Nearly 30 years after circling the moon, Astronaut Bill Anders founded the Heritage Flight Museum with one of his favorite aircraft, a World War II P-51 Mustang named “Val-Halla.” Last summer, after returning from Canada, we visited the Heritage Flight Museum near Burlington, Washington.
In 1968, Bill Anders circled the moon in the Apollo 8 command module and took the photo I placed at the top. Departing the mission script, which was photographing potential landing sites on the moon, Bill Anders took the picture, now known as Earth Rise. To make the photo fit, I cut out some of the moon’s surface and the black sky in the photo.
Apollo 8
When Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, and Frank Borman sat atop the Saturn V rocket, they knew they would be the first people in history to make a deep space mission and depart Earth’s orbit to do a few laps around the moon. Bill gave the odds of success at one-third. He also mentioned that the odds of complete failure were about one-third.
An interesting point of the Apollo 8 mission was that Bill Anders was listed as the Lunar Module pilot (lunar lander) and that the mission was not carrying a lunar lander but was only designed to circle the moon and didn’t need a lunar lander because no landing was intended.
Saturn V
As of 2024, the Saturn V remains the only launch vehicle to have carried humans beyond Low Earth Orbit. It also holds the record for the largest payload capacity to low Earth orbit, which included the unburned fuel necessary to send the Apollo astronauts to the Moon and their safe return trip to Earth. We saw the Saturn V rocket during our Visit to Kennedy Space Center, where we also witnessed a night launch delivering satellites to low earth orbit. Here is a link to the story. Space Launch at the Kennedy Space Center
Test Pilots
Another amusing story about Bill Anders was that President Kennedy wanted test pilots to be astronauts. I got the Kennedy comment from Thomas Wolfe’s historical novel, The Right Stuff. Perhaps it is true. Anyway, Chuck Yeager (the first person to fly above the speed of sound) was in charge of the test pilot program. Bill Anders wanted to be in the program and applied to both the test pilot and astronaut programs.
Three days after Deke Slayton (one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts and Apollo Program Manager) invited Bill Anders to join the Apollo program, Chuck Yeager told Bill Anders that he was rejected for the test pilot program. The story is that when Chuck Yeager learned that Bill Anders was in the Astronaut Program without first going through the Test Pilot Program, he was not happy.
Heritage Flight Museum
It is fun to review Bill Ander’s life, but the focus of this article is Bill Anders Heritage Flight Museum, which became, along with flying, one of his greatest loves. While I would have loved to meet him (or any other astronaut), I would have been entirely unqualified to interview him.
However, looking at the Heritage Flight Museum’s display aircraft is within my qualifications. Our travels have included visiting different aircraft museums, and the Heritage Flight Museum is an excellent example of several we have visited. I will include links to articles about some of the other great aircraft museums we have visited.
In memory of Bill Anders
Sadly, a couple of months before our visit to the Heritage Flight Museum, Bill Anders died in an aircraft accident when he was 90 years old. He was flying in one of the aircraft I trained in (T-34 Mentor) and, shortly before the accident, was performing acrobatic flight maneuvers.
North of Seattle
Skagit Regional Airport is located north of Seattle, a little west of Burlington, on the way to Anacortes Island and Whidbey Island. It is home to the Heritage Flight Museum.
The displays at the Heritage Flight Museum are very complete and look almost new. Tami was the primary photographer during our visit.
Other aircraft museums
Here are the links I promised about other aircraft museums we visited while exploring the United States as full-time travelers.
Top Secret Titan Missile Museum
Classic Rotors, a One-of-a-Kind helicopter museum
Old Relics – Like Me at the Pima Air & Space Museum
Fantastic McMinnville Evergreen Aviation Museum
How Oregon lost the Navy, Tillamook Naval Air Station
Space Launch at the Kennedy Space Center
First Powered flight at Kill Devil Hill
Please subscribe and join us on our journey.
We will add you to our email list and send you updates once a week. Here is a link. Subscribe
About our links
Our blog income is zero, allowing us to be independent and tell the truth. We do not get income or commissions. No, we don’t make paid endorsements. We don’t make recommendations; instead, we will tell you what we like (or dislike). The links are only provided as a quick reference to help our readers.
Links
About Comments
We love seeing your comments, but they are not automatic. I get about twenty spam comments daily, so I don’t have automatic comments. I read and then publish every comment personally to protect the blog and keep it on-topic and real. So this means that you will not see your comment right after you hit submit. Sorry for the delay in publishing your comments. Please know that we would love to hear from you.
Great review of the Heritage Flight Museum Scott, with beautiful pictures by Tami. Just one quick item, the Hog Wild Hunter is a T-6 vice a T-28, but the helicopter was correct. Seems, there’s always a critic about :-). Thanks for mentioning Classic Rotors and Evergreen (we work quite often with them and were there earlier this year). Give a call next time you’re in town. We might have the H-60 up at the main gate by then. The dedication ceremony is scheduled for Jan 25. Safe travels you two.
Thanks, Chip, for the correction. Since I haven’t flown the T-28 or the T-6, my vision is of the new T-6 trainer, which looks like an extended version of the T-34C I flew.
As a former piston powered T-34 Tormentor, and T-28 Trojan pilot, I didn’t know you were so young. You still put together a good story, with great pictures. Thanks Chip for identifying the T-6, didn’t know for sure what it was, but knew it was not a T28. o-by-the-way, the T-28 was used by the Vietnamese Airforce in a close air support role during the war.
I flew in a T-34A piston-powered, but I can’t say I flew it. Rather, I was merely along for the ride. Other than the Huey, the T-34 was the oldest aircraft I flew, and so much fun.
Interesting.
Scott this article is so interesting! You and Tami are really enjoying what retirement should be like! Stay well and drive safe!❤️❤️❤️