The Museum of Flight is a personal non-profit air and space museum in the Seattle city. It lies at the southern end of King County International Airport (Boeing Field) in the city of Tukwila, immediately south of Seattle. [5] It was developed in 1965 and is fully accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. As the largest personal air and space museum on the planet, it likewise hosts large K-12 curricula. [6]
The museum attracts over 500,000 visitors every year, [2] and also serves more than 140,000 trainees yearly through its onsite programs: a Challenger Learning Center, an Air Travel Learning Center, and a summertime camp (ACE), as well as outreach programs that travel throughout Washington and Oregon. [7]
History

The Museum of Flight can trace its roots back to the Pacific Northwest Aviation Historical Foundation, which was founded in 1965 to recuperate and bring back a 1929 Boeing 80A-1, which had actually been found in Anchorage, Alaska. The repair took location over a 16-year period, and after completion, was put on screen as a centerpiece for the museum. In 1968, the name "Museum of Flight" first appeared in use in a 10,000 sq feet (900 m2) center, rented at the Seattle Center. Planning started at this time for a more irreversible structure, and initial concepts were prepared. [8]
In 1975, The William E. Boeing Red Barn was gotten for one dollar from the Port of Seattle, which had acquired it after Boeing abandoned it throughout World War II. The 1909 all-wooden Red Barn, the initial home of the company, was barged two miles (3 km) up the Duwamish River to its existing place at the southwestern end of Boeing Field. [9] [10] Fundraising was sluggish in the late 1970s, [11] and after repair, the two-story Red Barn was opened to the public in 1983. [12]
That year a financing campaign was introduced, so capital might be raised for construction of the T.A. Wilson Great Gallery. In 1987, Vice President George Bush, signed up with by 4 Mercury astronauts, cut the ribbon to open the center on July 10, [12] [13] [14] with an expansive volume of 3,000,000 cubic feet (85,000 m3). The gallery's structure is integrated in an area frame lattice structure and holds more than 20 hanging aircraft, including a Douglas DC-3 weighing more than 9 tons. [8]
The museum's education programs grew substantially with the structure of a Challenger Learning Center in 1992. This interactive display allows to experience an Area Shuttle objective. It consists of a mock-up NASA objective control, and experiments from all locations of area research study.
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Completed in 1994, the 132-seat Wings Cafe and the 250-seat Skyline multipurpose banquet and conference room increased the museum's footprint to 185,000 square feet (17,200 m2). At the very same time, among the museum's most extensively acknowledged and popular artifacts, the Lockheed M-21, a modified Lockheed A-12 Oxcart designed to bring the Lockheed D-21 reconnaissance drones, [15] was put on the floor at the center of the Great Gallery, after being completely brought back. [16]
The first jet-powered Flying force One (1959-1962, SAM 970), a Boeing VC-137B, was flown to Boeing Field in 1996