commemorative air force southern california wing museum

Fifi flying made it a perfect visit on a perfect, 85degree, March Saturday. Some really knowledgeable volunteers on hand to talk about the planes there too. Well worth a visit, and well worth supporting to keep the place going strong.

This is a nice place to visit, if you have the time. Easy to get to, but it does get very hot in the summer, so bring water and hug the shade.

This CAF museum is in a small hangar and coexists with a WWII museum and an Experimental Aircraft Association chapter. There are a number of things to see, but possibly the most unique is "China Doll", one of the few flyable Curtiss C-46 Commandos left in the world (although it is currently grounded because of FAA regulations). The Commando is most well-known for its role in flying "The Hump", the incredibly treacherous air route over the Himalayas from India and Burma to supply Allied forces in southwest China during WWII. Only the C-46 had the load capacity and power to make this run effectively and efficiently. Seventy-plus years after the first C-46 was built, about a half-dozen are still flying commercially, most with Buffalo Air in Canada, but also in the Andean regions of South America.