Transportation

Pan American World Airways could be considered a corporate Cinderella—a rags-to-riches-and-back-again phenomenon.

From its founding in 1927 and its relatively obscure inauguration as a mail carrier on a 90-mile mail run from Florida's Key West to Cuba, Pan Am's route system grew to span the globe. The company that would eventually become famous for its blue-and-white-world logo grew into a conglomerate of hotels, airlines, business jets, real estate, a helicopter service, and even a guided missiles range division. But financial problems plagued Pan Am in its last two decades, and in 1991, Pan American World Airways ceased flying after 64 years of service. The story of Pan Am is as much the story of president Juan T. Trippe as it is an account of airplanes, pilots, flight attendants, and glamorous destinations. As the company moved throughout the world building airfields from jungles, crossing oceans, and forcing the development of new airplanes, it was Trippe's airline and his vision. A global pioneer, Pan Am was the first airline to use radio communications, to employ cabin attendants and serve meals aloft, and to complete an around-the-world flight. The company's achievements were legendary, but its failures, tragedies, and disasters were also part of a complex corporate life.

Dallas Love Field Airport, established in 1917 as an Army flight training field, was the site of the first commercial aviation flights in the state of Texas. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the airport’s reputation as one of the nation’s best attracted many well-known aviators of the day to take advantage of its excellent facilities and services. At one time the 10th busiest airport in the world, Love Field has been the headquarters of two major airlines (one of which is now the airport’s largest tenant) and has a strong reputation for exceptional leadership and passenger satisfaction while processing more passengers per gate than any airport in the country. The repeal of a legislative amendment limiting nonstop flights at the airport resulted in a 100 percent increase in passenger traffic from 2010 to 2019 and significantly impacted the airport’s relationship to the community. 

The world's first naval aeronautical station, Naval Air Station Pensacola is a dynamic and active station today.

A sign at the gate of Naval Air Station Pensacola (NASP) welcomes visitors to The Cradle of Naval Aviation - and, indeed it is. It came into being when the USS Mississippi (BB-23) arrived in Pensacola on January 20, 1914, with seven aircraft, nine officers, and 23 men. Today, NASP hosts several schools and several branches of the US military. It is also the home of the Navy's Flight Demonstration Squadron, the Blue Angels, as well as the renowned National Naval Aviation Museum (NNAM), which displays more than 100 years of naval aviation, from a replica Curtiss hydroplane to the F-14 Tomcat.

Since 1912, when a young man named George Gray landed an open-cockpit biplane on a farmer’s field, aviation has played an important role in communities located throughout the 6 million-acre Adirondack Park. Through a range of historic images and postcards, Aurora Pfaff tells the story of pilots who linked communities by air, transported goods and people, and the small towns and airfields that they called home.

From the novelty of planes landing on skis and daredevil flying circuses to forest fire patrols, exploration of the vast backcountry, and toy deliveries by Santa, airplanes have opened the Adirondack wilderness and made remote communities more easily accessible for tourists and adventurers. Yet this golden age for aviation would not last, for as car travel became easier and more affordable in the mid- to late-20th century, air travel in the Adirondacks would fade in importance and necessity.

Aurora Pfaff is a writer and editor living and working in New York state’s Adirondack Park. She has a master’s degree in English from Harvard University, but as a child dreamed of becoming an astronaut. She finally took her first flying lesson in 2022. Images used in Aviation in the Adirondacks come from the Adirondack Experience: The Museum on Blue Mountain Lake, Historic Saranac Lake, Keene Valley Library, Piseco Lake Historical Society, Saranac Lake Free Library Adirondack Research Room, Town of Webb Historical Association, individuals, and other organizations.

Charles R. Mitchell tracks Curtiss's dizzying ride from a village bicycle shop to record-smashing motorcycle races and city building in the Florida land boom.

Glenn Curtiss beat even the Wright brothers (who sued him bitterly) to get pilot's license No. 1 in America. He teamed with Alexander Graham Bell, helped develop the moving wing part known as the aileron, introduced tricycle landing gear, made the first airplane sales, and turned aeronautics into a multimillion dollar business. His innovations ranged from the Curtiss Pusher to the hydroaeroplane, the flying boat, and the Curtiss Jenny. Curtiss, his engines, and his airplanes dominated the world of early aviation on this side of the Atlantic. Glenn H. Curtiss: Aviation Pioneer charts Curtiss's breakneck course across two continents, North America and Europe, setting speed and distance records, experimenting with military applications, always striving for a safer, faster airplane. Fostering both water flyers and shipboard landing, he became the Father of Naval Aviation. But even the skies were not wide enough for the busy brain of Curtiss.

