Exhibitions

Helicopters come closer than any other aircraft to achieving the birdlike freedom humanity has always envied. Learn about the history of helicopters from the first rotary-wing aircraft (autogiro) to the XV-15.

Aircraft demonstrating some of the major technological advancements during World War II.

Celebrate the power of innovation and learn what it takes to make impossible dreams take flight.

Aerobatic Champions featured Betty Skelton's Pitts S-1C Little Stinker and Leo Loudenslager's Laser 200, both flown in world championship aerobatic competition. Both aircraft are on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

Artistic expression during the war contributed to this transformation. Before World War I, war art largely depicted heroic military leaders and romanticized battles, done long after the fact, far from the battlefield. The First World War marked a turning point with the appearance of artwork intended to capture the moment in a realistic way, by first-hand participants.

This exhibition examines this form of artistic expression from two complementary perspectives: one, professional artists who were recruited by the U.S. Army; the other, soldiers who created artwork. Together they shed light on World War I in a compelling and very human way.

This exhibit will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to appreciate the genius of Leonardo da Vinci in the same space as the Wright Flyer, which made the airplane a reality four centuries after the Leonardo produced the Codex on the Flight of Birds.

Extra-vehicular activity, or EVA—working outside a spacecraft—changed the nature of human spaceflight. This exhibition presents art, photography, artifacts, and personal accounts to explore EVA and contribute to its ongoing story.

This exhibition featured artifacts from the development of the Star Wars movie trilogy. View the gallery space through the online virtual exhibit and hear audio clips from the interactive audio tour narrated by James Earl Jones.

The Berlin Airlift was one of the defining events of the Cold War. American and British cargo planes delivered over 2.3 million tons of supplies to the citizens of Berlin during a Soviet blockade of the city from June 1948 to May 1949. The Udvar-Hazy Center hosted a traveling exhibit commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the Berlin Airlift and paying tribute to U.S.-German friendship.

Five hundred years ago, Christopher Columbus sailed west across the Atlantic, using the stars to guide him. Today, modern explorers are charting a course that may eventually take humanity out among the stars themselves. How and why have we come from seafaring to spacefaring? What challenges and choices do we face now?

The Where Next, Columbus? exhibition asked visitors to consider the motives and methods of exploration, as well as the options and possibilities for future space exploration.