Last of Their Kind
Airplanes without equal at the National Air and Space Museum.
- By Patricia Trenner
- Air & Space magazine, August 2012
Library of Congress
"These aircraft bring people from all over the planet,” says Jeremy Kinney, a curator in the National Air and Space Museum’s aeronautics division. “The Smithsonian is the only place where visitors can see the Wright Flyer, Spirit of St. Louis, and Bell X-1, rare survivors such as captured German and Japanese aircraft from World War II, and technology demonstrators like the Lockheed Martin X-35B Joint Strike Fighter. NASM’s 325 aircraft artifacts include 149 one-of-a-kind, sole surviving, and one of two remaining examples that are well known and not so well known.”
Presenting the NASM aeronautics division Top 10—and five runners-up, not pictured—chosen for their significance and their places in curators’ hearts. Notes Kinney, “Of course, the Wright Flyer will always be number one of our one-of-a-kind airplanes.”
See the complete list of the National Air and Space Museum's one-and-onlies.
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Comments (2)
I wasn't sure how I felt about the decision to put the Wright Flyer on the floor instead of hanging it in the main entry hall. When I saw it in October 2011, I was delighted. I could walk all around it and almost touch it! What a treasure!!
Posted by Beverly Wright Coleman on September 8,2012 | 03:26 AM