Synopses & Reviews
Experience the thrill of some of the world's most important airplanes and spacecraft.
Best of the National Air and Space Museumprovides unprecedented access to the world's most visited museum, the host of more than 9 million visitors a year. Together with its newly opened Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, the museum is the undisputed authority on flight, displaying aircraft and spacecraft from around the globe from every era of flight.
Best of the National Air and Space Museumfeatures the best of both locations in one volume, from the very first aircraft, the Wright 1903 Flyer, to the Douglas World Cruiser that first circumnavigated the globe by air, and Charles Lindbergh's Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis in which he became the first person to fly solo, nonstop across the Atlantic. Other outstanding artifacts include the Boeing 307 Stratoliner, the first airliner with a pressurized cabin; John Glenn's Mercury capsule Friendship 7, in which he became the first American to orbit the earth; and the beautiful Concorde supersonic transport. Here too are the Lockheed SR-71, the fastest aircraft ever built; the Apollo 11 command module Columbiathat took the first men to the Moon; the space shuttle Enterprise; and SpaceShipOne, the world's first privately developed spacecraft and the museum's most recent acquisition.
Bob van der Linden, curator of aeronautics, has selected one hundred of the most historically important, popular, and just plain impressive aircraft and spacecraft from the museum's stunning collections. Presented here in beautiful, full-color layouts, each entry includes intriguing facts about the original design, use, mission, specifications, and dimensions of the world's most famous craft, along with stories of the daring pilots who flew them. Here in book form is your personal guided tour to the world's most popular museum.
Synopsis
Experience the thrill of flying some of the world's most important airplanes and spacecraft. Best Of The National Air And Space Museum provides unprecedented access to the most popular museum in the world.
The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum hosts more than 9 million visitors a year, and the newly opened Dulles Center –three football fields long and ten stories high – is a phenomenon in its own right: in the first week it was opened, some 250,000 people came through the doors.
Best Of The National Air And Space Museum features the best of both museums, from the Challenger space shuttle and the Wright flyer to the Spirit of St. Louis and the stealth bomber. Bob Van der Linden, curator of aeronautics, has selected the most historically important, popular, and just plain impressive aircraft and spacecraft from the collections of both museums to be captured in the book's beautiful full color layouts. Each layout includes intriguing facts of the item's design, use, mission, specifications, and dimensions. It's like your own guided tour!
About the Author
F. Robert der Linden is curator of aeronautics at the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum. He lives in Boyds, Maryland.