Edward J. Peterson Air and Space Museum — Attraction in Colorado Springs

My family was vacationing in Colorado Springs for the week. We were mostly doing kids things and visiting the staples like Garden of the Gods, Cliff Dwellings, etc. I hadn't researched the museum ahead of time and my wife had found the WWII aircraft museum online so we had planned to visit it to satisfy my vacation needs of a military museum visit. I am a cold war buff, so after I came across the museum listing online, I knew we had to visit. Be aware the museum sits inside Peterson SFB, so you have to request access on the base via the museum at least three days in advance (exceptions might be made for shorter turn around...if you beg ;)) The access pass process was pretty painless once we got the confirmation via email from the museum. We just showed up to the Peterson SFB visitor center, checked in, and 15 minutes later we had our passes and were through the main gate.

When we walked into the museum we were greeted by a couple of gentlemen who were docents. They asked if we wanted a guide or just to do a self-guided. My wife though we'd just walk around, but I decided we'd go the guided route to get the most out of it and because I new my young family might have a better attention span if they had someone (besides me) to listen to. We made a great choice. Jake was our docent and he was awesome!! A big part of the tour is going inside and through the EC-121 Warning Star aircraft. Jake gave us a personal tour through the aircraft detailing anything we wanted to know about and more. What made it even more awesome was that Jake actually flew many missions and his last on this exact aircraft...so he was definitely the subject matter expert. Jake then took us through the hangar building where we saw the F-47, one of the early air intercept fighters, and many displays on our ICBMS, NORAD early warning systems, and Cheyenne Mountain. I recorded most of this on my camera for playback later as I knew my tagalongs did not have the patience for much more, but I could have stayed for hours.

TLDR: If you are a student of the Cold War and are in the area, you must stop and visit.

Thank you Jake and crew for the visit and thank you for your service to...

To whom this may concern - we just finished our tour at the Peterson Museum and Joe - our guide - was very nice and knowledgeable.

However, I did not appreciate his remarks at the end that the “current army” doesn’t support “Donald” , and goes on to highlight a recent west point experience. He then spoke about how easily “Donald” gets us into Wars, when ironically he has been the only president in the past 2 decades who has not began a war.

Those denigrating comments about our Commander in Chief were not appreciated. My wife and I are both American Citizens, and this was a let down to know this attitude is prevalent inside base.

I hope my comments don’t fall on deaf...

Neat place, but the two docents following me around everywhere kind of ruined the experience. I didn't really get to read or look at anything because they would not stop talking about their own careers that weren't relevant to the item they were showing and not letting me actually enjoy the museum in peace. Anytime I would stop to read they would force me to keep moving. Besides the Constellation, why even have docents follow you around? I know they meant well but I want to see the actual museum first and foremost. Frankly a big...