The Air Transportation gallery at the National Air and Space Museum's flagship building on the National Mall in Washington will close on Jan. 9, 2006, in preparation for a new exhibition the following year.

The gallery is home to an array of airplanes representing the development of early commercial air travel, from the Douglas M-2 biplane, used for moving mail in the 1920s, to the forward fuselage of a 1950s Douglas DC-7 airliner, which has an interior accessible to visitors.

After the gallery closes, aircraft will still be visible over barriers erected on the museum's first floor and from the gallery overlook on the second floor. Some of the airplanes are suspended level to the second floor.
   
The exhibition "America by Air," opening in 2007, will present an expanded history of commercial air travel, from early attempts to form airlines only a few years after the invention of powered flight to the commercial challenges and technical sophistication of the 21st-century jet age.

For more information, visit http://www.nasm.si.edu/americabyair.
 
The National Air and Space Museum building on the Mall is located at Sixth Street and Independence Avenue S.W. The museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center--home to several commercial aircraft including a Concorde and the "Dash 80" 707 prototype--is located in Chantilly, Va., near Washington Dulles International Airport. Both facilities are open daily from 10 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. (Closed Dec. 25) Admission is free but there is a $12 fee for parking at the Udvar-Hazy Center. Shuttle bus service runs between the facilities, with a roundtrip ticket costing $12. (Group discounts are available.)