On Tuesday, December 28, 2010, my wife, Karen, and my five-year-old grandson, Tegen, ventured down to Seattle’s Museum of Flight, an affiliate of the Smithsonian.
At the entrance, we were greeted by an assortment of colorful jets and ample parking.
Once inside, our first stop was the glass-walled Great Gallery, where some 40 historic aircraft were on display, about half of them suspended from the ceiling. Incredible!
Included in that vast display was a flying car, one of the Blue Angels and the world’s only remaining M-21 Blackbird.
The museum itself is situated on the west side of Boeing Field, a fully functioning airport. From the control tower, we watched aircraft of all types take off and land throughout the day. Tegen was delighted to find out that you could also see Burlington Northern freight trains passing through on the far side of the runway!
Inside the space gallery, we saw an Apollo capsule, the Lunar Rover and some real moon rocks!
In the children’s play area, my grandson enjoyed making paper airplanes as well as sitting inside various, small aircraft, including a helicopter. Plenty of photo ops in there!
They had a small domed tent set up, a planetarium, where they gave a presentation projecting the stars of the northern hemisphere on the ceiling. I was surprised to learn which part of the Big Dipper points to the North Star, the only star that stays in exactly the same place all the time. Their computer program also allowed them to zoom in on planets or star clusters, much like Google Earth can zoom in on a neighborhood. The close-up view of Jupiter was spectacular!
We also visited Boeing’s original Red Barn, known as the birthplace of commuter aviation.
We had a snack and coffee at the Wings Café before walking across the overpass to the Airpark. From the overpass, Tegen exclaimed, “There is a Concorde!” He was right! In fact, it’s the only Concorde on the West Coast. We learned that in flight, the Concorde becomes 12 inches longer than when stationary. They had to develop special paint that would stretch and not crack to accommodate this phenomena.
Parked next to the Concorde was the very first Boeing 747 & 737. Next to that was Air Force One; the same one that had been used by four presidents, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon.
Back inside the museum, we concluded our tour at the World War I and II galleries. Again, an impressive assortment of vintage aircraft. All in all, it was a great day of exploration and education!
