Air Force Museum cuts ribbon on fourth hangar

On June 8, 2016, a ribbon-cutting was held to officially open the new fourth building of the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Louisville District managed the construction of the mega-expansion of the 224,000-square-foot building with the help of the construction contractor Turner Construction Co., Washington, D.C., which broke ground in June 2014.

The $40.8 million project now houses four galleries – Presidential, Research and Development, Space and Global Reach, along with three science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning nodes. The new building is home to the Air Force One used by eight recent presidents, the only remaining XB-70 Valkyrie, the C-141C Hanoi Taxi, which airlifted the first American prisoners of war out of North Vietnam in February 1973, and the massive 96-ton Titan IVB space launch vehicle. 

The museum, which is the world’s largest military aviation museum, has approximately one million visitors from around the world each year.