Glory Days, Noisy Cabins Feature in Smithsonian's Airline Show

Glory Days, Noisy Cabins Feature in Smithsonian's Airline Show

By John Hughes

Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) -- One way to enjoy air travel without any attendant misery is on offer in Washington at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.

``America by Air,'' a new $5 million permanent exhibition, reflects a decade of planning and tells the airline industry's story in a space nearly the size of a hockey rink.

``Everything you ever wanted to know about air travel will be covered,'' says Jack Daley, the museum's director.

The most striking new perspective comes from beneath the nose of a Boeing Co. 747, for nearly four decades the largest airliner in the world until the Airbus SAS A380 surpassed it this year.

A 38-foot, 26,500-pound front section of the plane dramatically juts forth from a gallery wall, affording a view travelers rarely get. You can even touch the front tire and landing gear. Northwest Airlines Corp. donated the plane, its first 747 and the 27th ever built.

The 1970 airliner's front section arrived in 11 pieces in January, and the Air and Space Museum had to reinforce the gallery floor to support it.

A bridge high above the floor lets visitors enter the plane, peer into the cockpit and gaze down a spiral staircase.

A 1918 Curtiss JN-4D Jenny plane, built 15 years after the Wright brothers' first flight, shows the industry's roots. Jennys were training planes for World War I pilots and the first aircraft used in regular service to carry mail.

Regular Service

The mail flights showed that a regular air service could work, says Robert van der Linden, the exhibition's curator. In 1926, when the U.S. Postal Service began contracting mail delivery to outside carriers, the airline industry was born.

The first reliable passenger service began in 1930 with federal subsidies, and it wasn't pretty. Museum visitors can experience vibrations and noise similar to what early travelers felt in a Ford 5-AT Tri-Motor, one of seven complete aircraft in the exhibit.

Passenger travel grew from about 500,000 in 1931 to more than 4 million a decade later. The Smithsonian recalls this early boom with a 1936 DC-3, the nation's first plane that made money carrying passengers without a federal subsidy.

The plane flew longer ranges, cutting 8.5 hours from the 25 hours it had taken to fly coast to coast. ``It's a milestone,'' van der Linden says. ``Now you have an efficient aircraft to bring costs down.'' By 1939, DC-3s carried 90 percent of the world's airline traffic.

U.S. air travel reached its glamour days in the 1950s and 1960s. The exhibit includes a 19th-century globe that Pan American Airways founder Juan Trippe used to plan worldwide routes, as well as some provocative hot pants and miniskirt outfits that flight attendants of the era were forced to wear.

Deregulation in 1978 moved airlines toward the current state of cheaper fares and crowded skies.

Beehive of Planes

An air-traffic-control tape of a summer day shows U.S. skies over the whole country becoming a beehive of planes. Other tapes show controllers coping with bad weather and the skies being cleared after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

A simulated Airbus A320 cockpit demonstrates what modern, computerized controls look like as a plane takes off and lands at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

The glamour is gone. People don't dress up to fly, and food -- that is, if you want to buy it -- doesn't come on a tray with metal silverware in coach class anymore.

Only the soda and pretzels are free.

Yet flying is safer, cheaper and more accessible than ever. U.S. airlines carried almost 750 million passengers last year.

``You can fly anywhere you want in the world and get there in less than a day,'' van der Linden says. ``That is a miracle.''

``America by Air'' is a permanent exhibit that opens Nov. 17 at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

(John Hughes writes about aviation for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the reporter on this story: John Hughes in Washington at jhughes5@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: November 13, 2007 00:04 EST