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Visit us in Washington, DC and Chantilly, VA to explore hundreds of the world’s most significant objects in aviation and space history. Free timed-entry passes are required for the Museum in DC.
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Jet Aviation
This exhibit traced the development of turbojet engines and featured three airplanes that helped usher in the jet age.
This exhibition is now closed.
Since their origins in Germany and Great Britain on the eve of World War II, turbojet engines have transformed military and commercial aviation. They have made possible aircraft that can fly farther, faster, and higher and that are larger and more efficient than piston-engine aircraft. Jet Aviation traced the development of this technology and featured many important turbojet engines introduced over four decades, along with three airplanes that helped usher in the jet age.
The gallery's centerpieces were two jet-age milestones: a German Messerschmitt Me 262, the world's first operational jet fighter, and the Lockheed XP-80 Lulu Belle, the prototype for the first full-production, operational U.S. jet fighter. The gallery's third airplane, a McDonnell FH-1 Phantom, was the first jet fighter used by the Navy and Marine Corps.
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Aviation
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In This Exhibit
Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a Schwalbe (Swallow)
Object
Lockheed XP-80 Lulu Belle
Object
McDonnell FH-1 Phantom I
Object
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