Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn. Part III - The Airplanes

The aircraft collection in The Ford Museum is not large but it has a couple of great passenger planes that truly did change the world.

This Ford Trimotor is significant both for its individual achievements and for its importance as a new class of aircraft.


The Trimotor is famous for putting passenger aircraft in the air.  With 199 manufactured, it was certainly the most popular of passenger planes as the airline industry began a slow takeoff.


This particular craft was flown over the south pole carrying Admiral Byrd in 1929.  Ford was just one of the people getting into the aircraft business at the time.  The exhibit gives you a chance to sit in one of the airline seats of the day.  Notice that you don't have to worry about the passenger in the row ahead of you reclining into your lap.


It was Donald Douglas that came up with the airplane that really started to build air traffic.



This DC-3 brought back memories for me since my first ride in an airliner was in a West Coast Airlines Scenicliner, DC-3, back in August of 1960.  It seems like only yesterday...





This 1960's video shows West Coast Airlines' "newer" planes, but you might want to put on your necktie, light up a cigarette and reminisce about coffee poured from a chrome pot.  Somehow, they found a clear day in the Cascades with no turbulence to film it.  If that video doesn't bring back fond memories, then surely these "Fly Me!" print ads will.