I had the great pleasure of visiting the International Women’s Air & Space Museum this week for a tour and a look inside a few storage boxes, including one holding artifacts relating to Amelia Earhart.
Here are a few snaps from the visit:
Storage box for Amelia Earhart’s items at International Women’s Air & Space Museum
Amelia Earhart’s flight suit
Amelia Earhart’s scarf
As part of San Diego’s year-long celebration for the centennial of the 1915 Panama-California Exposition, San Diego International Airport is hosting a year-long exhibition celebrating San Diego’s 1915 Panama-California Exposition.
The exhibit is airport-wide, with 30 installations, and includes original artwork and historic images, collectibles, artifacts and large-format photographs and postcards that show off the unique history, landscape and architecture of the Park.
The exhibit also includes a replica of the famous wicker “Electriquette,” which transported fairgoers at the 1915 Exposition.
(All photos courtesy of San Diego International Airport)
Spirit of St. Louis Image by Mark Avino, Smithsonian Institution
The “Spirit of St. Louis” – the plane in which a 26-year-old Charles Lindbergh completed the first solo transatlantic flight in May, 1927 – is one of the most popular artifacts at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.
The plane is usually suspended from the gallery ceiling, but for the next five months the plane will be on the floor at eye level while it undergoes preservation work in preparation for an updated exhibition in the museum’s central space, also known as the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall.
The last time the plane was lowered to the gallery floor was in 1992.
Spirit of St. Louis. Image by Mark Avino, Smithsonian Institution
If you’ve been to Graceland you’ve probably seen them. Now you can own them.
Two of Elvis Presley’s private planes, the Lisa Marie and Hound Dog II, both of which have been on display at Graceland for more than thirty years, are headed for the auction block.
One plane is a Convair 880 Jet that Elvis purchased from Delta Air Lines on April 17, 1975 for $250,000, refurbished, and rechristened the “Lisa Marie” in honor of his daughter.
Inside the airplane cabin there’s lounge and club seating area, a conference/dining table, a club room and a master bedroom with a custom-made queen size bed, an executive bathroom with gold faucets and gold washbasin, a videotape system linked to four televisions and a stereo system with fifty speakers.
The Hound Dog II is a Lockheed JetStar that Elvis also purchased in 1975 for about $900,000 while waiting for Lisa Marie make-over to be completed.
The planes cannot be flown and are being sold as one lot, with an option to buy a piece of land next to Graceland (but unaffiliated with the Presley Museum) to display them.
Here a video from Julien’s Auctions, which is taking sealed bids for the plane through February 2, 2015 at 5 p.m. PST.
Hawaiian Airlines is celebrating its 85th anniversary on Tuesday, November 11 and, in preparation, the airline has been reflecting on its past.
They’ve put out this lavishly illustrated book celebrating and documenting the company’s history.
The airline has also been going through its archives and shared these photos of the evolution of its uniforms.
Hawaiian Airlines uniforms – 1943
Hawaiian Airlines uniform – 1957
Hawaiian Airlines uniform – 1969
Hawaiian Airlines uniform – 1971
Hawaiian Airlines uniform – 1974
Hawaiian Airlines uniform – 1989
Hawaiian Airlines uniform- 2013
Source: Francis J. Petrie Collection
Planes, trains, buses, cars, bicycles and skateboards are common, modern modes of travel. But on October 24 in 1901, Annie Edson Taylor – on her 63rd birthday – became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
She survived, and since then others have given it a try – in barrels, a kayak and even on a jet ski. And while some of those people survived, today anyone who attempts to go over the falls will get arrested and fined.
Courtesy National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
Dreaming of a trip to Hawaii?
So, evidently, are the curators at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
They’ve put together “Hawaii by Air,” an exhibition featuring Hawaiian travel posters, photographs and ephemera that explores how air travel to Hawaii developed and grew, how the travel experience evolved along with the airplane and how air travel changed Hawaii.
Also on display: airplane models, airline uniform badges, historic film footage, a high-resolution satellite image of the islands, broadcasts from a vintage Hawaiian radio show and live Hawaiian plants.
National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
Hawaii, exhibition notes remind us, is one of the most remote places on Earth. It got its first air service in 1935 and, by 1936 Pan American Airways was delivering passengers on its famous flying clipper ships.
From the exhibition notes:
“Flying to Hawaii was luxurious but expensive; most people still traveled by ocean liner. That changed after World War II, when new propeller-driven airliners and then jets made travel to this remote destination much more common, comfortable and affordable. Hawaii experienced a tourism boom that exceeded all expectations.”
The exhibit runs through July 2015.
National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
An exhibit about the transportation history of Sparks, Nevada is now open at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport – an airport known for having gaming machines, free local calls and an annual exhibit celebrating Burning Man.
Put together by the Sparks Museum & Cultural Center, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles…from Runways to Rockets includes a doctor’s buggy, a model train and a model of a rocket as well as ten wall panels chock full of transportation-related information. Look for the exhibit on Concourse C.
Photos courtesy of the Reno-Tahoe International Airport. Thanks!
Two rare, historic and rarely-seen documents relating to the history of aviation and the exploration of spare are on display at Seattle’s Museum of Flight through the end of May.
The first document is the original contract between Wilbur and Orville Wright and their creation, the Wright Company, in 1909. In the document, the brothers agree to transfer and assign to the Wright Company two U.S. patents that describe their successful flying machine.
The other document is the 1969 Apollo 11 Command Service Module Maneuver Card, which has Neil Armstrong’s and Buzz Aldrin’s most extensive flight notes from the first visit to the Moon.
Cool, right? Both papers are part of the museum’s permanent collection, but are rarely shown because of their value and fragility.
You have a week – till Saturday, April 26 – to log onto the BBC website and listen to this hour-long documentary about the history of Ireland’s Shannon Airport .
Shannon Airport was the first airport in the world to have a duty free shop and the bar there claims to have invented the now-iconic Irish Coffee drink. And, as the accompanying photo gallery shows, the airport has had its share of celebrity visitors, including Marilyn Monroe, Bing Crosby, Fidel Castro and Gene Kelly.
Gene Kelly shopping in the Shannon Airport duty free shop; courtesy Shannon Airport Authority.