Seattle 5: Museum of Flight

Long have I wanted to go to the Museum of Flight in Seattle, and today was the day! The museum is at the Boeing Field, right next to one of the Boeing plants, south of Seattle. It is not the large factory in Everett, where you can do a tour of the Boeing plant, and where the B747 and B777 (and in the future the B787 Dreamliner) are being manufactured. I plan to go there another day ;-)

At the museum I bought a City Pass. This gives you five of the main attractions for $44 - almost half of what you'd pay if you bought separate tickets. Thus, I'll have to visit/see/do these attractions within 9 days: Museum of Flight, Pacific Science Center, Seattle Aquarium, Argosy Cruises Harbor Tour, and Woodland Park Zoo.

The Museum of Flight is absolutely beautiful! Apart from the exhibits, the buildings are very bright, lots of glass, the displays are well arranged, etc. I loved it!

Douglas DC-2 (N1934D)

Curtiss Robin C-1

The next three photos are of a B 737-200 of US Air

Boeing B&W floatplane

Williams X-Jet (1974)

And then I went to the Airpark, the outside display. You had to cross the main road, and got to kind of a fenced off car park with some aircraft on it. Sadly, these are particularly historically significant aircraft, but the display is pretty poor: Not a nice area, and the aircraft are in a poor condition, and seem to slowly rot away...

Concorde

These were the BA Concorde seats. You had to dish out First class fares plus a supersonic supplement!

Concorde cockpit

The first Air Force One (A Boeing VC-137B - a variant of the B707, reg. 86970). Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon and L.B. Johnson used this aircraft. Also, Kissinger and - as guest - Krushchev.

The flying Oval Office

and the cockpit

The B 737 prototype (B 737-130, reg. N515NA)

An American Airlines B 727 (N874AA)

And the first ever built B 747 Jumbo Jet (N7470). This aircraft was used by Boeing for test flights for many years. Sadly, this one is in worst shape of the planes in the Airpark.