulles International Airport in the Chantilly area of Fairfax County, Virginia. It holds numerous ...

annex of the

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the Nat ...

and the Northrop JB-1 Bat glider (crewed) at the WMOF).

References

External links

Western Museum Of Flight Home Page
Aerospace museums in California Museums in Los Angeles County, California {{California-museum-stub

See also

References

External links