The Flight Deck

Mike Mullane grew up a child of the space race and realized his dream of space flight as an astronaut for the Space Shuttle program. In today’s interview, which was recorded as part of a Trivia Night program the Museum put on, he takes questions from the audience about his training and experiences in weightlessness. He also helps us answer a few trivia questions about life as an astronaut. Can you...

Host Sean Mobley brings the second part of this behind-the-scenes mini-series featuring the “extremes” of the Museum of Flight’s collection. Today we’re staying very close to home on our Museum of Flight campus to look at our Biggest artifact, something so big that moving it took boats, barges, and cranes!

Host Sean Mobley brings us part one of an all-new mini-series featuring The Museum of Flight’s most extreme artifacts. In this series you will uncover the smallest, largest, oldest and youngest objects in our collection. Join us for a journey of wonderment and surprise as we discuss some of our most unique artifacts!

This week we are honored to speak with Museum of Flight docent and Holocaust survivor, Pete Metzelaar. Listen as he describes his first-hand account of the devastating sound of war planes flying over Holland during World War II, and his journey to freedom.

This week’s episode of the Flight Deck Podcast is the first in a series associated with the Museum wide initiative to feature untold stories in honor of the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. Today you will hear from Museum docent Reiner Decher who was a young boy in Germany during WWII. Reiner recalls the end of the war through the eyes of a child, escaping Germany with his family throu...

We dive into part two of our interview with Museum docent and Air Force Colonel Peggy Phillips. Peggy remembers her time in the military flying C-141 cargo airplanes, eventually transitioning to C-17 aircraft in 2001 where she became the first female C-17 squadron commander.

Peggy Phillips and the WASPs by The Museum of Flight

Undoubtedly one of the greatest achievements of man has been stepping foot on the Moon. In 1969, the famous Apollo 11 mission fulfilled this dream. Fast forward to 2013, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos commences an expedition to find the powerful Saturn V F-1 rocket engines that propelled Neil Armstrong into space for the imperative Moon landing. The expedition presented many challenges, one of those be...

Matthew Burchette joined The Museum of Flight in late 2019 as our Senior Curator, launching a new stage in a career spanning several decades of supporting museums in their quest to tell amazing stories and spark inspiration. In today’s episode of The Flight Deck, host Sean Mobley chats with Matthew about his career briefly before moving into a behind-the-scenes discussion on some of the philosophi...

On the eve of a New Year, join host Sean Mobley on a trip behind-the-scenes on the making of an exhibit at The Museum of Flight. Two unassuming display cases outside Wings Café at the Museum contain one of the most looked-at exhibits on the whole campus; the rotating display put together by the NorthWest Scale Modelers Association. A combination of the prime location of the exhibit at a popular cr...

Apollo 12 Astronaut Pete Conrad has a lot to live up to. NASA’s idea of the astronaut image meant that the astronauts needed to conform to specific ideas of the ideal American. Nancy Conrad, Pete’s wife, talks about her late husband and all the Apollo astronauts who had live the “astronaut image,” at least publicly, and how that impacted their lives and the lives of the people around them. This in...

Conspiracy theories are unavoidable when your Museum deals with topics in science, but this week’s guest, Tony Gondola, outreach coordinator for the New Mexico Museum of Space History, has some good advice on how to debunk these unsound ideas. Gondola also explains how the people who formulate conspiracies profit from those who fall for them. In dealing with Moon landing science, Gondola also has...

After the Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the Moon, they embarked on an equally fascinating journey: a global goodwill press tour in Air Force One. Dr. Teasel Muir-Harmony explains the importance of the tour and how the astronauts’ lives changed post-Moon landing. Dr. Teasel Muir-Harmony, author of Apollo to the Moon, an examination of 50 fascinating artifacts from the Apollo 11 mission, discusses...

First Korean astronaut SoYeon Yi shares her memories of going to space and the harrowing return to Earth after 11 days in the International Space Station. Before listening to part 4 of Soyeon Yi’s story, be sure to listen to Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 ! After years of studying and training, SoYeon Yi finally traveled to space for the very first time on April 8, 2008 along with astronauts Peggy Whi...

Buzz Aldrin, the second human to set foot on the Moon, recalls the Apollo 11 mission and how one felt tip pen helped the astronauts successfully return to Earth. Today we honor the 50th anniversary of the first human footsteps on the Moon! This day is especially significant because the Smithsonian Institute has chosen The Museum of Flight as the venue for hosting the command module Columbia, the s...

Jerrie Cobb and the women behind the Women in Space program unsuccessfully lobbied Congress in 1962 to include women in astronaut training, but they still led the way for women’s inclusion in the aerospace industry. With the Women in Space Program being cancelled, the major players behind it—Jerrie Cobb, Jackie Cochran, and Janie Hart (the wife of a Michigan Senator)—met with Congress subcommittee...

When the United States was lagging behind the Soviet Union in the race to space, the Soviet space agency announced plans to send women into space, which spurred American astronaut trainers to consider what might happen if they did the same. In the late 1950s, Dr. Randy Lovelace and General Donald Flickinger of the Air Force heard about how the Soviet Union was planning to send women cosmonauts int...

Our interview with NASA astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, part of our series titled Failure is Not an Option, asks crowd sourced questions to reveal what life is like in space and how Dottie, as a woman astronaut, continues to inspire young women to pursue careers in STEM. Show Notes: As the first installment of our “Failure Is Not An Option” summer series—an ode to people who have pushed the...

Librarians for the King County Library System share their picks for the best aviation, space, and flight-related stories to read this summer. Check out their recommendations for your aerospace summer reading list! This week we sit down with Britta Barrett and Emily Caulkins from the King County Library System—which is the top library in the nation for circulating eBooks and downloads—to discuss th...

The Museum is hosting its own performance of the Moon Landing musical to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, and our very own Natalie Copeland explains why you need to see it. This summer we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 with a performance of Moon Landing, a musical written by Stephen Edwards. One of our very own Museum educators, Natalie Copeland, has taken on the task of c...

Air traffic control has come a long way since the early days of aviation in the 1930s, and our very own Helen Parker Wall takes us back to the technologies that evolved to create the current state of safe flying. Air traffic controller Helen Parker Wall discusses the technologies and incidents that prompted change in navigation and communication between the ground and the pilot to keep the skies a...

First Korean astronaut SoYeon Yi tells that story of determination that took her from backup astronaut to primary, securing her place in aerospace history. SoYeon Yi spent a year in the Russian cosmonaut program, half of which was classroom-based and half of which was focused on work in the simulators. SoYeon recalls that the classroom portion focused on aircraft systems, safety, mechanics, and th...

Airships are lighter than air craft whose history goes back to mid-nineteenth century France and comes to a screeching halt after World War Two. Learn more about what makes air ships such a unique part of aviation history in our latest Flight Deck Podcast episode! Joshua Carver, a student in our Museum Apprentice Program who’s about to begin his freshman year at Embry-Riddle University, created a...

Bessie Coleman is the world’s first black woman pilot, and her great-niece Gigi Coleman carries on the pilot’s legacy by performing her life story. Learn more about how Bessie Coleman’s bravery and persistence helped her make aviation history. -- Gigi Coleman, great-niece of the world’s first African American and Native American pilot Bessie Coleman, carries on her great-aunt’s legacy. Bessie was...

: Jerry Coy, who was featured in our episode about the 747, isn’t just an experienced commercial airline pilot—he’s also a military veteran, and his experiences during Vietnam warrant their very own episode. Coy tells us about the time his pilot duties took him outside his usual routine and placed him in charge of a complicated rescue mission. One night Coy gets a call from a staff sergeant to sup...