The Museum of Flight

09/08/2026

Next to the Museum’s Space Shuttle Full Fuselage Trainer is a video kiosk that offers a choice of short, vintage space shuttle documentaries narrated by William Shatner. One of them includes the the naming story about the shuttle Enterprise. Happy 60th birthday today Star Trek!

09/08/2026

How are composite airplane parts made? Design, Build, Fly at the University of Washington showed the Curator on the Loose! crew the secret.

09/08/2026

Football season is just around the corner! Did you know that one astronaut threw a football both for the NFL and on the International Space Station?

Leland Melvin earned his degree in chemistry from the University of Richmond, which he attended on a football scholarship. Out of college, he was drafted by the Detroit Lions, though he suffered an injury and was released from the team. He returned to school, where he earned a Masters in Materials Science Engineering from the University of Virginia. This led Melvin to an engineering job at NASA. He was selected as an astronaut in 1998 and flew two space shuttle missions, spending more than 550 hours in outer space.

How's that for a second career?

Background image credit: NASA

Image description: Astronaut Leland Melvin wearing his Detroit Lions jersey while in orbit around Earth.

09/07/2026

Yes, that’s a drawing of an astronaut riding a dinosaur. No, you’re not dreaming. “Dyna-Soar” was a project of the United States Air Force and Boeing in the late 1950s and early 1960s to develop a spaceplane. Drawn by Cyrille M. Peabody, a designer and artist at the Boeing Company in the mid-late 20th century, this piece features an astronaut riding a dinosaur. This sketch is playing around with the name of the program. There seem to be a lot of inside jokes for Boeing staff embedded in this drawing that we aren’t privy to, like the banner that reads “Sir Robert of Lolly,” but we still get a kick out of the illustration. If you can help shed light on the image, let us know!

Image Description: A pencil sketch of an astronaut casually riding on a long-necked dinosaur. Yep. Different Boeing-themed trinkets dangle from the saddle.

Image Credit: The Museum of Flight/Cyrille M. Peabody Boeing Collection

09/07/2026

The Museum of Flight is open today, Labor Day, for our normal operating hours, 10 AM to 5 PM.

09/06/2026

The Boeing 314 is among the most legendary aircraft in history, and is as much a product of Seattle as the Space Needle, built on the Duwamish in the Red Barn (the original Boeing factory) and test flown over Elliott Bay.

Though only 12 planes were built, their use in marketing by Pan Am helped cement the 314’s legacy among the most famous commercial airliners ever built. During World War II, the planes were pressed into service by the United States Navy, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt flew aboard a 314 Clipper to the Casablanca Conference in 1943, the first time a sitting president had used an aircraft to travel overseas.

This photo shows the 314 Pacific Clipper next to the former Boeing Plant 1. The Red Barn is the building just to the left of the aircraft. This was when the Red Barn was located at its former site further north of its current home at the Museum.

Image Credit: Public Domain via U.S. National Archives and Records Administration

09/05/2026

Join us for an evening with Emily Calandrelli, engineer and Emmy-nominated science communicator. Friday, September 11 at 7 PM at The Museum of Flight. Tickets and info ➡ https://tmof.click/4vS5I9a

09/05/2026

What does it take to build a plane? The “Curator on the Loose!” crew met up with Design, Build, Fly at the University of Washington, a student organization that creates an RC aircraft from scratch each year to compete in the AIAA Design/Build/Fly Competition. They walked Matthew through the design process and even took him along for a test flight! But does the team have what it takes to win big at the competition?

09/04/2026

Hey BECU members! Did you know you can enjoy $3 off admission to The Museum of Flight? Just show your BECU credit or debit card when you arrive to receive your discount. While you're here, make sure to see our temporary exhibit, "Runway to Runway: Styles and Stories of Flight Attendant Fashions."

09/04/2026

Curious about the paper flight attendant uniforms featured in the Runway to Runway exhibit? Learn about the 1960’s fad for paper fashion, controversial airline ad campaigns, and how the uniforms’ impracticality and safety issues sparked a backlash from flight attendants. Part 1 of a Jet Age Feminism series on the Blog.

Learn about TWA's ill-fated Foreign Accent promotion, which paired internationally themed flights with faddish paper uniforms designed by Elisa Daggs.