Kalamazoo Air Zoo

[Travis Butler]

Was getting late by the time the last pics finished exporting, so just going to post a couple of teaser pics to start with... full set of 270 pics is here:

Kalamazoo Air Zoo May 2025

Visits to the Kalamazoo Air Zoo in May 2025.

flic.kr

20250526-SDIM5616 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
Sigma fp, TTArtisan 11/2.8 Fisheye

The Air Zoo was founded by Suzanne and Pete Parish, using planes they started collecting starting in 1959. Suzanne was a WASP in World War II, and the P-40 was the plane "she had always dreamed of flying"; when she had a chance to grab one, she jumped on it. And here it is hanging in the museum's atrium.


20250526-SDIM5642 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
Minolta MD 35-70/3.5 Macro

I mentioned in the Henry Ford Museum thread that the Tin Goose was in a real sense 'my' airplane, the first one I was able to recognize as a little kid; it's neat that the Air Zoo has one as well.

Alas, it was also when I started really picking up flaws with my old favorite Olympus OM Zuiko 24/2.8:


20250526-SDIM5634 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
OM Zuiko 24/2.8

Indoors, in a dimly lit environment with heavy spotlighting, it flares like crazy. I switched to the Minolta, which does much better, but has a much tighter FoV.

I had an unexpected chance to stop by again on my way home, and went back in with my Konica Hexanon 28/3.5; that one worked out better in both respects.


20250531-SDIM6790 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
Hexanon 28/3.5 (8-element version)

 

[Travis Butler]

The Air Zoo has four main settings.

The 'main' room is overall dim with spotlights, so has a lot of problems with both light levels and glare:


20250526-SDIM5880 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
(Had to boost the brightness a lot in PP; I was once again impressed with how well the fp does in low light, almost everything in here was ISO 1600 or above, with several at ISO 6400.)

There's the World War II room, which is much better lit but still has a lot of problems with glare:


20250526-SDIM5721 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

There's the 'space' room, which is sort of in between:


20250526-SDIM5785 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

(I give them credit for effort, especially since they're not a dedicated space museum, but there's not a lot there that's unique; it's almost all replicas and stuff like an Iron Man armor replica.)

All these are on the main campus. There's also the museum's original home building, which is now the Zoo's restoration shop, but which also houses some exhibits:


20250530-SDIM6569 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

It's not as big as the Henry Ford, but there's still a lot to go through. I did several hours at the main building on the first visit; squeezed in an hour at the restoration hangar on the second visit; and when I had a chance for a third visit, I went back to re-shoot with the Hexanon 28/3.5 as I mentioned above, plus pick up some exhibits I passed up the first time.

 

[Travis Butler]

How could I go without some more beauty shots of my founding plane?


20250526-SDIM5646 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
MD 35-70


20250526-SDIM5647 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
Some flare, but more attractive to me than the OM 24/2.8's.


20250526-SDIM5655 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

Unlike the Henry Ford, the Air Zoo had good shooting angles for most of the way around the plane.


20250526-SDIM5894 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

As well as a decent top view.


20250531-SDIM6794 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
Hexanon 28/3.5


20250531-SDIM6809 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

 

[Travis Butler]

The North American Aviation B-25 is another old friend:


20250526-SDIM5627 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

Just as the B-24 was produced in Willow Run, the B-25 was produced in Kansas City, building around 2/3 of the total planes at a plant at Fairfax Airport. (Although the airport was closed 40 years ago, with a GM assembly plant built over it, you can still see the runways in a satellite photo today.)


20250526-SDIM5673 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

There were a lot of B-25 variants. It was hard to call some of them 'bombers' at all; one version had a big 75mm cannon mounted in the nose, replacing the bombardier's position. This was a milder version, with 8 machine guns in the nose instead of the cannon.

20250526-SDIM5668 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20250526-SDIM5855 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
(You can see their P-38 scale model flying in the background.)


20250526-SDIM5891 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

They did really pack the planes together at the Air Zoo, which made it hard to get photos... but I'll admit they did a better presentation than the Strategic Air & Space:


20240902-SDIM2416 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
(One of the bomber versions, with the glass nose for the bombardier.)


