Those Magnificent Flying Machines - list of aviation museums

Travel America, Jan, 2001 by Jim Kerr

Aviation museums around the country spotlight one of man's greatest inventions

Just short of a century ago, two Ohio brothers, using bicycle technology, scientific knowledge, and conviction, launched the first airplane on sustained and controlled flight. So much has happened since those days of chains, gears, and other bike parts that it takes a lot of museums to tell the incredible story. Hundreds of vintage aircraft displays, exhibits, and testimonials to aviation history are scattered across America, including the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Through "flight room talks" by National Park Service rangers at the Wright Memorial, we learn that Orville and Wilbur's scientific approach to the challenge, including two years of glider flights, led to those historic 59 seconds of powered flight on December 17, 1903. And we are awed by the fact that a mere 67 years later two men walked on the moon from a lunar lander like the mockup at the Smithsonian.

Unlike traditional museums that feature fossils and artifacts from long-gone civilizations, aviation museums focus on dinosaurs of flight that are still a part of our recent history. Here most of the birds are far from extinct, and the museums are living preserves where many of the airplanes still fly. To any aviation buff, seeing oil leak like black blood on a white hangar floor from the cowling of a B-24 Liberator bomber is a special thrill, and the unmistakable roar of a Rolls-Royce engine in a P-51 Mustang fighter plane is pure music. These planes still perform in air shows or proudly stand as rebuilt machines you can admire and touch. They became famous as warbirds or passenger carriers, and they made worldwide heroes of pioneers like Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, and John Glenn.

The military began refining air power in World War I, and most of today's aviation museums feature warbirds. Some are operated by groups dedicated to keeping them alive, such as the Confederate Air Force of Texas, Valiant Air Command of Florida, and Yankee Air Museum of Michigan, all of which sponsor annual air shows. Others, including those with the largest warbird collections, are operated by the Navy and Air Force. In all, there are more than 800 aviation museums of various sizes paying tribute to this single subject, so if you are an aviation afficionado, spread your wings and take your pick.

RELATED ARTICLE: Sky High

The same principles of aerodynamics employed by the Wright Brothers in glider flights over windswept sand dunes apply to the returning space shuttle. The wonder of flight comes alive at these museums:

ALASKA

Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum, 4721 Aircraft Dr. (on Lake Hood), Anchorage; (907) 248-5325. Aviation has played a key role in Alaska's modern history. The state has six times as many pilots and 16 times as many aircraft per capita as the rest of the country, and sometimes it seems like most of them take off from Lake Hood. There are 20 vintage aircraft on display, most of which have been restored right here, including a 1936 Stinson A Tri Motor, thought to be the only one in existence.

ARIZONA

Pima Air and Space Museum, 6000 E. Valencia Rd., Tucson; (520) 574-0462. Bring your walking shoes to tills 65-acre facility, which features more than 200 aircraft and five large hangars covering 100,000 square feet of exhibition space. The museum grew from a tin shack and 75 aircraft sitting in the desert to its current impressive array of both civilian and military aircraft, which attract 170,000 visitors annually. Exhibits include an exact replica of the 1903 Wright Flyer, General Eisenhower's "Columbine," and a DC-6 used by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Hangars also house a B-24 Liberator (one of only a dozen or so left in existence), a B-25, B.-29 and B-17. A special display of WW II combat gliders opened on the 50th anniversary of D-Day in 1994.

CALIFORNIA

Hiller Aviation Museum, 601 Skyway Rd.. San Carlos; (650) 654-0200. The emphasis is on birds native to Northern California. There's an interesting display of the Curtiss JN-4 Jenny and its sister, the Standard J-1, WW I training aircraft produced by the thousands in Northern California. None saw combat, however, leaving about 50,000 available for low-cost purchase, which launched unparalleled growth in aviation as pilots sought mail routes, barnstormed for money, and constructed other planes out of spare parts.

San Diego Aerospace Museum, 2001 Pan American Plaza, Balboa Park, San Diego; (619) 234-8291. A wonderful location. Balboa Park is the site of several other museums, and the excellent Aerospace Museum illustrates aviation's rich heritage with a collection of 65 US and foreign air and spacecraft. Aviation history covers Kitty Hawk; aerial combat over France in World War I; the Golden Age of Flight ushered in by the Curtiss Jenny, Spitfires, Hellcats, and Zeros of World War II fame; and the jet age with the A-4 Skyhawk, F-4 Phantom it, and the record-setting spyplane, the Blackbird. A Hall of Fame highlights extraordinary accomplishments by world aviators.