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Free to Use and Reuse: Aircraft

Balloons, gliders, blimps, dirigibles, airplanes, fighter jets, helicopters, and space shuttles–all these aircraft make it possible for people to fly. Learn more about this rich area of the Library of Congress collections in the online book Aeronautical and Astronautical Resources of the Library of Congress: a Comprehensive Guide. (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 2007.) Unless otherwise noted, the selected images are all from the Prints & Photographs Division.

Browse more content that is free to use and reuse

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  The balloon Zénith with five passengers during a long distance flight from Paris to Arcachon in March, 1875.

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  Aerialist wearing wings strapped to his shoulders and feet while suspended from a balloon, around 1800.

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  Crumpled glider wrecked by the wind on Hill of the Wreck, 1900. (Wright Brothers)

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  First flight, 120 feet in 12 seconds, 10:35 a.m.; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903. (Wright Brothers)

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  City of New York municipal airports. No. 1 Floyd Bennett Field. No. 2 North Beach. 1936 or 1937.

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  Miss Lillian Boyer, aerial acrobat in 1922.

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  Aviation Heritage Park in Bowling Green, Kentucky, with a Huey helicopter and a NASA Talon, shown in 2020.

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  TWA passenger jet at JFK Airport, New York City, 1981.

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  Full isometric view of the Space Shuttle Launch Stack Assembly. Drawing, 2012.

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  Space Transportation System, Orbiter Discovery (OV-103), Vehicle Assembly Building, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, 2012

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  Experience du globe aerostatique du MM. Charles et Robert au Jardin des Thuileries in Paris, France, 1783.

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  Pennington & Cos. aerial steam ship or composite balloon, 1850.

• Professor Thaddeus Lowe in his observation balloon at Fair Oaks, Virginia, during the American Civil War, 1862.

• Aviation, études, essais et inventions qui, sans résourdre le problème de l'aviation, .... 1866.

• Map of the lower Potomac River showing picket lines, January 1862. (Includes mark for Thaddeus Lowe's balloon at Pohick Church.)

• Balloon labeled "H. Lachambre," with two men riding in the basket, 1880-1900.

• Navigation aérienne. Ballon & appareil de direction construit par M. Pompéien-Piraud, inventeur, 1883.

• Otto Lilienthal glider in flight, 1895 or 1896.

• Futuristic air travel. Illustration for All Story, 1900-1910.

• Alexander Graham Bell's Silver Dart, 1904. (Manuscript Division)

• Opening of the Panama Canal. Illustration in Puck, 1906.

• Farman flying machine in flight, 1909.

• Sopwith Tabloid biplane, 1910s

• Mrs. Glenn Curtiss (Lena Pearl Neff Curtiss) at the controls of an airplane, 1910.

• The Zeppelin starts, no. 2. Lithograph by Joseph Pennell, 1914.

• Through the uncharted heavens she blazed the trail. Dirigible R-34 at Minneola, New York, during World War I, 1914-1918.

• Join the Air Service--Learn-Earn. World War I Poster, 1917.

• Jackson Golf World, model of the "Red Baron's" German World war I airplane, Jackson, Mississippi, 1986

• "Our Airy Aeroplane." World War I sheet music cover, 1919. Music Division

• Aerial barnstormer "Jersey" Ringel standing with camera on top wing of airplane in flight, 1921

• Henry Berliner's experimental helicopter, 1922-1925.

• Charles Lindbergh's "Spirit of St Louis" airplane (1927-1928) at the Smithsonian Institution's Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C.

• Aviator standing with plane "Cleveland Pittsburgh Air Mail," 1927 or later.

• "Question Mark" plane refueling over Imperial Valley, California, 1929.

• Army blimp at Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC, 1930.

• Are you helping? with salvage. World War II poster, 1936 or 1937.

• Aerial view of Pan American Airways "China Clipper" over San Francisco, 1936

• Airplane mechanics course. Poster, 1937

• Goodyear blimp at Washington Air Port, 4/13/38.

• Fly to the Caribbean by Clipper. Poster, around 1940

• Marine glider at Page Field, Parris Island, S.C., 1942

• C-119 Flying Boxcar Tanker 136 (introduced late 1940s) at the Museum of Flight and Aerial Firefighting in Greybull, Wyoming. 2015

• President Eisenhower in first helicopter ride, White House south lawn, 1957.

• V-22 Osprey prototype tiltrotor military aircraft in front of the U.S. Capitol, 1990

• Annual balloon festival, Albuquerque, New Mexico. 2006

• Colorful and cleverly designed hot-air balloons ascend shortly after dawn at the annual Telluride Balloon Festival. 2016

• Work progresses at Boeing South Carolina, an assembly site for Boeing's Commercial Airplanes division in North Charleston, South Carolina. 2017

• An F-35 Lightning II fighter jet rolls at Luke Air Force Base in Glendale, Arizona, 2018.