The Museum's grand entry hall, Milestones of Flight showcases a truly awesome collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft that represent epic achievements in aviation and space flight. In this gallery, I will navigate visitors through the evolution of aviation by examining the aircraft in the Museum's world-class collection. See how far the human race has come in the span of a single lifetime.
Milestone of Flight Gallery(360-degree)
• On the morning of July 1, 1976, a Viking 1 spacecraft heading toward the first successfully landing on Mars sent a signal back to earth. Travel at speed of light, the signal reached the NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, 18 minutes later and relayed to the site of a dedication ceremony of the National Air and Space Museum. The signal activates a robotic arm that cut the ribbon that stretch across the entry of the museum and it was officially open to the public.
• President Gerald Ford calls the Museum, "a perfect birthday present" to the nation during its Bicentennial year. "To Fly," the Museum's first large-format film, premieres. Twenty-five days after it opened, museum welcomes its 1-millionth visitor.
• The Viking 1 Mars Lander continued to transmit photographs and other data periodically from the Martian surface until 1982, almost 6 years after its 1976 landing. The object on display is a "proof test article" used on Earth before and during the Viking missions to simulate the behavior of the actual Lander on Mars.
• Here we are surrounded by an impressive display of some of the major "firsts" in aviation and space history. These are the machines that made the dream of flight possible. We will begin our tour with these beautiful famous aircraft. We will then get to see these three spacecraft: from the Mercury Friendship 7, to Gemini IV, and to the Apollo 11 Command Module "Columbia" that carried the first men to walk on the Moon.
Spirit of St. Louis
• Early in 1927, 25-year old air mail pilot, Charles Lindbergh obtained the financial backing of businessmen from St. Louis in order to compete for the $25,000 prize for the first non-stop flight between New York and Paris. He placed an order with Ryan for an aircraft with specifications necessary for the flight.
• On the rainy morning of May 20, 1927, Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field and heading for Paris. He waves away the chocks and opens the engine full throttle. Mechanics and spectators rush on the wing struts to get the heavy plane moving.
• The Spirit gradually gained momentum as it bounced through puddles on the uneven ground. Gradually Lindbergh began to feel the air pressure on his controls and gingerly lifted off, clearing the telephone poles at the end of the field by no more than twenty feet. It was 7:52 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time.
• After crossing Massachusetts he took out his navigation chart and began to fly a great circle route toward Nova Scotia and beyond. After nine hours of flying, the urge to sleep started to overcome Lindbergh. The struggle to stay awake would dominate Lindbergh's entire efforts during his flight.
• As night fell, thirteen hours after his takeoff, Lindbergh increased his altitude and changing the pitch of his stabilizer to compensate for the lessening fuel load. After fourteen hours in the air, Lindbergh was calmly cruising in clouds at 10,500 feet when the Spirit began to ice up. Fearing that his flight instruments might freeze, Lindbergh carefully turned and descended to look for warmer air.
• Halfway through the flight, fatigue was Lindbergh's most dangerous adversary. He was so tired that at one point he began to see apparitions in the rear of the fuselage. Only the fear of death enabled him to fight off his exhaustion.
• At daybreak, twenty hours after he had lifted off from Roosevelt Field, Lindbergh realized that he was winning his battle. Having survived the night, he now descended to 150 feet. • In the twenty-seventh hour, Lindbergh spotted a seagull and knew that land was near. Despite his fatigue and the uncertainty of unknown crosswinds, Lindbergh crossed the Irish coast only three miles from his estimated landfall; a truly remarkable feat of piloting.
• Thirty-three hours since takeoff, it has been more than two days since he last slept, but Charles Lindbergh is no longer tired. He is only thirty minutes away from the completion of his dream: to become the first person to fly nonstop, alone, across the Atlantic from New York to Paris.
• With Paris in sight, Lindbergh finds himself struggling to control his aircraft. Because he has been awake for sixty-three hours straight. After flying 3,610 miles in 33 hours 30 minutes, he finally landed at Le Bourget Airport and was greeted by a wildly enthusiastic crowd.
• Today, 82 years after his flight, the public remains fascinated with this complex person. But what about his aircraft?
• The "Spirit of St. Louis" was designed by Donald Hall and under the direct supervision of Charles Lindbergh. It was a highly modified version of a conventional Ryan M-2 monoplane, powered by a reliable Wright J-5C engine. Because the fuel tanks were located ahead of the cockpit for safety in case of an accident, Lindbergh could not see directly ahead, except by using a periscope on the left side or by turning the airplane and looking out a side window.
• Before donated to Smithsonian in 1928, this aircraft had completed 174 flights and stayed aloft for 489 hours and 28 minutes. Spirit of St. Louis is one of the most popular artifacts at the museum because it represents a unique accomplishment of a remarkable man and his remarkable machine.
SpaceShipOne
• In 2004 the SpaceShipOne became the first privately developed rocket ship to cross the threshold into space, making three flights to an altitude of more than 328,491 feet or 62 miles.