20250531-SDIM6831 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
I mentioned in the Willow Run posts that other museums had tributes to Rosie the Riveter; the bit in the lower-right is the kind of thing I've seen most places, which is why I was so impressed by Willow Run's Rosie exhibit.


20250526-SDIM5661 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

...you don't think it's jealous of the attention the Tomcat got in Top Gun, do you?

 

[Travis Butler]

Ah, yes, the F-14.


20250531-SDIM6822 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

I do wonder sometimes what's up with the Tomcat. Was it just Top Gun?


20250526-SDIM5847 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

Because even though it has a very distinctive look:


20250526-SDIM5871 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

Its actual service record wasn't all that distinguished. A competent plane, but not the kind of success that, say, the F-86 Sabre was, or the F-4 Phantom. The early production engines were problematic and it didn't get a really good engine until the 80s. The missile it was designed to carry, the Phoenix, was kind of a one-trick pony and was never actually successful in combat for the USAF. (Though the Iranians did use it.) It was complicated and required a lot of maintenance.


20250526-SDIM5842 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

But still the Tomcat got (and gets) a lot of attention. A few years ago, there was a question on Quora suggesting the US make a deal with Iran to get some of their F-14s back for display, since it claimed there were only 3-4 available. Which was wrong on the face of it - Wikipedia lists dozens on display - but it shows how attached some people got to it. It was used by the anime Macross as the inspiration for the transforming Veritech fighters.


20250531-SDIM6840 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

I can't say I'm immune, either, as I thought it was cool as a kid. (Though the F-104 Starfighter was and remains my standard for 'cool fighter'; we'll get to it later.)


20250531-SDIM6853 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

20250531-SDIM6863 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
(One of the few angles where I couldn't get a clear shot of it; kudos to the Air Zoo for keeping the sight lines open.)

I dunno. It certainly gets star billing at the Air Zoo.


20250526-SDIM5878 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

 

[Travis Butler]

As a side note - and to peek ahead a bit - I've been here twice before, but this was the first time I really felt satisfied with the technical quality of the pics. See this pic from 2013, and compare it to this visit:


20130615-IMGP1036 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
Pentax K-01, DA 18-55


20250531-SDIM6883 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
Sigma fp, Hexanon 28/3.5

Or this even earlier pic from 2000:

• OLYMPUS OPTICAL CO.,LTD - C2020Z
• 6.6 mm
• ƒ/2
• 1/30 sec
• Pattern
• ISO 200

Olympus C-2020


20250526-SDIM5757 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
Sigma fp, MD 35-70

 

[Travis Butler]

A few of the non-warbird planes. See here for more background:

Aircraft, Spacecraft & More | Air Zoo | Kalamazoo, MI

From the early flights of the 1700s to modern-day aircrafts, the Air Zoo covers them all. Explore aircrafts throughout our history and get an incredible sense of just how advanced aircrafts have become. Buy tickets online today!

www.airzoo.org

20250531-SDIM6799 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
I like this little racer. Not as extreme as the GeeBee, but still coming from the minimalist concept.


20250526-SDIM5654 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20250526-SDIM5653 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
This Waco biplane was a tricky one, with the dark fuselage and the dark-and-spotlight exposure.


20250531-SDIM6800 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
Waco gets several representations here.


20250531-SDIM6806 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20250531-SDIM6803 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
Birds in flight!


20250531-SDIM6812 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20250531-SDIM6787 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

 

[Travis Butler]

So let's take a swing over to the original building, where the restoration shop lives:


20250530-SDIM6646 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20250530-SDIM6584 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

I talked in the Willow Run pics about how groups were pulling planes from the bottom of Lake Michigan and restoring them; here's an example of that in action.


20250530-SDIM6576 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20250530-SDIM6575 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20250530-SDIM6579 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

 

[Travis Butler]

They also put some odd stuff in the restoration hangar that didn't really fit in the main exhibit hall. Like the front part of a Douglas A-3 Skywarrior...


