Boeing Museum of Flight Game Day

Just got back from a great game day held at the Boeing Museum of Flight hosted by NHMGS care of Kevin S (A Gamer's Tale). I've missed this great event held in at an equally great venue for the past few years. This year was great and the sunny weather made its appearance through the multi-glassed great hall.

Kevin has kept up a great connection with the museum staff and manages to get NHMGS members free passes for the day. Today's event was somewhat unique in that we shared the area beneath the SR-71 with another hobby group - IPMS scale modellers. They were the ones who actually sat beneath the Blackbird.

A view of the main gallery before the museum officially opened. We were able to get in an hour before. 

The F-4 Phantom was the centerpiece of an ongoing Vietnam War display.

"Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night"

Jeroen K. —Micro Armor-1944 Soviets vs. Axis—The Russian attack

Wings of War by Tom C.

Thuds Over Hanoi by Damond C. These were based on the same Air War rules used for the WW2 game I played in last week. I ran a pair of F-105's while the escorts were F-4's and Wild Weasels. Once again, I managed to reach the end of my run unscathed. I turned my planes over to a buddy for the second phase to the target site as I wanted to cruise around the museum to take pictures.

Kevin and Dave S's Wings Over Malta game. Again, please see both of their blogs to see more images and descriptions of the games and museum - A Gamer's Tale and Naval Gazing.

Scale modelers table with mostly 1/35th and 1/32nd scale models - the guy in the red shirt painted all of these - he also told me he used to be a gamer and still has a lot of Rocco tanks - many still in boxes. He said he wasn't planning on selling them just yet.

Close up of Vietnamese SAM's.

This was a display of large-scale flying aircraft by yet another hobby group.

The WW2 annex.

Great War annex.

I always like checking out this huge zeppelin - I think it's around 1/48 scale or large - judging by the figures with it.

Damond and Lawrence's game near the end of the game - bombers about to drop their load onto the primary target - a bridge that just wouldn't go down.

Scott M's Star Wars Armada game

Chris B's —Battle of Coronel

Lawrence's What a Tanker game in the second period. The Jagdpanzer IV which I ran in the foreground. It eventually took out my buddy Jim D's Sherman after several rounds of shooting. 

I actually liked not being directly under the Blackbird as in years past. It's kind of dark under there and harder to see stuff.

All in all a great day at an excellent museum - to top it off the special at the cafeteria today was meatloaf and mashed potatoes, a nice primer going into Thanksgiving!