Cradle of Aviation Museum

Address:Charles Lindbergh Blvd.
Garden City, New York
Tel: (516) 572-4111

Enjoy a journey through the history of flight in The Dream of Wings and sample freeze-dried ice cream! From Charles Lindbergh's famous 1927 flight from Roosevelt Field to Paris in to Grumman World War II planes, Long Island has long been a key player in aviation history and you can see it all right here at the Cradle of Aviation Museum!

An aerospace museum located in Garden City, Long Island, the Cradle of Aviation Museum commemorates Long Island's participation in the history of aviation. Situated on land that was once part of Mitchell Air Force Base, the museum contains over 60 aircraft and scale models of airplanes from various time periods, including Charles Lindbergh's original trainer aircraft, the A-10 Thunderbolt II and Grumman F-14 Tomcat, as well as an actual unused Apollo Lunar Module, LM-13. Historically, Long Island has played a very important role in the development and growth of aviation and aerospace, due largely to the fact that it is ideally placed at the eastern edge of the US, at the western edge of the Ocean, and adjacent to America's most populous city.

Visitors enter the Cradle of Aviation Museum to the sight of a Grumman F11 Jet flying overhead and start off with a journey through the history of flight in The Dream of Wings, which features a Bleriot Type XI from 1909, one of the oldest planes in the world. Also showcased are articles, artifacts and aircrafts and everyone will enjoy watching a movie at the IMAX Dome Theatre, which has a digital surround sound system that will literally shake your seat.

Be sure to visit the outer space-inspired Red Planet Café, or sample freeze-dried astronaut ice cream in the gift shop. And don't miss the Aerospace Park and Rocket Garden, with Long Island-related military aircraft and missiles.

The N16, N45, and N51 buses stop at Nassau Community College, several blocks from the Cradle of Aviation Museum.

In less than eighty years, aviation has grown, boomed, and declined on Long Island. However Long Island has helped transform aviation from a dangerous sport to a viable means of transportation. It has also produced a large portion of the nation's aerial arsenal in time of war. The many record-setting and historic flights that transpired here, and the many aviation companies that developed here made aviation the integral part of our world that it is today.