20250530-SDIM6641 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

...but only the front part.


20250530-SDIM6643 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

Or the nozzle from a NERVA nuclear rocket engine prototype:


20250530-SDIM6583 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

How about one of the giant F-1 engines from the Saturn V rocket?


20250530-SDIM6586 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20250530-SDIM6587 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

But I think what took the cake for me were two of the largest and most complicated aviation piston engines ever built.

The Wright R-3350 Turbo-Compound, used in the B-29 (where it got a reputation for trouble) and later in the DC-7 and Lockheed Constellation:


20250530-SDIM6556 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

This was gnarly enough - compare it to the classic Merlin engine used in the Spitfire and Mustang:


20250530-SDIM6648 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

But it was nothing compared to the Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major:


20250530-SDIM6561 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20250530-SDIM6564 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

This monster powered the giant B-36 bomber:


20240902-SDIM2385 by Travis Butler, on Flickr (from the Strategic Air & Space Museum)

where it also developed a reputation for trouble, in this case a nasty habit of catching fire.

As impressively big and complicated as they were, they proved to be the end of the line; there was a limit to how much power you could coax out of a piston engine, and newer jet and turboprop engines could scale to much higher power levels while actually being simpler.

Though they didn't always seem simpler... take a look at the J-58 engine for the SR-71 Blackbird:


20250530-SDIM6578 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

 

[Travis Butler]

A Pair of Lockheeds


20250530-SDIM6645 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

The F-104 Starfighter is another of my (slightly older) childhood favorite planes:


20250530-SDIM6588 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

It was slender, sleek, minimalist, a finely-honed stiletto compared to the brute force of the F-14 Tomcat.


20250530-SDIM6635 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20250530-SDIM6634 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

The F-117 Nighthawk was the opposite of the F-104 in a different way:


20250530-SDIM6596 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

Not sleek or slender at all, but ungainly, lumpy, all sharp angles and chunky points.


20250530-SDIM6592 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20250530-SDIM6619 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20250530-SDIM6625 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

Still, I can't help liking it in a weird, awkward way.


20250530-SDIM6600 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

A study in contrasts.

 

[CharlesH]

A Pair of Lockheeds

I may have mentioned before, my office is on Kelly Johnson Parkway, and I have friends that work at Skunkworks. So I'm a Lockheed fan by osmosis.

 

[PJD]

On a related note, my youngest sister (on the left) works for a company in southern California that manufactures drones. They had their annual company picnic this past weekend, and she sent me this "OK to share" snapshot.

 

[Travis Butler]

On a related note, my youngest sister (on the left) works for a company in southern California that manufactures drones. They had their annual company picnic this past weekend, and she sent me this "OK to share" snapshot.
View attachment 13811

Heh. Nice.

Would people here be interested in a general 'Post your favorite aerospace pics' thread? Or maybe a 'Post your favorite transportation pics', so we can include @Pete_W 's trains?

 

[Travis Butler]

I may have mentioned before, my office is on Kelly Johnson Parkway, and I have friends that work at Skunkworks. So I'm a Lockheed fan by osmosis.

Oh, nice. I'll bet they've got lots of great stories... hopefully some of them can even be told.

Another one of their products is coming up later, Blackbird flying in the dead of night...

 

[Travis Butler]

Rivals


20250530-SDIM6604 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

The F-86:

20250530-SDIM6605 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

The MiG-15:

20250530-SDIM6607 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

There were many great fighter rivalries in history; this pair is the one that took things into the jet age.

I always thought the Sabre looked a little better-balanced than the MiG; the tail on the MiG always looked a little outsized.


20250530-SDIM6603 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

That said, it looks a little tubby compared to the MiG.


20250530-SDIM6608 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

 

[Travis Butler]

A couple more misc. pics from the restoration hangar, to close out this section of the tour:


20250530-SDIM6613 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20250530-SDIM6616 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20250530-SDIM6547 by Travis Butler, on Flickr
A sample of how tough the A-10 Warthog is... a missile hit one of the engine pods, tearing it up this badly... and it still made it safely back to base.


