Pima Air & Space Museum

Located on the outskirts of Tucson, the Pima Air & Space Museum is a gigantic facility. They have numerous hangars with planes from various military conflicts, but a primary focus on WWII. In addition, they have experimental planes and commercial aircraft on view. You can walk on your own to see everything, or, for a few buck, you can take a tour on a tram, which also provides a good amount of historical background (and saves your feet from tons of walking!).

In addition, if you go during a weekday, you can take a bus for a tour of the "Boneyard," which is at a separate Air Force base. It features various military planes and it is where our Air Force keeps many planes that are no longer needed for service. If you plan on doing this though, get there EARLY or you may not get on a tour. There are a few tours during the day, but they sell out fast. People start lining up for tickets at least 30 minutes before opening. We got there 15 minutes before they opened and there was already a gigantic line. We got the last 2 tickets left on the first tour of the day.

This is well worth the trip and you should plan on spending at least 4 hours here if you'll be doing the "Boneyard."

Military Aviation Museum

When most people come to Virginia Beach, they don't leave the touristy area of the boardwalk and Atlantic Avenue. However, there is much more to explore beyond the beach! One place, about 20 minute driving distance from the boardwalk, is the Military Aviation Museum. 

Here, visitors can view planes from both World War I & II. The planes are in excellent condition, with most of them still being air-worthy, are still flown near the museum and at air shows. 

We found the docents to be extremely knowledgeable and helpful during our visit, sharing stories of the various planes we were looking at, which gave us a great look into our history.

On some days, you also have the opportunity to fly in a WWII era airplane (With an additional cost). Also, for those at the beach who see planes flying with advertising banners, this is where they take off from. If you're lucky, while you're at the museum, you can see how these planes pick up and drop off these banners, which isn't as simple as you may think. To get the banner, the plane has to do a slight nose dive and with great precision, align the plane to pick up the banner with a hook.  Not so easy!