 | |
 The museum's Great Gallery in 2005 | |
 | |
Former name | Pacific Museum of Flight[1] |
|---|---|
| Established | 1965; 61 years ago (1965) |
| Location | King County International Airport (Boeing Field) 9404 E. Marginal Way Seattle,Washington, U.S. |
| Coordinates | 47°31′05″N122°17′49″W / 47.518°N 122.297°W /47.518; -122.297 |
| Type | Aviation museum |
| Visitors | 465,504 (2024)[2] |
| President | Matthew B. Hayes[3] |
| Curator | Matthew Burchette[4] |
| Website | museumofflight.org |
TheMuseum of Flight is a privatenon-profit air and space museum in theSeattle metropolitan area ofWashington in the United States. It is located at the southern end ofKing County International Airport (Boeing Field) in the city ofTukwila, immediately south ofSeattle.[5] It was established in 1965 and is fully accredited by theAmerican Alliance of Museums. As the largest private air and space museum in the world, it also hosts large K–12 educational programs.[6]
The museum had over 465,000 visitors in 2024 and over 11,000 members. It had $27 million in operating revenues and a total endowment value of $72.9 million in 2024.[2] The museum also serves more than 140,000 students annually through its onsite programs: aChallenger Learning Center, an Aviation Learning Center, and a summer camp (ACE), as well as outreach programs that travel throughout Washington andOregon.[7]
The Museum of Flight can trace its roots back to the Pacific Northwest Aviation Historical Foundation, which was founded in 1965 to recover and restore a 1929Boeing 80A-1, which had been discovered inAnchorage, Alaska. The restoration took place over a 16-year period, and after completion, was put on display as a centerpiece for the museum. In 1968, the name "Museum of Flight" first appeared in use in a 10,000 sq ft (900 m2) facility, rented at theSeattle Center. Planning began at this time for a more permanent structure, and preliminary concepts were drafted.[8]
In 1975, TheWilliam E. Boeing Red Barn was acquired for one dollar from thePort of Seattle, which had taken possession of it afterBoeing abandoned it duringWorld War II. The 1909 all-wooden Red Barn, the original home of the company, was barged two miles (3 km) up theDuwamish River to its current location at the southwestern end ofBoeing Field.[9][10] Fundraising was slow in the late 1970s,[11] and after restoration, the two-story Red Barn was opened to the public in 1983.[12]
That year a funding campaign was launched, so capital could be raised for construction of theT.A. Wilson Great Gallery. In 1987,Vice PresidentGeorge Bush, joined by fourMercury astronauts, cut the ribbon to open the facility on July 10,[12][13][14] with an expansive volume of 3,000,000 cubic feet (85,000 m3). The gallery's structure is built in a space frame lattice structure and holds more than 20 hanging aircraft, including aDouglas DC-3 weighing more than nine tons.[8] The glass roof was designed by structural engineer Jack Christiansen, who also worked on theKingdome roof.[15]
The museum's education programs grew significantly with the building of aChallenger Learning Center in 1992. This interactive exhibit allows students to experience aSpace Shuttle mission. It includes a mock-upNASAmission control, and experiments from all areas of space research.
Completed in 1994, the 132-seat Wings Cafe and the 250-seat Skyline multipurpose banquet and meeting room increased the museum's footprint to 185,000 square feet (17,200 m2). At the same time, one of the museum's most widely recognized and popular artifacts, theLockheed M-21, a modified Lockheed A-12 Oxcart designed to carry theLockheed D-21 reconnaissance drones,[16] was placed on the floor at the center of the Great Gallery, after being fully restored.[17]
The firstjet-poweredAir Force One (1959–1962, SAM 970), aBoeing VC-137B, was flown to Boeing Field in 1996; it arrived in June and was opened to visitors in October.[18][19] Retired from active service earlier that year,[18] it is on loan from theAir Force Museum. Originally parked on the east side of the museum, it was driven across East Marginal Way and now resides in the museum's Aviation Pavilion, where it is open to public walkthroughs.
In 1997, the museum opened the first full scale, interactiveAir Traffic Control tower exhibit. The tower overlooks the Boeing Field runways, home to one of the thirty busiest general aviation airports in the country. The exhibit offers a glimpse into what it is like to be anair traffic controller.