20250530-SDIM6543 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

 

[Travis Butler]

The Menagerie
So, did "Air Zoo" sound like a weird name for an aviation museum? A few years after they started, the founders noticed how many of the planes had animal-themed names, and decided to start calling it the zoo.

The prior post has the "Mallard" seaplane, and we've already talked about the Ford Trimotor being nicknamed the "Tin Goose." We saw the Curtiss Robin earlier, and the founders' pink P-40 Warhawk:

20250531-SDIM6774 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

There's also the Sopwith Camel:

20250531-SDIM6782 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

The C-47 Skytrain, better known as the DC-3 - but also nicknamed the "Gooney Bird":

20250526-SDIM5773 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

The P-39 Airacobra:

20250531-SDIM6835 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

AH-1J SeaCobra:

20250526-SDIM5677 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

A-4 Skyhawk:

20250531-SDIM6874 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

F/A-18 Hornet:

20250531-SDIM6870 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

But probably the most famous set is in the next post...

 

[Travis Butler]

From its start in 1929, up to its merger with Northrup, the Grumman Corporation made a name for itself building rugged, powerful airplanes, particularly carrier planes for the US Navy. They also built amphibious planes like the Mallard above; the Lunar Module, and others. But they're most famous for the 'Cat' run of carrier-based fighters.

The F4F Wildcat, later built by General Motors as the FM-2 after Grumman had moved on the F6F:

20250526-SDIM5702 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20250526-SDIM5705 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

The F6F Hellcat:

20250526-SDIM5703 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20250526-SDIM5709 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

F7F Tigercat:

Grumman F7F Tigercat - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

(The Zoo used to have one, but sadly sold it.)

F8F Bearcat:

Grumman F8F Bearcat - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

(Same story with the Zoo having one and later selling it.)

F9F Cougar:

20250530-SDIM6623 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

F11F Tiger:

20250530-SDIM6638 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

And, of course, the F-14 Tomcat above.

 

[The Rigger]

The Air Zoo used to host a pretty fun hot-air balloon festival every summer. Nothing to rival Albuquerque, obviously, but pretty well-attended nonetheless. It's since moved a few miles away to a neighboring farm as the area around The Zoo has built up and grown more "urban," for lack of a better word.

 

[Travis Butler]

Restoration

Back in the restoration shop, we saw them working on one of the Lake Michigan rescues... here's a look at the final result.


20250526-SDIM5754 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

The Willow Run display showed what the SBD Dauntless looked like at the bottom of the lake; the Zoo's pic above showed what it looked like as it was lifted out of the water. This is what it looked like in fighting trim.


20250526-SDIM5748 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

The plane was remarkably well-preserved, but that doesn't mean perfectly preserved:


20250526-SDIM5750 by Travis Butler, on Flickr


20250531-SDIM6932 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

Although Douglas Aircraft made its name with the famous DC-3, and continued a famous line of passenger planes through its merger with McDonnell Aircraft, it was also a notable Navy supplier, the SBD Dauntless being one of its more notable planes. (The A-4 Skyhawk above was another of its successes.)


20250531-SDIM6929 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

The Dauntless was already getting a bit outdated when it made its name at the Battle of Midway; its common nickname was "Slow But Deadly." But it was well-loved, especially compared to its replacement, the generally disliked SB2C Helldiver.

Douglas later got the chance to follow up and do the job right with the AD-4 Skyraider:


20250526-SDIM5739 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

Although it was a bit too late to fly in WWII, the Skyraider went on to have a notable career in Korea and Vietnam; 20 years was a very long time for a piston plane to stick around, which makes it kind of special.


20250526-SDIM5742 by Travis Butler, on Flickr

The pics don't quite convey just how big it is. (It doesn't help that I couldn't get a side view; the wings block the rear fuselage from this angle.)

Some versions carried up to four people for radar or electronic countermeasure work. A couple even had a passenger compartment inside the fuselage. It's amazing that they were able to make something that big fly with just a single engine.