Journey through Amelia Earhart’s adventurous life as a trailblazing aviator who defied the odds to pursue her dreams!
The centerpiece of the museum is Muriel — the world’s last remaining Lockheed Electra 10-E aircraft — identical to the plane Amelia piloted on her fateful round-the-world flight.
Surrounding Muriel are 14 interactive STEM and history storytelling exhibit areas that take visitors through Earhart’s extraordinary life — from growing up in Atchison, Kansas, to the height of her worldwide fame as the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
The Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum is pursuing the honor of becoming a Smithsonian Affiliate.
To exemplify Earhart’s adventurous spirit, the museum partnered with Dimensional Innovations (DI) — an award winning Kansas-based experiential design, build and technology firm — to create a highly engaging experience for all ages.
Among the many museum experiences, visitors will have the opportunity to:
- Enter a full-scale replica of Muriel’s cockpit to experience Amelia’s perspective from her “cozy cubbyhole”; compare Amelia’s instrument panel to Garmin’s G1000 avionic suite.
- Hear the roar of Amelia’s Lockheed Electra 10-E aircraft’s Pratt & Whitney R-1340 WASP engine; see a modern Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbofan come to life.
- Challenge riveting skills to discover the precision required to forge the nearly 85,000 metal rivets that hold Muriel together.
- Flip through Amelia’s digitized scrapbook to see stories of bold women who motivated her; meet “uplifting influencers” who helped Amelia reach for the stars.
- Create an avatar to try on Amelia’s career paths as a nurse, mechanic, pilot and fashion designer.
- Go “above the clouds” to explore how Amelia and her navigator, Fred Noonan, relied on radio waves, a sextant and quick calculations.
- Turn on “Amelia’s guiding lights” to see how constellations helped Amelia navigate the night sky.
- Trace 3D aircraft holograms through the history of flight — from unmanned gliders and biplanes to jet engines and space travel.
- Discover more “feminine feats” of trailblazing women in aviation — past and present.
- Pilot a virtual reality recreation of Amelia’s historic 1932 transatlantic flight to try navigating obstacles she overcame to make history (ticketed experience).
- Explore theories and cast votes on what happened to Amelia and Fred Noonan in July 1937 when their plane disappeared over the South Pacific.
AMELIA EARHART MEMORIAL AIRPORT
The new Museum — located at the Amelia Earhart Memorial Airport (K59) — is a popular destination for pilots and aviation enthusiasts.
Recent construction (2019) of the Museum’s 17,000 square-foot hangar facility included a renovated terminal, pilot’s lounge and community gathering space. The facility’s Art Deco design motifs are reminiscent of Earhart’s lifetime in the 1920s and1930s — one of the most innovative periods in aviation history.
The Amelia Earhart Memorial Airport — conveniently located outside the Kansas City International Airport’s commercial airspace — offers fuel service, aircraft maintenance and rental, and flight instruction.