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Early Flight

Air and Space Museum

Early Flight uses artifacts like the Lilienthal Glider, 1909 Wright Military Flyer, and the Blériot XI to explore how in one short decade people in America and around the world were pushing boundaries, setting records, participating in air shows, and turning the aircraft into a technology that would usher in the aerial age.

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Reciprocating engine with 28 steam expansion tubes connected at the bottom to a water supply piping system and at the top to a boiler. A slide valve, piston, and pulley are mounted to a steel-framed tower next to the steam generator.

Stringfellow Steam Engine

Wood and fabric Bleriot XI aircraft in museum

Bleriot XI

Medal, Circuit de L'Est

Hang glider with natural color fabric over exposed wooden framework. A white mannequin is set inside the frame ring highlighting the hand grip and backrest configuration.

Lilienthal Glider

Full view of a wood and cloth model aircraft with red wheels and frame and a gray propeller. The white cloth extends in an arc over the aircraft.

Model, Static, Ellehammer II

Clement V-2 Engine

Medal, Louis Bleriot

Medal, Count von Zeppelin

Metal engine with 7 cylinders arranged in a circle around a central propeller shaft, on display stand.

Gnome Omega No. 1 Rotary Engine

Medal, A. Santos Dumont Pioneer of the Air

Medal, Chavez Flies the Alps, 1910

Medal, Aviation

Anzani A 2, Radial 3 Engine

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