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I've been to the worthwhile C.R. Smith Museum at DFW some years ago, and just recently learned about the NWA History Center (http://www.nwahistory.org/) near MSP. My apologies if this has been covered here before, but does anyone know of any other airlines that have their own museums or historical centers dedicated to them (whether airline-owned or volunteer supported), and if you've visited, do you have any thoughts or comments?
Delta has one in Atlanta that sadly I was unable to get to last week when I was there. In Kansas Ciity there's a TWA museum at MCI with some old TWA propliners including a Connie. Also at LAX has a mesueum about LAX (The Flight Path museum) which includes a huge amount of airline history that will blow you're mind. The Flight Path Museum is free but I WOULD HIGHLY encourge you to make a donation if you visit. The Flight Path Museum has to be one of the best archives of airline history I've ever seen. Its located on Imperial Highway adjacent to LAX.
Just to back up what Tom said, Delta does indeed have a Museum, but you have to be an employee or escorted to get in. Housed there is the spirit of Delta 762, a DC3, a replica of the Travelair, and lots of other cool stuff, like the gift shop which was once the forward section of an L1011...
http://jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=5863780
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It's not really about an airline, more about a type of aircraft, but KLHV (William T. Piper Memorial Airport in Lockhaven, PA) has the Piper Aviation Museum located on airport grounds, since the airport was also the site of the main Piper assembly plant back in the day.
Delta's museum is by far one of my favorites. If you're ever in town and would like a tour, I'm your man. The no. 1 attraction there is N102DA, The Spirit of Delta:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1188/...e4dff640_o.jpg
The CR Smith Museum as mentioned in Dallas, is absolutely worth it to go to, and highlites some major AA stuff, and some TWA information as well!
Alex
I barely remember a field trip to JFK in about 1965 with the Cub Scouts. (I forget how we got there, but I do remember driving down the Van Wyck and seeing the then probably out of service TWA Constellation tails over the fence by the TWA maintanence hangar.)
Anyway we toured the Pan Am (then PAN AMERICAN) maintanece facility and got to go aboard a 707 in the hangar. The finale of the trip was a tour of the Pan Am museum on the second floor of the Pan Am terminal. I don't quite remember all the stuff there but there was tons. One of the items was Juan Trippes famous globe that he used to plot his new routes. Unfortunately I was too young to appreciate it all.
I do remember there were tons of models of planes from Clipper Flying Boats to the 707. Those images always stuck with me and I think that is why I like collect vintage airliner scale models.
JHNA57