Take a flight with the Long Island aviation companies that helped make the industry the integral part of our world that it is today.

Significant aircraft manufacturing began on Long Island in the early 20th century and boomed during the war years. Long Islanders helped transform aviation from a dangerous sport to a viable means of transportation, while also producing a large portion of the nation's aerial arsenal in times of war.

From the first frail biplanes to the warbirds of World War II and the sleek fighters of the jet age, aviation companies on Long Island helped make aviation the the essential business it is today. During the 20th century, over 70 firms came to build aircraft on Long Island. Some of these firms lasted for decades and became famed builders of historic aircraft, such as Grumman, Republic, Curtiss, Fairchild, and Sikorsky.

How a Pennsylvania town and county's aviation journey began with a balloon ascension and eventually matured into the site of the country's largest air show.

Author, pilot and Reading native Michael J. Floriani shows how Berks Countians began embracing aviation when balloonist pioneer John Wise held his first balloon ascension in Reading in August 1836. In 1912, Charles Walsh became an instant celebrity when he was the first person to fly among thousands of spectators. After World War I, barnstormers landed surplus military planes on fields that once populated Reading, and Whander Field became the first airport in Pennsylvania to accommodate Reading Airways - the state's first commercial airline. Visionaries like Eddie Nibur, Alfred M. Bertolet, and J. Harding Breithaupt made significant aviation contributions, building flight training, charter operations, and general aviation empires, while Boyertown's Gen. Carl Spaatz served as commander of Strategic Air Forces in Europe during World War II. As aviation matured, Reading Airport became the county's first municipal airport and the site of the nation's largest air show throughout the 1970s. Today, new industries provide opportunities for Berks County to lead aviation into the 21st century and build upon the rich heritage that already exists.

MacDill Air Force Base--through global war, regional conflicts, and counterinsurgencies--has repeatedly answered the clarion call to arms and proven itself to be an unrivaled military juggernaut within America's strategic arsenal.

MacDill Air Force Base was first recognized as a suitable location for an airfield by US Army aviators flying mock warfare maneuvers over Tampa in May 1938. Satisfying the US War Department's geographical requirements for providing air defense of America's southern Atlantic coast and supporting air operations over the Caribbean, the site was approved in July 1939 to become the location for the Army Air Force-planned Southeast Air Base. It was later renamed MacDill Field in honor of Army Air Force aviator and pioneer Col. Leslie MacDill. The base was formally dedicated on April 16, 1941, and B-17 Flying Fortress and B-26 Marauder combat crewmen began training in the business of making war. From bomber and tactical fighter wings to combatant commands and aerial refueling squadrons,

Though a tragic death tinges the memory with sorrow, the name Stinson is still revered in aviation circles.

By the early 1920s, the charismatic daredevil pilot Eddie Stinson had become famous throughout the US for his fearlessness and skill. In 1926, he and his close friend Bill Mara founded a company to design and manufacture airplanes that combined features then only found in luxury automobiles. The Stinson Aircraft Corporation quickly grew, but sadly its namesake wouldn't live to enjoy the success of his company. In 1932, Stinson was killed in a tragic crash while demonstrating a new model, and ultimately served to propel the company into the hands of larger aircraft manufacturers. Although Stinson’s life was short, the world of aviation still admires the airplanes built under his name. Featuring many never-before-published photographs and comprehensive biographical information, Stinson Aircraft Companychronicles a remarkable period in airplane development. It details the growth of Stinson's company, which produced more airplanes for a longer period of time than any other Michigan airframe producer, and reveals the story of Eddie Stinson and Bill Mara, who together made aviation history.

A comprehensive pictorial history of Farmingdale, New York's outstanding aeronautical achievements made by so many talented men and women over seven decades.

Farmingdale, located in west-central Long Island on both sides of the Nassau-Suffolk County border, was an important center of airplane manufacturing from the First World War until almost the end of the Cold War. Aviation pioneers like Lawrence Sperry, Sherman Fairchild, Leroy Grumman, Alexander de Seversky, and Alexander Kartveli directed the manufacture of aircraft, aircraft engines, and key subassemblies as they evolved from the propeller, biplane era to the jet and space age. Farmingdale witnessed the creation of such cutting-edge aircraft as the Sperry Triplane Amphibian and Messenger; the Fairchild FC-2; the Grumman FF-1, JF-1 Duck, and G-22 Gulfhawk; the Seversky P-35; the Republic Aviation P-47, F-84, and F-105; and the Fairchild Republic space shuttle tails and A-10 Warthog. Airplane manufacturing in Farmingdale ended in 1987 with the demise of Fairchild Republic, but its history still lives on today.

