Museum of Flight

I spent Memorial Day with the 5th attraction in my City Pass at the Museum of Flight. The Museum is affiliated with the Smithsonian, but has strong ties to Boeing as it is on the site of their original plant. There was a lot of history of planes and space travel as well. Oh, and there were a lot of planes there too.

Main Gallery

Blue Angels jet

Interesting to see inside of the cabin of such an old plane.

I think that is Jeff Gordon up there in the DuPont prop.

SR-71 Blackbird still holds the flight speed record

There was a model cockpit of the SR-71 as well

Origins of US Airmail

They even made chips named after me for lunch; must have been expecting me.

The original manufacturing plant of Boeing is attached to the Museum called the "Red Barn." William Boeing made his money in the lumber industry, which is partially why the company did so well early on with seemingly unlimited access to lumber at the turn of the century. Some of the original machines are on display today.

Second Level was where engineers designed the planes

Outside the Museum, there was an airpark with the first Air Force One with a jet engine. It served Presidents Eisenhower through Nixon, and was still flying other VIPs until 1996.  (And yes it is on loan from the Air Force Museum in Ohio, Mom. Even though I do not remember going inside of it there.)

Presidential bathroom 

Presidential office

I'm guessing this was slightly better food than the hospital cafeteria

They also had the first 747 that was built. It never was a passenger plane, but it was used extensively for testing purposes. One example is that they mounted one of the 777's engines on it, which was more powerful than the four 747 engines. During the test flight, the single 777 engine generated enough thrust to fly the plane comfortably.

Another large portion of the Museum was for the planes of World War I and II. There was an incredible amount of history of planes from all of the countries involved, not just from the US.

Even named one after me

French WWI plane