All Stories

Highlighting artifacts in storage. Grumman TBF-1 Avenger in Building 22 at Smithsonian Air and at Space Museum’s Paul E. Garber Facility in Hillcrest Heights, Maryland.

The destruction of the An-225 is a loss to history—but a single airplane, no matter how important or impressive, seems trivial in the face of the threats Ukraine is facing and the losses its citizens are bearing. Acting director Chris Browne reflects on what this iconic aircraft meant to the Ukrainian people—and what it showed the world about their spirit and resolve.

Although a majority of flight attendants in the 1930s were women, Pan Am and Eastern Air Lines exclusively hired men for the role. These male stewards, who made up one third of the flight attendants across the industry, were sometimes belittled as “interlopers in an already well-established female realm.”

The first episode of our "QueerSpace" limited series spotlights the history and community built by male flight attendants.

Wiley Post was an oil-worker and armed robber-turned-record breaking pilot who discovered the jet stream while wearing a sweet eye-patch and a suit straight out of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (it was a lewk). That should be enough but wait! There’s more! That steampunk getup, which Wiley designed and built with tire company BF Goodrich, was the very first successful pressure suit. And it did more than unlock the stratosphere, it laid the groundwork for the first spacesuits—and modern spacesuits aren’t much different. This tall tale keeps getting higher, but again—trust us (we’ve got the suit!). Special thanks to Tested’s Adam Savage, whose answer for “history’s most important spacesuit” was both unexpected and absolutely on the mark.

Brig. Gen. Charles E. McGee, the eldest of the surviving Tuskegee Airmen, passed away on January 16, 2022. His life of dedicated service included flying combat aircraft in three major wars—a feat that was unthinkable before his career began, when the US military banned African Americans from combat flying roles.

On a spring evening in 1933, Amelia Earhart took first lady Eleanor Roosevelt on a joyride. 

In late 1959, the FAA released its “Age 60 Rule,” which essentially required mandatory retirement for airline pilots over age 60. As his 60th birthday rapidly approached, Captain Michael Gitt appealed with an age discrimination lawsuit against Eastern Airlines to help him overturn the age disqualification. Read about his attempt to leverage the new Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA).

A century ago, the U.S. Navy commissioned the USS Langley—an ungainly new ship that would forever change military aviation.

Pulling back the curtain on artifacts in storage