Courtesy of NASM

Learn about flight's biggest stars in the "new" exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum.

New at Air & Space: Pioneers of Flight Gallery

I was 10 when I took my first flight. We were traveling to France, and I remember it dawning on me that we were somehow thousands of feet  above the ground. To a child—actually, even to this adult—the physics behind this feat is astounding and, yes, eminently cool.

I’m still awestruck at the world of aviation, especially when touring the new “Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight Gallery” at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. The second-floor exhibit, first opened in 1976, highlights aviation history—the famous and the little-known—through four sections: military and civilian aviation, black wings and rocket pioneers.

“We wanted to add new perspectives and new stories to aviation,” Aeronautics Division Curator Jeremy Kinney explains.

The new exhibit is worth a visit no matter how little you know about pilots, or even if you’ve never set foot inside a plane. It’s designed to showcase the history of aviation and how flight became a lightening rod for change in society—for example, the exhibit touches on how Amelia Earhart and Anne Lindbergh paved the way for other female aviators and feminists by rebelling against stereotypes. The Black Wings section, which focuses on World War II heroes the Tuskegee Airmen, includes Chauncey Spencer’s flight suit (right), recalling an era when the air wasn’t as segregated as the rest of society.

Toys and flight paraphernalia on display also nod to aviation’s influence during the early 1930s—a curator tells me the number of licensed pilots grew from 1,500 in 1928 to close to 25,000 a decade later. Model airplanes, plus (much) larger ones hang overhead or in light boxes throughout the gallery. The gallery’s different sections explore firsts, such as historical transatlantic flights, air-racing landmarks and world exploration while telling the stories of the people behind the glitz such as Earhart, the Lindberghs and Cal Rodgers.

Visitors can also get a feel for what it was like to be a pioneering pilot. The Lindbergh display (left), for example, showcases real items (canned tomatoes, radios, snowshoes) hauled along as cargo during flights. Interactivity plays a part in the new gallery, too. A fun game lets the viewer see if he or she is airplane ready by giving choices to “pack” the Tingmissartoq that the Lindberghs flew. The kid-friendly exhibit “Don’s Air Service” even allows budding designers to learn about airplanes through a hangar display with touchable engines and wood propellers.

No worries—NASA fans get some love, too, most notably with a display of the “hoopskirt” rocket from Robert Goddard. The experiment in the Rocket Pioneers (right) section shows the link between Goddard and Lindbergh, who visited Goddard once hearing about his work on rocket engines.

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