Go inside the aeronautical history of the Langley Research Center from its beginning.

Following the creation of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1915, a unique flight research operations division was established at the nation's first civilian aeronautics research laboratory, the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. Langley flight research personnel helped the nation's aircraft industry bloom during the Golden Era of aviation throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Langley's flight research then helped win World War II with performance-enhancing modifications to new aircraft. During the Cold War, Langley helped the country maintain an edge in aeronautics over its Warsaw Pact rivals.

When the space race began, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created in 1958 and Langley's pilots were instrumental in training astronauts. In addition to advancing rotorcraft during the 1960s and 1970s, Langley research pioneered a multitude of military and civil Vertical Short Takeoff and Landing (V/STOL) concepts. During the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, Langley research developed advancements in general and commercial aviation technologies.

Over 200 vintage photographs from the archives of the Air Mobility Museum and other sources provide a sampling of the way it was at Dover Air Force Base through the years.

Dover Air Force Base is the largest aerial port in the United States and home to gigantic jet air transports that are lifelines for our modern military. It started as a municipal airport and has grown and expanded nearly continuously since opening a week after the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. Its saga is the story of the evolution of the U.S. Air Force from World War II to the present. The pictures in Images of Aviation: Dover Air Force Base represent the thousands of people who called Dover AFB their home, the hundreds of aircraft that have been assigned there, and the dozens of various missions assigned to the facility over the past seven decades.

Newark Airport was the first major airport in the New York metropolitan area.

It opened on October 1, 1928, occupying an area of filled-in marshland. In 1935, Amelia Earhart dedicated the Newark Airport Administration Building, which was North America's first commercial airline terminal. Newark was the busiest airport in the world until LaGuardia Airport, in New York, opened in 1939. During World War II, Newark was closed to passenger traffic and controlled by the United States Army Air Force for logistics operations. The Port Authority of New York took over the airport in 1948 and made major investments in airport infrastructure. It expanded, opened new runways and hangars, and improved the airport's terminal layout. The art deco administration building served as the main terminal until the opening of the North Terminal in 1953. The administration building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

John F. Kennedy International Airport opened in 1948, after the realization set in that the newly built LaGuardia Airport was unable to handle the volume of air traffic for New York City.

Pushed through by New York's Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, the airport was to be located 14 miles from Manhattan, in Jamaica Bay, Queens, on the site of the old Idlewild Golf Course. For its first years, Idlewild Airport, as it was originally known, consisted of a low-budget temporary terminal and a series of Quonset huts. A major new building program began in the mid-1950s, and the airport rapidly changed from a ramshackle series of buildings into a glamorous-looking city. Renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport in 1963, it has now grown to cover 5,000 acres.

A thrilling ride alongside the daredevil aviators who first braved the unknown of Alaska's wilderness.

Bush pilots are known as rough, tough, resourceful people who fly their aircraft into tight spots in the worst of weather. Alaska's bush pilots are all of that and more. Acting as pioneers in a land with 43,000 miles of coastline and North America's largest mountains, Alaska's bush pilots were and are visionaries of a lifestyle of freedom. Flying came late to Alaska but caught on quickly. The first flight was made over a three-day exhibition at Fairbanks, July 3–5, 1913. James Martin first flew that aircraft, owned by him and his wife, Lilly, and investors Arthur Williams and R.S. McDonald. Ever since, Alaskan bush pilots have found that they were calculators of their own fate, flying in fragile aircraft over vast stretches of tundra or through towering mountain passes. This book examines the pioneer aviators and the aircraft types such as the Stearman, Stinson, and Lockheed, many of which were tested and crashed in the far north regions of Alaska.

LaGuardia Airport, named for the mayor of New York in the mid 1930s is one of America's busiest airports and has undergone great change throughout the years.

Constructed closer to Manhattan than the commercially unsuccessful Floyd Bennett Field, LaGuardia Airport was conceived in the mid-1930s as New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia realized the need for a great airport for one of the world's great cities. Originally known as New York Municipal Airport, the popular airport soon had its name changed to recognize LaGuardia's enormous contribution to the project. At the time of its opening in 1939, it was the largest and most advanced commercial airport in the world with terminals considered art deco masterpieces. Although a very large airport for the era in which it was built, by the late 1940s it was the world's busiest airport and clearly too small for the increasing amount of air traffic. Through the years its runways were lengthened and facilities were improved to handle larger and faster aircraft. Still one of America's busiest airports, LaGuardia has witnessed the steady progress of American commercial aviation, from flying boats to jetliners.

