Got some time on your hands before or between planes? Here’s a trio of really good aviation museums that are right at the airport. While they’re not attached to the terminals, they’re but a short cab ride away. They’re good places to learn just what lifts those tons of aluminum you’re about to board into the heavens – and revel in some fascinating aeronautical history.
Here are three of our favorite:
- As a kid in Dallas, this reporter-to-be used to ride his bike out to Love Field, buy a soft drink and watch the planes come and go from the observation deck. The deck’s long-gone now, but there’s a museum across the field from the terminal that’s nothing short of terrific. One of the most evocative exhibits at Frontiers of Flight is the Lighter Than Air collection. See artifacts from the infamous Hindenburg, including the radioman’s chair that survived the disaster. See how the other half flew in elegance once-upon-a-time when you view the china service from the iconic Graf Zeppelin I.
- Charlotte is a major US Airways hub, now home to the Miracle on the Hudson Airbus that bore the tag Flight 1549. They’re still putting the aircraft together over at the Carolinas Aviation Museum, an aluminum monument to its crew, their skill and the grace of God. For a trip back in time see the immaculately-restored Piedmont Airlines DC-3 on display. It did nothing short of revolutionize commercial air travel.
- Birmingham’s Southern Museum of Flight is where you’ll find a probing exhibit honoring Alabama’s groundbreaking Tuskegee Airmen, the African-American pioneers chronicled in the recent film Red Tails. Go back to the beginnings of Delta Air Lines and see an original Huff-Daland “Duster,” the kind of fabric-covered craft Delta first used to crop dust southern fields.
(Image: ActiveSteve)
