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National Airline History Museum
Categories: Arts & Entertainment Museums Hotels & Travel Tours Museums, Tours [Edit]
201 NW Lou Holland DrKansas City, MO 64116
(816) 421-3401
- Hours:
Mon-Sat 10 am - 4 pm
Sun 12 pm - 4 pm
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
5 reviews for National Airline History Museum
5 reviews in English
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Review from Susan N.
4/30/2012 2 Check-ins Here
I'm pretty smitten by the Airline History Museum. It's a place that I cannot help but recommend to out-of-town guests.
Before I went, I never thought it would be that great. When we went, I kind of winced at the $10 entry fee, figuring it would be a waste of money. How wrong I was! There are two parts of the museum - the hangar and the memorabilia area. When you walk in, you can either wait for a guide and explore the memorabilia section or you can take the guide and go into the hangar area.
Let's start with the hangar area. The guide that we had was knowledgeable and unfortunately not daunted by our we're-going-to-try-to-stump-you questions. You get a chance to see planes throughout their early lives and you are even allowed to climb on board and see how early passengers used to fly. The guide definitely makes it, with an interesting, historical explanation of each plane. It'll hold your attention even if you're not an aviation-buff.
The memorabilia area is a fun treat for anyone that loves aviation, TWA, history or even vintage in general. Most of the items are TWA-centric. You'll see old place settings, promotional items, cabin items and even old uniforms! It's fun to look around and see all the items that were around since the early days of commercial flying.
I highly recommend bringing locals and non-locals to this great exhibit of KC history. -
Review from Joi B.
2/14/2011 2 Check-ins Here
Read my profile. See who my current crush is? I ain't lyin'! Being that Kansas City was the HQ for TWA, Howard Hughes used to grace this fair city regularly and the Airline History Museum has a fair amount of interesting HH facts (amongst a ton of other interesting facts that I'll soon get to). We even saw where his office was rumored to be (*rumored* of course, because the man was an enigma. Sigh). You can see the office from the freeway as you're heading over to the airport, by the way. In the original TWA building with the eagle on it.
So, the Airline History Museum is easily one of the best tours I have ever taken in my life. Right up there with my tour of the Forum in Rome, that's how good it was. Our tour guide was a flight attendant for several airlines before the economy crashed and he got laid off. He now volunteers his time along with a bunch of other devotees of the flight industry. The man was incredible. I could have stayed there talking to him all day (of course I need to know all the gory details. "Have you ever thought your plane was going to crash?" "No, but I experienced two emergency landings...")
Did you know Pucci did a line of stewardess outfits for Braniff Airlines?! There's one on display. Apparently it was a three layer outfit, along with a huge head piece that protected the stewardess' hair before she boarded the plane, as once she was on board, she had to look perfect. I loved hearing about how extravagant the outfitting experience was for the flight attendants of the past. So much importance was placed on image, that when doing trans Atlantic flights, they donned paper costumes to reflect the style of dress of country they were flying to. How freaking cool is that?!
I also loved to hear how people used to treat flying like it was a special occasion. My mother has photos of her going off to Europe in the 60s and she's dressed to the nines, Jackie Kennedy-style, hair in a flip, cute little suit, perfect make up. A far cry from today's passengers who don *snuggies* in the airport. They used to serve passengers with real China, too (actually, I hear that up until not too long ago, Midwest continued this practice).
Besides the museum portion where you get to see everything from flight souvenirs to vintage airline posters to stewardess appearance requirements to pilot and stewardess uniforms, you get to tour three planes with your informed guide, one of which is a HH masterpiece, the "Connie" or "Constellation" (which is still in operation and does special trans Atlantic flights). Part of what makes this plane so aesthetically pleasing to the likes of me: Howard thought overhead bins to be ugly and claustrophobia-inspiring, so he did away with them in this plane, putting luggage closets instead. Therefore, passengers enjoy a much roomier cabin. Brilliant!
Another fun fact: John Travolta is one of their biggest patrons. Truth! There's his photo taken with the museum staff in the front of the museum. They even have a dance floor in the middle of the hanger, made for his auctioning off a dance with him a number of years ago, in support of this volunteer-run operation. Elton John, it's been told, always wanted to be a flight attendant, but by the time a man was allowed to be in that position, he was already a superstar (1972).
Visit the Airline History Museum! Do it for the love of Howard. Or, if you don't love HH, do it for the love of flying. If you hate flying, do it for the love of Kansas City's vibrant history. Give your support to this non profit organization. It is completely volunteer-operated, even the engineers and mechanics who are restoring the old planes to their former glory (one will be making an inaugural flight this Spring, in fact). -
Review from Erika D.
