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Area 51: Origins

America’s once-secret air base had humble beginnings.

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Airplanes with a mission: Fly faster.

Beyond the Moon

It’s not a place, exactly. But it could be NASA’s next destination.

The Invention of Flight

Inventors, dreamers, daredevils, charlatans: Aviation's early years had them all.

Vietnam Memoir

Stories from the war that shaped a generation.

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In the 1970s, Hoover’s demos meant sales for North American Rockwell’s business craft.

Is there an airshow fan alive who doesn't know the legend riding beneath that hat?
May 2010 | By Debbie Gary

Flight Engineer for Air Force One.
March 2010 | By Christopher Saccoccia

Man wearing a parachutes next to a plane during WWII.

January 2010 | By Preston Lerner

Wright brothers

March 2010 | By Larry E. Tise

March 2010 | By J.R. Dailey

Senator George Gunther with the Corsair, the state aircraft.

What World War II fighter was a product of the Nutmeg State?
January 2010 | By James Wynbrandt

Cornelius Coffey was the first African-American to earn both pilot

In 1930s Chicago, at the corner of 87th Street and Harlem Avenue, Cornelius Coffey made aviation history.
March 2010 | By Giles Lambertson

<b><i>Visit the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum,</b></i> and you’re guaranteed to see historic aircraft and spacecraft, including the original Wright 1903 Flyer, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress <i>Enola Gay</i>, the SR-71 <i>Blackbird</i>, and the Space Shuttle <i>Enterprise</i>. The Museum also boasts a multitude of artifacts large and small: engines, propellers, aerial cameras, more than 2 million technical drawings—even popular culture items such as Charles Lindbergh-emblazoned underwear. <br><br>But what people may <i>not</i> know is that part of the Museum’s mission is to tell the story of aerospace through art; during the Museum’s creation, Congress mandated that one gallery be specifically dedicated to aerospace artwork. <br><br>Which brings us to an important donation. Michael and Maureen Harrigan, of Kendall, New York, recently gave the Museum 42 prints by renowned aviation artist Robert Taylor, a collection acquired over some 20 years. <br><br>When Mike Harrigan’s firm, the Harrigan Brady Paper Company, moved to its new location in 1988, Harrigan asked his (mostly female) staff for suggestions on how to fill the empty wall space. “They wanted paintings of daisies,” he said, somewhat mournfully. Because of the company’s proximity to the Greater Rochester International Airport, Harrigan suggested an alternative: pictures of airplanes. <br><br>As senior aeronautics curator Tom Crouch reported in our March 2010 issue, the first Robert Taylor print Harrigan acquired was titled <i>Home at Dusk</i>. (The print depicts four P-51 Mustangs crossing the East Anglican coast on their way back to base.) Harrigan’s interest in aviation art grew from there; he eventually collected so many Robert Taylor’s prints that his staff took to calling him “Imelda Marcos.” When he ran out of available wall space, Harrigan wasn’t deterred in the least—he hung the remaining prints in the men’s room. <br><br>Harrigan’s art collection began to gain a bit of fame in the Rochester area, with customers, postal carriers, and the random citizen showing up during work hours asking for a tour. Visitors were so frequent that “the girls suggested I start charging a fee, and we could have a party with the money,” joked Harrigan. <br><br>As Tom Crouch wrote, “Someone once asked Mike if he would ever part with the collection. His answer: ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if the Smithsonian walked in, I’d have to consider it.’ To make a long story short, we did, and he did.” <br><br>When the Smithsonian crew came to package the collection for transport, Harrigan had one request: to wrap up <i>Home at Dusk</i> first, and to box up the final print he acquired, last. “There was a tear in my eye,” Harrigan said, as he watched the crew package his collection, piece by piece. “All of the girls were crying. They knew how much those prints meant to me.” <br><br>The Harrigans’ generous donation can currently be seen, in part, on the lower level of the Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. Once the new restoration wing is completed, in 2011, the collection will be displayed in its entirety. Click on the images at right to take a closer look at a few prints from the collection. <br><br>The painting shown here, <i>Morning Thunder</i>, includes a note from the artist, Robert Taylor: “Sunday, December 7, 1941 <br><br>Having taken six torpedo hits and two bomb strikes in the first-wave attack on Battleship Row, the <i>West Virginia</i> is ablaze, her bows already low in the water and decks awash. Ignoring the risk, crews push the Navy tug <i>Hoga</i> alongside with fire-fighting equipment and to pick up survivors. Overhead, Japanese Zeros swoop through the smoke, aiming the second-wave attack at installations on Pearl Harbor’s Ford Island, to complete one of history’s most devastating unprovoked declarations of war.”

A recent donation by Michael and Maureen Harrigan helps the Museum fulfill its mission.
January 21, 2010 | By Rebecca Maksel

Kelly Johnson

Kelly Johnson was a giant in aircraft design. On the 100th anniversary of his birth, we find out how his legend grew.
March 2010 | By Peter Garrison

Speaking of the land down under, on this day in 1919 brothers Ross and Keith Smith landed their Vickers Vimy bomber in Port Darwin to claim a £10,000 prize as the first to fly from England to Australia in less than 30 days. The challenge had come from Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes, who sti...
December 10, 2009 | By Tony Reichhardt

Bravo’s got nothing on THIS runway supermodel: Chicago’s Wright auction house, which specializes in contemporary design, will feature in its December 8 Important Design auction a cast aluminum wind tunnel model of a Douglas BTD Destroyer—along with a Mercedes 230SL convertible and a Czechoslovakian...
November 24, 2009 | By Pat Trenner

The next time you book a flight online and print your own airline ticket, give a moment of thanks to IBM and American Airlines. If it weren’t for those two companies, we’d still be carving our tickets out of stone tablets.Commercial travel was so simple back in the 1920s. One airmail plane, one ava...
November 23, 2009 | By Rebecca Maksel

The Douglas marketing team used this model to present the 1211-J to the U.S. Air Force in 1950

With its bid to replace the Convair B-36 bomber, did Douglas promise too much?
January 2010 | By John Aldaz and Sir George Cox

January 2010 | By J.R. Dailey

Charles Lindbergh (left) and Harlan Gurney

Meet Charles Lindbergh the barnstormer—as he interviews his oldest flying buddy.
January 2010 | By Giacinta Bradley Koontz

Glenn Curtiss soars in his biplane over Dominguez Field near Los Angeles

How the first U.S. air race launched an aviation tradition.
January 2010 | By Don Berliner

John Magda (mounting his Blue Angel Panther in 1950)

Grumman's first jet honors a son of the Bluegrass State.
January 2010 | By Barrett Tillman

An all-volunteer crew works on the Museums Junior

January 2010 | By Rebecca Maksel

Bob Hope

Air crews recall their service as roadies for Bob Hope's USO show.
January 2010 | By Rebecca Maksel

A new illustrated book brings aviation history to life.
November 17, 2009 | By Tom D. Crouch

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