The southwest corner of Kansas was once home to Liberal Army Airfield. For 27 months, from April 1943 to September 1945, the desolate plains of Kansas were alive with the deep throaty roar of the B-24 Liberator.

The Liberal Army Airfield trained approximately one-quarter of all B-24 commanders. Residents of the area recall few days and nights in which they did not hear the familiar roar of the big Pratt & Whitney engines flying overhead. What was once a wheat field, a symbol of peace, became thousands of feet of concrete runways used to train pilots for vital World War II missions. To this day, many of the runways and structures of the base still survive. Years have passed since the inception and closure of the base, but its history will always be a part of Liberal, Kansas.

Lidia Hook-Gray was born in Liberal and raised in the adjacent Oklahoma Panhandle. A local history buff, she has always been intrigued by the Liberal Army Airfield, the big B-24s, the people that came to the base, and their stories. Hook-Gray is also the author of Liberal and Seward County. Connie Gray-Bowman was born in Liberal. Her father, Herbert Gray, flew 52 combat missions as a nose gunner on a B-24 with the 454th Bombardment Group, the Tailwind Crew. His last assignment was stationed at the Liberal base, where he met his wife at a USO dance.

Join author and Huntsville native T. Gary Wicks as he uncovers the beginnings and inventions that influenced air and space engineering in Alabama and America.

The air age in Huntsville began more than a century ago with Will Quick's design and construction of a flying machine, which he demonstrated in 1908 for patenting and manufacture. The space age began in Huntsville a half century later with the advent of Wernher Von Braun's Redstone Jupiter C rocket, which launched America's first satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit in 1958. A decade later, Huntsville was at the epicenter of the greatest technological achievement of the 20th century as the Saturn V rocket propelled humankind to the moon. Nowhere in the world is the century's rapid advance of air and space technology more apparent than in Huntsville. This unique evolution of flying machines and space vehicles unfolds in this pictorial documentary, including the dramatic growth of the research facilities and community infrastructure that produced these remarkable inventions.

In 1928, two Santa Fe Railway employees became so intrigued with aviation that they took it upon themselves to lease a parcel of land and build an airport for Albuquerque.

Within one year, Charles Lindbergh chose Albuquerque to be a stop on the nation’s first commercial transcontinental air route between Los Angeles and New York.A north–south air route between Denver and El Paso with a stop in Albuquerque was soon established, making the city a crossroads for air service in the Southwest.Using funds from a Works Progress Administration grant, the city then constructed its own airfield, and the Albuquerque Municipal Airport opened in 1939.Since then, this airport—now the Albuquerque International Sunport—has been an air transportation hub for the state of New Mexico and for the Southwest United States, now handling more than five million passengers per year.The development of the Sunport as well as the route structure and aircraft of each and every commercial airline that has served Albuquerque is featured.

Discover the dozens of exciting never-before-published images of the people and events at Lunken Airfield.

Lunken Airfield flew headlong into the golden age of aviation in the 1920s. World War I veterans became gutsy barnstormers who had only roads and railroad tracks as navigational landmarks. They gave way to courageous pilots who flew airmail, as well as record makers who flew for the joie de vivre and fame under conditions fraught with danger. These flyers gave way to aircraft engineers and designers who would craft the next generation of planes. Pilots were seduced by the allure of international recognition and wealth, as well as the feeling of freedom experienced in the air.  Along the way, they assumed the status of movie stars. On any given day, anyone from a spectator to a mechanic might hobnob with Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Roscoe Turner, or Jimmy Doolittle, who routinely flew in and out of Lunken. Over the decades, Lunken has undergone many changes, but today, as it approaches its centennial, planes still take off and land daily, and crowds still flock to special events.

The US Army and US Navy both decided that Oregon would be a great location for numerous airfields in support of training and positioning of air crews.

Oregon is not the first state that comes to mind when discussing military bases and active-duty military. During World War II, however, this was not the case. From bombers to fighters and even some balloons, Oregon’s skies were filled with aircraft. Most of these bases have either been lost to time or transformed into civilian airports. Explore the rich history of Oregon’s World War II airfields by taking a step back in time. 

Historian Andretta Schellinger has lived in Oregon the majority of her life. She has two bachelor’s degrees from Pacific University in history and sociology and a master’s degree in military and diplomatic studies from Hawaii Pacific University. While living in Hawaii, she worked at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) as an archivist. She now owns Schellinger Research, based in Central Oregon, where she lives with her husband, daughter, and numerous animals. She is the author of three books and specializes in cultural history.