The Delta Heritage Museum is Open to the Public Tomorrow and You Should Go

Delta

If you’re a commercial aviation fan, the Delta Heritage Museum in Atlanta should be on the must-visit list. The only Delta Museum in Original Atlanta Hangarproblem? It’s usually only open to Delta employees and not to the public (without an appointment). That rule, however, is broken once a year when the Atlanta Airline Collectibles Show comes to the museum and everyone is welcome. This year, it’s tomorrow, October 2. If you’ll be in Atlanta, it’s worth going. But just in case you can’t make it, let’s take a virtual tour.

The museum is actually located on the north side of the Atlanta Airport in Delta’s two original hangars there. While the hangars could use a good paint job, they’re still in decent shape. One of the hangars is dominated by the sight of N102DA, better known as the Spirit of Delta.

Spirit of Delta Body

Back in the early 1980s, Delta employees loved their airline. In fact, they loved it so much that they set aside money and actually bought Delta a brand-spanking new 767-200. The plane flew well into this century, but when it was retired, it was repainted in its delivery colors and parked in the museum.

Inside the Spirit you’ll find a few rows of what the airplane looked like in service.

Spirit of Delta First Class

Then there’s a cutaway cross section so you can see the guts.

Interior Cutaway of Spirit of Delta

Finally, there are several museum exhibits in the back. They don’t always open up the Spirit for tours, but it will be open on the 2nd.

Exhibits on Spirit of Delta Cabin

The other hangar is filled with a variety of exhibits. First is the replica of the original terminal building in Delta’s hometown of Monroe, Louisiana.

Model of Original Monroe Terminal

There is also an old Travelair, one of Delta’s first passenger-carrying airplanes.

Delta Travelair

The pride of that hangar, however, is Ship 41, the first DC-3 to carry passengers for Delta.

Delta Ship 41 DC-3

This bird was fixed up by a dedicated group of volunteers and put back into flying condition. It doesn’t fly any longer today, but it still sits in the hangar in pristine condition.

Ship 41 Interior View

You’ll also find the fuselage of the first L1011, which became a movie set for much of its life. If you saw an L1011 interior on the big screen, it was probably this one. Now, it’s the Delta Museum store, an awesome collection of things you want to buy. They actually sell off excess donations here to support the museum (it’s a non-profit that’s separate from Delta Air Lines), so you can get some really cool stuff from days gone by.

But the museum is only one piece of what’s going on here. Behind the walls, there is an extensive collection of history that Archives Manager Marie Force keeps organized. I walked in to that back room and didn’t want to leave. How about some old silverware (or, uh, woodware in the case of this old-school spork).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/crankyflier/4948725787/in/set-72157624857821234/Spork!

There are some great old models in the back, including some large travel agency cutaways.

Delta L1011 Cutaway Model

Here’s Marie showing off the hat collection.

Archives Manager Marie Force

And oh the documentation. There were so many old docs from the CAB days that I could have stayed for months.

Delta Archives

As I mentioned, the museum is an independent non-profit so it relies on donations. I made one myself after my visit. If you’d like to do the same, you can donate here. And if you’re in Atlanta tomorrow, make sure you stop by. It’s absolutely worthwhile.

Get Cranky in Your Inbox!

The airline industry moves fast. Sign up and get every Cranky post in your inbox for free.

13 comments on “The Delta Heritage Museum is Open to the Public Tomorrow and You Should Go

  1. that is a great post! thanks for the pictures. I would love to see it in person but this is definitely the next best thing.

  2. Simply amazing, can you imagine any group of airline employees in 2010 buy their company a new aircraft or set up and run a museum?

    I’m a little scared to go, if they have a section dedicated to old ads and flyers then I’m afraid I’d never make it out.

    1. No. Unless you clicked through and browsed my album, you only would have seen the one picture of me on the DC-3 (which isn’t in this post) as the illustration of my first post on my Delta visit.

    2. David, I had a similar post on the Southwest blog about a year ago. However, CF one-upped me by going in the DC-3 on his visit. The Museum is an amazing place.

  3. Thanks for the write-up about the Delta Museum! Looking forward to a great day tomorrow of shopping and visting with so many fans of airline collectibles and history.

    Just a note about public access to the Delta Museum:
    The Show is the one day of the year the Museum is open on Saturday and open to the public without an appointment.

    The rest of the year, the Delta Museum is open to the public Monday-Thursday 9 a.m.-4 p.m. EST, by appointment because we are located on the campus of Delta’s headquarters. Just call/e-mail before you visit. For more info, check out the Museum’s website: http://www.deltamuseum.org

    Marie Force
    Delta Archives Manager

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Cranky Flier