The Golden Age of Aviation
A rich and riotous era full of record-breakers, barnstormers, and home-built aircraft, the years between the World Wars brought about stunning developments in aviation.
Air mail, ocean crossings, speed and endurance records, air races, navigation innovation, and hundreds of new aircraft fueled the imaginations of a world obsessed with flight. And today, we keep the Golden Age of Aviation alive and flying.
Explore the Golden Age in the interactive tabs below:
Explore major events that shaped aviation, in this interactive timeline compiled by the FAA.
Timeline courtesy of FAA
aviation changed the world.
The “Lindbergh Boom” that swept the nation after Charles Lindbergh’s record breaking 1927 flight, launched the USA into a frenzy of aviation excitement. While aviation manufacturing, training, and technology skyrocketed, pop culture took notice, too.
Hollywood filmed dozens of aviation movies, shorts, and serials, featuring incredible real-life stunts performed by daring stunt pilots.
Fashionable celebrities picked up the flying hobby, including actors like James Stewart.
Books, games, music, toys, and even outfits themed around airplanes kept aviation front and center.
Materials:
- Cotton fabric covered aircraft; fiberglass, plastics, and composite materials had not yet been invented.
- Steel tube fuselage
- Wooden wing struts and ribs
- Transition from water cooled to air cooled engines in the mid-late 1920s
- Biplanes remained prominent; cantilevered wings were just being invented.
Industry:
- The Lindbergh Boom drives innovation and an increase in aircraft manufacturing businesses. The Great Depression curtails this spike.
- Air mail, air racing, barnstorming, crop dusting, and passenger services all drive innovation.
- Airport infrastructure increases:
- In 1920, the USA had 145 municipally owned airports and 70 military airports.
- In 1940, the USA boasted 2,227 total airports in operation or being built.
Flight:
- Regulations were established by the CAA in 1926; the FAA was not established as it is known today until 1958.
- Airmail beacon towers allowed for night flight and low-visibility navigation as early as 1926.
- Radio navigation, starting with basic audio tones broadcast in beams, was invented.
- Instrument flying technology developed, paving the way for more complex systems in WWII, and eventually radar.
- Commercial airlines, including passenger service, grew from a laughable novelty into a robust business.
History, in flight
The museum’s aircraft collection of flyable original airplanes showcases the beauty, ingenuity, and design characteristics of the 1920s and 30s. With crop dusters, mail planes, homebuilts, and lost treasures, these unique aircraft demonstrate every area and purpose of US civil aviation between the wars.
Our oldest aircraft: 1927 Travel Air 4000 biplane
Our youngest airplane: 1946 Piper J-3 Cub
Our rarest airplane: 1929 Butler Blackhawk biplane
Our weirdest airplane: 1931 Curtiss-Wright Junior
