Texas Air & Space Museum — Attraction in Amarillo

So dope.

We were on the way back to Chicago from San Francisco and we were stopping in Amarillo for lunch (BBQ!! heyyooo) But we had some time to kill. Looked up some things to do locally, considered the zoo but eh I mean we got a pretty cool zoo back home... Saw something else interesting but it would have been $18 each and we were on a budget (and it didn't sound thaaaat interesting).

Told my guy there was an Air and Space Museum in the area and I swear my mans eyes lit up. AND it was free? Boom. Done. Put it in the gps and after a 20min drive we were like.....is this it? I had to check that I put it in my phone right cuz it totally looked like we were driving into the airport. Don't worry though, just keep driving it's there. Smaller sign, inconspicuous door, but I swear it's there. And it's totally worth it. (I mean, it's free so I guess that's not saying much.. so it's more than worth it? A deal, by far)

Anyways, no spoilers about the actual tour/stories/info but there's super cool photos, awesome models, and amazing aircraft. We thought it would be a fairly short look around but we ended up staying I think two hours? So many interesting things to look at. What really blew me away (other than the helicopter that landed/took off while we were there hehe) were the people. Everyone was incredibly nice and knowledgeable. I feel like we got a good sense of the team, we bounced around between tour guides to see different sections they had at different times and they were all sooo cool. Slightly different things to say and different personalities made it so much fun.

I think we probably got the perfect tour, started with a bunch of cool stories and information, packed with jokes and sprinkled with movie recommendations; this guy was hilarious and extremely entertaining yet obviously knew what he was talking about. Second part/ tour guide felt a little more structured but she had some fantastic info/stories too. It got a little more hands on and she let me sit in everything and made sure I got to touch and see all the things! :D awesome. Third part/guy had great things to share too, definitely some chuckles, and he just seemed so happy, it was like the perfect end.

They have a small gift shop too I checked out at the end (super casual, ofc had to get some post cards but they got some rad posters too). I am sooo glad we stopped here. It ended up being one of the many highlights of our...

I gave this 3/5 stars simply because it's a very small museum located in a Bell Helicopter business park/extra public hangar. The things here are worth seeing if you are nearby and want to check it out. It isn't a destination museum though. My family and I enjoyed our visit and we even saw an Osprey land which was awesome.

For the museum though, there are 6 different aircraft available to see but really only 1 that you can enter during this pandemic and that's with a museum guide. Two of the aircraft have been stripped so they're more like remnants of what they once were.

The guide was very nice and knowledgeable although the lady at the front desk seemed frustrated that we came in when we did. She seemed to warm up as we were leaving but nothing says "don't come back" like feeling like you've interrupted someone's crossword puzzle.

The museum is mainly a small fenced off portion within a working public hangar along with one room that has numerous aircraft models. There isn't a coordinated theme other than flight but with the limited items, it feels more like another museums' leftovers. Perhaps this will continue to evolve into a better museum but as it stands now, this feels like a side project to showcase some old stuff pulled out of boxes. That said, this museum isn't claiming to be the Smithsonian either so...

Why has this museum not gotten more reviews? Traveling through the area and stopped for two nights and this was a one of the sites we wanted to visit on our down day. It's small, donation based, but a wealth of information and the volunteer who took us on the tour of the aircraft outside was great. There is a small gift shop. The sign out front is small so you might miss the stop if you are not watching. They need more attention so they can get funding to move to a larger facility. I never knew the shuttle pilots need to do almost 500 live approaches before getting on the shuttle. This is accomplished by use of a twin engine lear style jet. Left side of cockpit is setup like a shuttle where the right side is standard. According to the tour guide, they get to altitude, slap on the speed brakes, reverse thrusters, etc. and the plan has all the characteristics of the shuttle. Well worth the visit and kudos to the volunteers who are...