This mural depicts two US Army machine gunners ready to engage the enemy. This mural is 9 feet tall and 23 feet long, very colorful and adds a new dimension to the museum's weapons room.

WOW what a year. Attendance has been way up so far this year with visitors coming from every state in the Union and 21 countries. Although only about 40% of our visitors sign the registry. The registry has told a great story as to how visitors find out about the museum and has given the museum insight to their visits, which is a very valuable marketing toll for us. The Museum website has been on an increase also with approx 1200 to 1500 visitors to our site each week. Each year the museum uses this value info
for our future marketing efforts.

TOP FIVE WAYS VISITORS FOUND
OUT ABOUT THE MUSEUM:

#1 Friend
#2 Internet
#3 Signs
#4 Groups
#5 Relatives

Zip codes are also a valuable tool for the museum and we have used them to track visitors for two years now. Here is a list of the top ten states where visitors to the museum come from. As you can see we draw visitors from quite a distance. The top 10 countries where visitors have been from are Canada, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Scotland, New Zealand, England, Finland and Italy.

TOP TEN VISITORS STATES:

#1 Virginia
#2 North Carolina
#3 Pennsylvania
#4 New York
#5 Florida
#6 Georgia
#7 Maryland
#8 New Jersey
#9 South Carolina
#10 Tennessee & Ohio

The Museum has been looking at ways to keep increasing our presents on the internet, as it is our second largest way that visitors find out about us. So we have just joined forces with www.shopformuseum.com. This site is a shop online site which allows a portion of your purchase to be donated to the Tank Museum. It is basically a click thru site to shopping online and is very easy to use. Go to www.shopformuseum.com and register with the site, then chose AAF Tank Museum to support and start shopping. Get bargains on just about everything and support the museum at the same time.

New to the museum staff is Natasha Petersen who is taking over the museum web site and the online gift shop.


Improvements have already been made to the gift shop pages of the site with more improvements being made in the future. If you have not visited the museum website in a while, please do. New items of interests are added on a continuing bases.

Natasha will also be learning the ropes as event coordinator. Her first assignment was the working with staff member Daniel on the 4th Annual Indoor Car Show that was held on November 3rd. Click the link to see pictures from the show. This show is fast becoming the best and is the only at present indoor car show in Southern Virginia. People from all over the region participant. We have had cars from Tennessee and Fredicksburg, Virginia participate. So mark November 3rd on your calendar.

Some great news that the museum would like to share, is the receipt
of a Department of Housing and Development grant that the museum will be using to update some of the museum's outdated lighting. This will allow the museum more energy efficient lighting which ultimately will cut the museum's energy costs and at the same time being lighting in the museum facility up to museum standards.

Other great news is a partnership with two other museums in the area and several other partners in what is being called DATs (Digital Audio Tours). A grant from IMLS will enable us to create several audio tours for each partner that will be downloadable to your computer, Ipod, etc. This is both an educational tool and a marketing tool that will allow a visitor to the area to see what awaits them on their visit. These tours will be available on our site and several other sites as well. This is in the very early planning stages right now and will probably take about 2 years to complete, but we will let everyone know of new developments to these audio tours as they come in.

New to the collection is the infamous M247 Sergeant York DIVAD. There is not a lot of
data on this tank, and most of the information out there is conflicting. The M247 had a great many design faults that could not be corrected. It's speed was too slow to keep up with the new M1 Abrams Tank, and the range of it's guns too short to effectively engage Soviet M1-24 HIND Helicopters. The project was cancelled in 1985 after only a few vehicles were built. This is one of the very few M247's still existing.

In addition to the new vehicles that the museum has added there has also been a new exhibit constructed. The Museum acquired a M18 Hellcat Tank Destroyer Tank in 2004

A.A.F. Tank Museum
3401 U.S. Hwy 29B
Danville, VA  24540
434-836-5323   Fax: 434-836-3532

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