Ping (love that shot of Habu).
There's a little park in Palmdale, CA outside Plant 42 (which is home to the Lockheed Skunk Works, and also where a lot of the F-35 work is going on for, IIRC, Northrop Grumman.
"Blackbird Park" has a U-2, an A-12 (!) which I believe is the first one to fly, and an SR-71A which was, I believe, the first one to fly. There's also a D-21 drone and some of the unusual turbofan/ramjet hybrid engines that powered these things.
There's one of the two civilian F-104s built for NASA inside the plant, but you need to have business there to see it. But Blackbird Park is open to the public.
Duxford, though, seems to have a really nice collection with good access (especially for the UK, where people usually can't get close to warbirds like we can). Another must-see in England is the Shuttleworth Collection, which goes all the way back to an AVRO (which I think is a replica) and a Blèriot, which is one of two kinda-flying (the other's at Old Rhinebeck in NY). The Blèriot handles so horribly that they just kind of buzz down the airfield in ground effect straight and level.
In the 1980s my unit worked once a year from a base that had been a bomber base in the forties and then a base of secret recon ops over the USSR in the fifties. British crews flew B-45s on those early operations. In the 80s, RAF Sculthorpe was all but abandoned. Anyway, one day I made the mistake of going for a walk off base in my uniform. Don't do that in Norfolk! After the third person offered me a ride I finally gave in. Everybody had a "yank" story whether it was themselves, or more often Mum or Dad or a family member. Lots of aunts that wound up in the States married to American airmen, evidently.
That I was an Army guy made no difference. It was as if the locals had been biding their time, waiting for us to come back. I was treated so well it was embarrasing, for I was a struggling young enlisted guy and had no way to reciprocate.
I like every place I go, just about, but England and Norway are the two I remember most fondly.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F