The ultimate reference material

I had a chance to visit Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's warplane "museum" in Arlington, WA the other day, where he is using some of his billions to restore just about every WWII era (mostly) warplane known to man to flying condition.  There are about ten aircraft either fully restored or in the final stages, including a Spitfire, P-51, P-40, P-47, and others.  He also has several dozen aircraft undergoing restoration work all over the world.  Mr. Allen apparently insists on absolutely authentic restoration right down to recreating original paints, materials, radios, etc.  For the Curtiss Jenny he rescued he had the original company recreate the fabric that hadn't been produced for 75 years right down to the thread size and weave!   After being allowed to (almost) crawl all over these beautiful airplanes and take as many photos as I wanted, I had the pleasure of watching them wheel out the P-51D, a Fieseler "Storch", and the Polikarpov U-2/PO-2, start 'em up, and fly them.  As a reference source, this can't be beat!  There's just no book or written description that can match seeing, touching, and hearing these aircraft in the flesh (so to speak).  If you have a chance to see this collection, don't pass it up.  Even though it's in it's infancy, it's impressive. 

TomB