Kansas City, MO
4/15/2011
Human beings have been fascinated with flying since the beginning of written history. From Daedalus and Icarus to DaVinci, the dream of flight has captured imaginations for thousands of years.
There is something so spellbinding about the image of man soaring through the air that it compels every generation to sing, talk, dream and write about flight. The Greeks had Hermes with his winged sandals; we have Superman (and the Lockheed Super G Constellation).
The early days of commercial air travel were exciting times. It was quite literally a new frontier, full of romance and possibility. In the 1930's TWA was on the cutting edge, testing experimental aircrafts and offering one of the first coast-to-coast trips by plane (with an overnight stop in Kansas City). By 1946, TWA had gone global and was flying a transatlantic route with the sleek and sophisticated Lockheed Constellation, or "Connie" for short.
A Connie could cross the U.S. in less than 7 hours, and had a top speed that was unmatched even by military fighter planes. It was an aircraft that would make the winged gods of mythology proud. An aging Orville Wright took his last flight in a Connie and noted that the plane's wingspan exceeded the distance of his first flight!
The advent of jet technology meant extinction for the elegant Connie, and eventually for TWA.
You can tour a fully restored and flight-ready Lockheed Super G Constellation at the Kansas City Airline History Museum. A tour guide will take you through the Connie and several other historic airplanes that are housed in the enormous hanger, sharing intriguing facts and tidbits along the way.
These awesome planes are undoubtedly the museum's main draw, but their collection of artifacts and memorabilia from the glory days of TWA is also worth a good look.
As technology advances, so does the scope of our dream. Who knows, in 50 years we may have a museum dedicated to space tourism.
For evoking the allure and adventure of human flight, the Kansas City Airline History Museum is high on my list of hidden gems.
See photos on my Tumblr blog, The Family Unit (link under profile) -
Review from Angela K.
7/2/2010 10 photos
Kansas City seems to have some unique, and sometimes oddball, museums. And having spent most of my life in the metro area, I finally decided to hit up all of them during my summer KC staycation.
The Airline History Museum is located at the downtown airport which is just north of the CBD (central business district) right over the highway. They have some helpful signs once you exit the highway that point the way to the large hanger that houses the museum.
The inside portion of the museum has a lot of old photos and memorabilia...a lot of it, obviously, from TWA because their headquarters were here. We caught the tail-end of another tour being given by an older gentleman who was a retired TWA mechanic.
When we got to the back room of the museum, which was where the stewardess uniforms and information was, he turned to us and said, "You ladies will probably be more interested in what's in here." I gave him my best evil eye before asking him if we could go see the planes now.
The star of the museum is the Connie, of course. They've done an amazing job restoring her. One thing I didn't expect to see was the original TWA rocket that used to be on top of their downtown headquarters. When the company that's currently there bought and restored the building, they were required to have a rocket on top of it to meet the historical requirements, so they had to create a replica because the museum wouldn't give them the original.
They also have a fully restored passenger DC-3, one of only 600 ever built, and a Martin 404. The Martin here is one of only a handful believed to be left in the U.S.
It's a pretty cool museum filled with A LOT of great history of the beginnings of the commercial passenger airline industry and Kansas City's important role in it. I wish our tour guide hadn't have treated us so much like "little ladies just there to see the pretty stewardess uniforms", but whatever. After the tour, they'll let you wander around the hanger and explore for yourself and thankfully they have a lot of photos and information you can read on your own. -
Review from Patrick S.
Oakland, CA
10/11/2008 4 photos
This place is really quite the hidden gem in that's quite a ways off the beaten path. But if you're a fan of nostalgia and airplanes like I am then you are going to Love this place.
Its at the old KC airport which is still a thriving corporate/business general aviation airport right on the bank of the Missouri river. From the outside you'd never guess that it had anything worth seeing but don't let that fool you. When you finally get inside you will find a really well thought out info packed museum of airline nostalgia ranging from complimentary playing cards to a navigator's sexton and all the varying fashions from flight attendant's past to present.
Hold on though because that's just the primer for something unbelievably cool behind the museum wall!
They have a fully refurbished Lockheed "Super Constellation" and it's so damn cool to just get on board this thing to see and feel the way we used to fly back in the 50's. I tell you what, to be a passenger in those days looked luxurious compared with what we have to contend with on today's airlines.
They also have an iconic Douglas DC-3 which is nearing the finishing stages of a 15 year restoration. And they also have a much lesser known Martin 404 in its prime restored state.
Now I'll leave you with this... The "Connie" as She's better known as, is one of 3 or 4 still around and flyable today and she's really a beauty to behold. Designed by the Aviation industry Giants Kelly Johnson and Howard Hughes the Super Connie is a beauty to behold. Enjoy your visit and please donate as much as you can to this museum by visiting their unique gift shop.
