Many technological advances in aviation are due to the persistence of innovative pioneers inspired to step well beyond the accepted norms.
The Innovations Gallery displays and celebrates a wide variety of aircraft at the cutting edge of aviation achievement. The airplanes in this gallery have broken dozens of world records – the fastest, the highest, the furthest, and even the smallest.
Dick Rutan and Jeanna Yeager's globe-circling flight in the Voyager is a case in point. Under the guidance of Burt Rutan, this remarkable aircraft was built by a handful of people incorporating common homebuilding technology.
The Voyager exhibit features an accurate replica of the aircraft that accomplished the first non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world in 1986. Visitors can look inside the spartan cockpit where the crew lived for nine days.
