As part of its 52 Objects series this year, they’ve pulled out this matchbook showing the route map for Continental Airlines.
How much information can you squeeze on to a matchbook cover? Continental Air Lines took on the challenge in the 1950s. #52Objectspic.twitter.com/dFp6gHAe3Z
Squeezing as much as possible onto a promotional item is nothing new. A while back we found this air sickness bag in the SFO Museum database which could be used for scoring a gin rummy game and/or turning in your film for processing.
Atchison is also home to the Amelia Earhart Earthwork, a one-acre portrait created by Kansas artist Stan Herd in 1997 using plants, stone, and other materials.
And it now sits adjacent to the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum which will have its grand opening on April 14, 2023.
The museum centerpiece is the world’s last remaining Lockheed Electra 10-E airplane.
And this plane is named Muriel, in honor of Amelia Earhart’s younger sister, Grace Muriel.
The fully restored Lockheed Electra is identical to the plane Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan were flying in 1937 when they disappeared during their ill-fated attempt to fly around the world.
Surrounding the plane are 14 interactive STEM-inspired exhibit areas and activity stations. Visit them all and you’ll learn about Amelia Earhart of, course, but also some history, culture, science, technology, aviation, engineering, mathematics, and more.
Museum visitors can scroll through digitized images of Earhart’s mechanic logbooks, compare the inner working of airplane engines then and now, learn about celestial navigation, practice packing the plane, and squeeze into the full-scale replica of Muriel’s cockpit.
After listening to recordings of radio interviews with the real Amelia Earhart and watching an uncanny computer-generated Amelia Earhart video, museum visitors can try ‘being’ Amelia Earhart.
Museum admission includes a chance to fly Earhart’s red Lockheed Vega 5B in a virtual reality simulator. And the flight programmed includes the same route and challenges (bad weather, mechanical problems, etc.) Earhart faced during her 15-hour flight on May 20-21, 1932 when became the first woman to fly nonstop and alone across the Atlantic.
The Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum in Atchison, Kansas will have its grand opening on Friday, April 14.
Mattel, maker of the iconic Barbie doll, has an Inspiring Women series that pays tribute to courageous women with Barbie dolls in their honor.
Chimpanzee expert Dr. Jane Goodall, tennis star Billie Jean King, author Maya Angelou, astronaut Sally Ride and First Lady of Song, Ella Fitzgerald, are among the women who have been honored with dolls in this special Barbie series.
And now Bessie Coleman, the first Black and Native American female aviator, and the first Black person to earn an international pilot’s license, has a Barbie doll in her image as well.
The dolls is sculpted in Coleman’s likeness and wears a traditional olive-green aviator suit, with tall lace-up boots and a “BC”-initialed cap.
To celebrate Coleman’s birthday, on January 26, customers flying on American Airline’s Flight 771 from Dallas to New York received the new doll.
American Airlines also hosted a special program for aviation students at the Ronald E. McNair public school 5 in Brooklyn, New York.
The Bessie Coleman story is impressive and inspiring
Coleman was born in 1892 in Atlanta, Texas, one of 13 children, and moved to Chicago in 1915.
She wanted to earn a pilot’s license, but flight schools in the United States wouldn’t accept her. So she applied to – and was accepted into – a flight school in France. There she she earned her license in June 15, 1921, in just seven months. She went on to take more training to learn the acrobatic stunts, such as walking on an aircraft’s wings, that she became known for.
On September 3, 1922, in Long Island, New York, Coleman made the first public flight by an African American woman in the United States. By 1925 she had become a popular barnstormer, performing acrobatic feats in air shows – and giving lectures – across the United States. Sadly, an aviation accident in 1926 took her life.
Courtesy Smithsonian Institution National Air & Space Museum
In addition to being honored this year with a Barbie Inspiring Women Series doll, Coleman also landed on the newest U.S. quarter. On January 3, 2023, the United States Mint released a quarter featuring pilot Bessie Coleman as a part of the American Women Quarters Program. Coleman’s quarter is marked with the date June 15, 2021, to honor the 100th anniversary of the date she became the first African American woman to earn a pilot’s license.
On this day in 1947, the then-Standiford Field began its first passenger flights. To celebrate today’s 75th Anniversary, the Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport unveiled its “SDF Through the Years” exhibit. The exhibit will be on display through the end of the year. pic.twitter.com/Vrs1T6IGTv
The 13-banner exhibit features historical photos from the 1940s to the present and includes images of visits by United States Presidents, celebrities, as well as key airport partners such as UPS and the Kentucky Air National Guard 123rd Airlift Wing.
November is Aviation History Month. And that means it’s a good time to look at aviation history displays at airports around the country.
First stop: Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX). There, the Phoenix Airport Museum presents numerous history displays. And exhibits are pre-security. Even better, the airport museum has a new Aviation History Guide chock full of information about the exhibits.
The guide is accessible via QR codes by the displays or online.
Gary Martelli, the manager/curator of the Phoenix Airport Museum was kind enough to send these images, along with descriptions.
American Airlines & PHX
The World’s Largest Airline exhibition is at Terminal 4, level and looks at American Airlines’ long association with PHX. Look for fun facts, historic images, and rare objects like a ‘Flagship’ pennant that traveled millions of miles across America in the 1930s and 1940s.
You can also take a selfie with a life-size image of 1960s flight attendants dressed in their modern red, white and blue American Beauty uniforms.
Fly-In Weddings Were Once a Thing at PHX
The Fly-In Weddings exhibition at Terminal 3, level 1 tells the story of the time when couples could fly into Sky Harbor to get married at an adobe mission-style chapel located right off the runway. The chapel was available for “aerial elopers” for a short time in the 1930s and 1940s. And on display are historic images and the original 200-year-old chapel bell.
World War 1 Fighter Plane
At the airport’s PHX Sky Train 44th Street Station you can look up and see one of the world’s few remaining original World War I fighter planes – the SPAD XIII. The biplane is suspended from the ceiling inside the station and is painted in the colors of the aircraft flown by Arizona’s own flying ace, Lt. Frank Luke, Jr.