• On June 21, 2004 sometime after 3 AM, more than twenty seven thousand people gathered at the Mojave Desert airport in California to await the 6:30 takeoff. The rocket-powered SpaceShipOne slung below the twinjet White Knight carrier aircraft duly appeared at Mojave Desert. From distance people could see the pilot waving his hand through one of the portholes. He's 63 years old Michael Melvill, a veteran test pilot.
• Both aircraft took off around 6:30 in the morning from the runway. The White Knight and SpaceShipOne are both specially designed by Burt Rutan. Rutan is absolutely no stranger to weird and wonderful aircraft - one of his most famous efforts is Voyager, which flew around the world in 1986 without refueling.• The White Knight mothership released the 6,000-pound SpaceShipOne at about 47,000 feet (9 miles), which glided for about 10 seconds then lit its rocket engine. Shortly into its 80-second burn, SpaceShipOne climbed above the angle of the sun into clear blue sky. Just 10 seconds after starting its climb it reached Mach 1, and the rocket continued burning for another 70 seconds to reach the speed at Mach 3 before automatically shutting down. SpaceShipOne coasted from 180,000 feet (34 miles) and eventually reached 328,491 feet (62.2 miles). The pilot was weightless for three minutes and used this time to float some M & M candies around the cabin.
• As the descent began, the crowd on the ground heard two bangs that were the sonic booms caused as SpaceShipOne reentered the atmosphere, eventually experiencing 5Gs of force and accelerating again to Mach 3. Having burned all of its fuel, SpaceShipOne was now just a glider and doing a couple of circuits before quickly bleeding off speed to land on the same runway it had taken off from an hour or so earlier.
• On September 29, 2004, the spacecraft was outfitted with a stronger engine and some aerodynamic modifications from its first record-breaking flight on June 21 and it streaked even higher to 337, 569 feet (64 miles). Five days later, on October 4, SpaceShipOne rocketed into history, becoming the first private manned spacecraft to exceed 367,442 feet or 70 miles above the Earth's surface to claim the ten million dollar prize.
• Besides crossing the threshold into space, SpaceShipOne received the first license from the Federal Aviation Administration for a private rocket flight. At the top of its trajectory there aren't enough atmospheres to use normal aircraft flight surfaces to control the attitude of the craft, so cold gas jets were used to push it one way or the other. Its innovations also include a wing that folds up during space flight and works as a brake to provide a smooth reentry, a hybrid rocket motor and a pressurized cabin, which eliminates the need for a pressure suit.
• With SpaceShipOne, private enterprise crossed the threshold into human space flight, previously the domain of government programs. The design of SpaceShipOne aimed for a simple, robust, and reliable vehicle design that could make affordable space travel and tourism possible in the near future.
Bell X-1 Rocket Aircraft
• The Bell X-1 rocket aircraft was designed specifically to investigate the transonic speed range and to break the "sound barrier". Many structural and aerodynamic advances were pioneered by the X-1, including extremely thin, yet exceptionally strong wing sections, and supersonic fuselage configurations. The bullet-shaped X-1 was propelled by a four-chambered, liquid-fueled rocket engine with a burning time of 150 seconds.
• On October 14, 1947, flying the Bell X-1, Capt Chuck Yeager became the first pilot to fly faster than sound. The X-1 reached Mach 1.06, 700 mph, at an altitude of 43,000 feet, over the Mojave Desert, California. The X-1 not only proved that humans could go beyond the speed of sound it also reinforced the understanding that technological barriers could be overcome. The flights of the X-1's also opened up a new era in aviation. (The flight is beautifully recreated in the motion picture The Right Stuff.)
Bell XP-59A
• This Bell XP-59A is the direct ancestor of all American jet aircraft. Built for testing purposes, it proved that turbojet-powered flight was feasible and efficient. Designed and built by the Bell Aircraft Corporation, the XP-59A was first flown at Muroc Dry Lake, California in 1942. The XP-59A was powered by the first American jet engine, the General Electric-IA, which was based on the design of British jet pioneer Frank Whittle.
• The XP-59A had amassed only 60 hours of flying time. It did not see combat but it did give the U. S. Army Air Forces and the U. S. Navy valuable experience with jet aircraft technology and helped pave the way to more advanced designs.
X-15 Rocket-Powered Aircraft
• While the Bell X-1 was the first to break the sound barrier, the X-15 has the distinction of being the most successful research airplane ever flown. It made the first manned probes into the lower edges of space. It was designed for speeds of up to 4,600 mph and altitudes of 50 miles. The small holes near the nose are for attitude control jets, used at very high altitudes where airfoil surfaces no longer provide aerodynamic control.
• During one test, it had flown so high so fast that it functioned more as a spacecraft than an airplane. The X-15 rocket-powered research aircraft bridged the gap between manned flight within the atmosphere and manned flight beyond the atmosphere into space. Information from the program contributed to the development of the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle programs. Three X-15s were built. One was destroyed in a crash. The other two are at the National Air and Space Museum and the U.S. Air Force Museum.
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