The next major expansion was opened in 2004, with the addition of theJ. Elroy McCaw Personal Courage Wing, named afterJ. Elroy McCaw, an area businessman, entrepreneur and World War II veteran.[20][21][22] North of the Red Barn, the wing has 88,000 square feet (8,200 m2) of exhibit space on two floors, with more than 25World War I andWorld War II aircraft. It also has large collection of model aircraft, including every plane from both wars.[23] Many of these aircraft were from the collection of theChamplin Fighter Museum, formerly inMesa, Arizona,[20][24] which closed in 2003. The wing opened on June 6, the sixtieth anniversary ofD-Day.[22]
In June 2010, the museum broke ground on a $12 million new building to house aSpace Shuttle it hoped to receive fromNASA, named theCharles Simonyi Space Gallery.[25][26] The new building includes multisensory exhibits that emphasize stories from the visionaries, designers, pilots, and crews of the Space Shuttle and other space related missions. The gallery opened to the public in November 2012.[27][28]
Though the museum did not receive one of the four remaining Shuttles, it did receive the Full Fuselage Trainer (FFT), a Shuttle mockup that was used to train all Space Shuttle astronauts.[27] Because it is a trainer and not an actual Shuttle, small group (no more than six persons, minimum age 10, maximum height 6 ft 4 in (193 cm)) guided tours of the interior are available, for an extra charge. The FFT began arriving in various pieces beginning in 2012. The cockpit and two sections of the payload bay arrived via NASA'sSuper Guppy.[29][30]
During the 50th anniversary celebrations forApollo 11 in 2019, the Museum of Flight hosted a traveling Smithsonian exhibit with the ApolloCommand moduleColumbia, which was used during the first Moon landing.[31]
The Museum of Flight has more than 150 aircraft in its collection, including:
On its grounds is the Personal Courage Wing (PCW) with 28 World War I and World War II aircraft from several countries including Germany, Russia, and Japan.
There is also the "Red Barn", aregistered historic site also known as Building No. 105. Built in 1909, the building was used during the early 1900s asBoeing's original manufacturing plant. Through photographs, film, oral histories, and restoration of work stations the exhibits in the Red Barn illustrate how wooden aircraft structure with fabric overlays were manufactured in the early years of aviation and provides a history of aviation development through 1958.
In June 2007 the museum opened a new space exhibit: "Space: Exploring the New Frontier", which traces the evolution of space flight from the times of Robert Goddard to the present and into future commercial spaceflight.
The museum maintains a restoration facility atPaine Field in Everett with about 39 ongoing projects including ade Havilland Comet 4 jet airliner, a Jetstar, and theBoeing 2707 mockup, among many.
The Harl V. Brackin Library at the Museum of Flight was founded in 1985. As of 2011, it contains 66,000 books and subscribes to 100 periodicals; specializing in aerospace and aviation, it has an online catalog.[48]
The Museum of Flight Archives is accessible to the public via theKenneth H. Dahlberg Research Center.[49] It includes millions of photographs and thousands of linear feet of manuscript materials. Highlights of the collections include the Gordon S. Williams photographic collection, thePeter M. Bowers Photographic Collection, the David D. Hatfield Aviation History Collection, the Norm Taylor Photographic Collection, theElrey B. Jeppesen Aviation History and Navigation Collection, theAmerican Fighter Aces Association Archives, theLear Corporation Archives, and theWright Airplane Company Collection.[50]
In December 2017, the Archives launched a digital repository. The site features digitized materials from archival, library, and artifact collections.[51] In April 2019 the Archives began to make archival collections available and searchable online.[52]
In September 2013,Raisbeck Aviation High School (formerly Aviation High School) opened in a new facility directly north of the museum's Aviation Pavilion. The school is operated byHighline Public Schools as aSTEM school with a focus on aviation. The school operates in partnership with the museum (which owns the land), Boeing, and other members of the local aviation industry. The facility will also be used for the museum's summer education programs when school is not in session.
Opened to the public in June 2016, the Aviation Pavilion spans the gap between the high school and the Space Gallery. The cover allows aircraft which were seasonally brought out, such as theB-17 Flying Fortress andB-29 Superfortress, to be put permanently on display. Constructed as part of the comprehensive "Inspiration Begins Here!" campaign, the pavilion contains 18 of the museum's most iconic aircraft. The 140,000-square-foot (13,000 m2) roof doubles the museum's exhibit space, and was built with help from Sellen Construction and Seneca Real Estate Development.
In late May 2019, the museum opened theVietnam Veterans' Memorial Park featuring the fully restoredB-52G StratofortessMidnight Express (59-2584) as the culmination of Project Welcome Home. Just west of the Aviation Pavilion, the park is free to the public.[53]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
