All Stories

To celebrate the RAF’s 100^th anniversary, get to know a bit about these British aircraft, their owners, and what drew their pilots to flight.

Have you ever seen an airplane perform an inverted ribbon cut? You can “see” it at the Museum in DC (and online) in the form of Patty Wagstaff’s Extra 260 aircraft.

"Eject, eject, eject!" Most of us are experienced at bailing out of social situations, but what about airplanes? Fewer than 1 percent of military pilots ever pull the eject handle, but they all know what comes next. The canopy blows, and the pilot is (literally!) rocketed up and out. Now what?

While the real world might be behind the curve on Wakanda’s technology, some of the planes featured in the Black Panther universe share similarities to emerging autonomous aircraft.

In the quiet of the Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia sits the U.S. Air Force F-100D “Super Sabre,” serial number 56-3440. 440 was in Vietnam from June 1965 until July 1970, but its most intense combat was seen 50 years ago, during the Tet Offensive.

Take a closer look at the Douglas SBD-6 Dauntless' unique landing gear, and how it impacts the flight of the aircraft. 

Flak-Bait, the museum’s Martin B-26 Marauder bomber, flew more combat missions than any other U.S. aircraft in World War II. But how many missions did it participate in exactly?

Delivering supplies to unreachable locations, tracking endangered wildlife, performing at the Coachella music festival—some of the many, varied uses for drone technology. The innovative and creative industries emerging from commercial drones are part of the history being documented at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

How a single e-mail helped uncover the previously unknown history of the Museum's Curtiss P-40E Lope’s Hope.

The historic importance of the Sikorsky JRS-1—a weathered blue-gray airplane now on display at our Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia—is not because of the type of airplane it is. Its importance lies in one of the places the JRS-1 has been and survived: Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.