The Museum of Flight

Located on Boeing Field, at the site of the Boeing Company’s original aircraft factory, it’s no surprise that the Museum of Flight focuses on Boeing aircraft—but the focus is not exclusive. With dozens of exhibits and tens of thousands of artifacts on display, the museum offers a near-comprehensive look at aviation and spaceflight.

The Great Gallery, just beyond the main entrance, shows an overview of flight, from medieval times through the 20th century. An imaginative construction of one of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings of an “ornithopter”—a flying machine that flaps its wings like a bird—is near the entrance. Nearby is a reconstruction of a glider built by Otto Lilienthal, a prominent late-19th-century figure whose experimental data helped guide later investigators. A reconstruction of the Wright Flyer and other early powered craft, such the pre-World War I German Taube and an early Boeing Model 80A, are also on display. From later eras, there is a F104C Starfighter in NASA livery, an SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance supersonic jet, the Taylor Aerocar, and a Bell UH-1H Iroquois helicopter. Even a German V-1 “buzz bomb,” the first cruise missile, and a Mig-21 (formerly with the Czech Air Force), are on exhibit. These are just a few highlights; there is much more to see.

That includes a gallery devoted to the early history of space flight, from Robert Goddard’s pioneering experiments through the German V-2 to manned flight.

The Red Barn, the early boathouse where the Boeing Company started, is preserved next to the Great Gallery. It includes mock-ups of workers building wood-framed aircraft before the First World War, as well as later historical highlights of the Boeing Company.

World War I and World War II aircraft are the subject of the J. Elroy McGraw Personal Courage Wing, which includes harrowing first-person accounts of war in the air (as well as iconic warplanes).

Across Marginal Way is the Charles Simonyi Space Gallery, which includes a Space Shuttle mockup, along with extensive displays of more recent endeavors in space. It also displays the module in which Simonyi returned from the International Space Station.

Beyond the Space Gallery is the Aviation Pavilion, where a collection of large 20th- and early 21st-century aircraft are displayed under an enormous open-air pavilion. These include the only Concorde on the West Coast, the first 747 prototype, a B-29 Superfortress, the WB-47 swept-wing bomber (the first U.S. swept-wing jet), and even the prototype of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Several of the planes, including the first jet Air Force One, can be toured.