Aviation History & the Air and Space Museum

The Smithsonian announced on 27 October that the National Air and Space Museum has completed its seven-year transformation of the building on the National Mall with the opening of two new galleries. WUSA9 and NBC4 Washington reported the launch of the two exhibits the same day, and Design News called it the end of a decade-long revamp. The coverage step could not read any of these reports, so the gallery names and contents are not confirmed here.

On 28 October 1954 the North American FJ-4 Fury made its first flight. The last of the Navy's Fury line, which grew out of the F-86 Sabre, it had a new thinner, larger wing with more taper and wet-wing fuel tanks, and a 7,700-pound-thrust Wright J65 that gave it about 680 mph. North American built 374 for the Navy and Marine Corps, which flew it as a fighter and light bomber armed with Sidewinders, rockets and bombs until December 1964. About seven survive in the United States, including FJ-4B 143610 on a pedestal in Buffalo, New York.

A year after opening at El Reno Regional Airport's Mustang Field in Oklahoma, Tony Caldwell's collection of mostly 1918–1942 aircraft, many of them kept flying, has grown from 24 to 36 airplanes and drew about 5,000 visitors. The city has agreed to save the World War II-era Hangar 1 rather than demolish it; it is being dismantled and rebuilt across from the museum as two exhibition hangars, taking exhibit space from about 30,000 to more than 50,000 square feet and room for 20 to 25 more aircraft. An on-site shop run by Rob Lock of Waldo Wright's Flying Service keeps three to five aircraft in restoration at a time, and admission is free.

The Forgotten Factories series follows Enstrom from Rudy Enstrom's 1940s experiments in Michigan's Upper Peninsula to the R.J. Enstrom Co. of 1959 and the piston F-28, certified in April 1965. Owners came and went: Purex, attorney F. Lee Bailey, who pushed output past 100 a year and launched the 280 Shark in 1974, then Victor Kiam, Dean Kamen with the turbine 480, a Swiss investor and, in 2013, a Chinese firm. After more than 1,100 helicopters, the Menominee factory closed in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy in January 2022; Surack Enterprises bought it that May, and a new 480B flew in January 2023.

Heavy Attack Squadron 123, the "Professionals," formed at NAS Whidbey Island on 15 June 1957 as the fleet replacement squadron for the A-3 Skywarrior, the heaviest aircraft the Navy flew from carriers. It trained pilots, aircrew and maintainers on the A3D-1, A3D-2, EA-3B, TA-3B and EKA-3B, adding electronic-warfare training for the EKA-3B in the 1960s and feeding crews to the A-3 units flying over Vietnam. The squadron was disbanded on 1 February 1971.