We were honored to have a visit by Ida May Oakes Forbes who worked at Bell in the 1940s installing rivets in airplanes. She an her family visited the museum where she shared stories and saw many familiar things among our exhibits. We were even able to have her visit the old Bell Aircraft factory Read More...
Alice Bowman speaks on New Horizons
Museum members and guests were treated to a VERY special talk at the museum on March 20. Alice Bowman, the Mission Operations Manager ("MOM") for the New Horizons mission, shared her insights on the recent fly-by mission to capture images and other data of Pluto and the Kuiper Belt Object, Ultima Read More...
Curtiss P-75A Hawk reaches 575 mph January 23, 1939.
On January 23, 1939, A Curtiss Hawk 75A pursuit plane, one of 100 being constructed for the French Government, “substantially exceeded all known speed records” with a free dive of more than 575 miles per hour. Read more about this event at This Day in Aviation. Read More...
December 18, 1941: First US WWII pilot makes “Ace” in Curtiss P-40 Warhawk
18 December 1941: First Lieutenant Boyd David (“Buzz”) Wagner, United States Army Air Corps, commanding officer of the 17th Pursuit Squadron (Interceptor) at Nichols Field, Pasay City, Commonwealth of the Philippines, shot down his fifth Japanese airplane, a Mitsubishi A6M2 Type Zero fighter, with Read More...
December 12, 1953, Bell X-1A Hits Mach 2.44, A New Record
12 December 1953: On its tenth flight, U.S. Air Force test pilot Major Chuck Yeager flew the Bell X-1A rocket plane to Mach 2.44 (1,621 miles per hour/2,609 kilometers per hour) at 74,700 feet (22,769 meters), faster than anyone had flown before. (From This Day in Aviation.) Read More...
Moog hardware provides control for the mighty Saturn V
Image credit: NASA November 9th marks the anniversary of the first launch of the Saturn V, the most powerful rocket ever made and the one that would soon propel man to the Moon. The first stage of Saturn was powered by five F-1 engines, each making 1.5 million pounds of thrust. The engines on all Read More...
