Seattle's Museum of Flight — The World's Largest Aviation Museum

Museum of Flight Review

Hi, today I’ll be sharing my visit to the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

To put it simply — it’s the world’s largest aviation museum, and if you have even a passing interest in aviation, there’s no reason not to go.

Inside, you’ll find actual aircraft alongside space capsules, engines, components, and an overwhelming number of aviation exhibits. I spent about four hours rushing through and barely managed to cover everything.

The adjacent Aviation Pavilion is where you can see rare aircraft up close — and go inside them.

I originally planned to visit the Boeing Factory Tour in Everett, but the program was cancelled due to COVID, so this was my alternative. It’s a bit of a distance from downtown Seattle — I arrived the day before and headed out from a hotel near Tacoma Airport.

Entrance

You pay admission at the welcome hall, get a wristband, and head in. As you’d expect from a museum, most visitors were families with young kids.

Main Hall

Walk through the lobby into the main hall and this is what greets you. Dozens of aircraft hanging from the ceiling framework — biplanes and all.

Looking back at my photos — there was even a UH-1H Huey in there. I watched those retire during my military service. Turns out we were already old friends.

Aircraft Interiors

An early Boeing 737 has been sliced open for display — you can tour both the cabin and the cockpit.

A staggering number of gauges. Nothing like today’s glass cockpits.

Gift Shop

The gift shop has a wide selection of merchandise — Boeing-branded items and all kinds of aviation memorabilia. Scale model brands like Gemini Jets and Herpa are sold directly here.

Museum Café

Got hungry before heading to the Aviation Pavilion, so I grabbed a sandwich and took a break.

Space Gallery

The space exhibits are just as impressive. Real space capsules, Mars rover models — things you’d rarely get to see anywhere else. Standing in front of objects that actually traveled to space before I was even born… it really hits different. America is something else.

Aviation Pavilion

This is a massive hangar housing actual aircraft on display. It’s outdoors, so it gets cold in winter — but this was the whole reason I came, and the most exciting part of the visit.

Real aircraft like the Boeing 747 prototype, the 787, the Concorde, and a vintage Air Force One. Rare aircraft you can see up close and actually step inside.

First up: the Concorde. It’s already been retired for years, and there aren’t many places left that have one on display — let alone one you can walk through. I didn’t hesitate for a second.

Cockpit, two classes of seating — the whole thing. The famously terrible fuel economy checks out: it really is a flying cattle car. Flying at twice the speed of sound while crammed into that… no thanks.

Next, Air Force One — the former presidential aircraft. Kennedy apparently used this one. Getting to walk through the actual interior of a presidential aircraft is wild. Delivered in 1959… I wonder what Korea was doing back then. The more you see of this country, the more impressive it gets.

Then: the world’s best-selling commercial aircraft — the Boeing 747 prototype. Registration N7470. The number says it all.

According to a post I came across on the aviation community “Flighters” — this is the only surviving 747 Classic prototype. It was converted into an aerial refueling tanker, then a NASA research aircraft, then a Boeing engine testbed. After all that, it was retired and left to sit. In 2015, it was fully repainted and put on display here.

Inside, there’s a lot of old equipment — likely from the engine test days — along with traces of the refueling tanker conversion. Seeing it in person is genuinely awe-inspiring.

There was also a Boeing 787. It’s very much in active service today and not hard to find, but I hadn’t flown it yet at the time — and it’s still rare to see one up close like this. I took a good look.

CH-47 Chinook. Saw these a few times during my military service.

Seeing it all laid out like this — “packed in tight” is the phrase that comes to mind.

And that’s a wrap on the Museum of Flight.

America, man. I took a lot more photos than this, but I kept it to the highlights — nobody wants to scroll through a hundred pictures. Still, there’s so much more to do and see here.

Highly recommended. For an aviation enthusiast like me, this was the best call I made on that trip.