Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight Gallery has closed as part of the Museum’s renovation. Learn more about the project to transform the National Air and Space Museum.  

Details about the closed exhibition, as well as the original exhibition description, can be found below.

The people who pushed the technological or social limits of flight during the 1920s and 30s.

This gallery contained an impressive, eclectic assortment of aircraft and exhibits. A common theme united them: all have to do with people who pushed the existing technological—or social—limits of flight. Each aircraft or exhibit represented an unprecedented feat, a barrier overcome, a pioneering step.

Things to see here included the Fokker T-2, the airplane that made the first nonstop, coast-to-coast flight across the United States; the Douglas World Cruiser Chicago, which completed the first round-the-world flight; a Lockheed Sirius flown by Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh and a Lockheed Vega flown by Amelia Earhart; the Explorer II high-altitude balloon gondola; and "Black Wings," an exhibit on African Americans and aviation.

 National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC See Online Exhibition Related Topics: Aircraft Records and Firsts In This Exhibit Curtiss R3C-2 Object Douglas World Cruiser Chicago Object Cabin, "EXPLORER II" Object Fokker T-2 Object Goddard Hoopskirt Rocket Object Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Vega 5B Object Lockheed Sirius Tingmissartoq Object Piper J-2 Cub Object Wright EX Vin Fiz Object Bud Light Spirit of Freedom Capsule Object You may also like Black Wings: The Life of African American Aviation Pioneer William Powell February 02, 2016 Stories from Inside the Spirit of St. Louis November 08, 2016 Transforming the Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight Gallery October 01, 2019 Innovators in Early Flight February 25, 2022