Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Vega 5B
Lockheed Aircraft Company (Amelia Earhart 1897 to disappeared 1937) · 1928
A glossy red aeroplane with a fat round fuselage, a single high wing and gold trim stands in the Pioneers of Flight gallery, its registration number painted large on the tail. It looks fast even standing still, and it was. In May 1932 Amelia Earhart flew it alone from Newfoundland to a field in Northern Ireland in fourteen hours and fifty six minutes, the first woman and only the second person after Lindbergh to fly the Atlantic solo. Three months later she flew it nonstop across the United States, from Los Angeles to Newark, another first for a woman.
The Vega was designed by Jack Northrop for Lockheed in 1927 and was the sleekest aircraft of its day. Its fuselage was made of two halves of moulded plywood glued together, with no internal bracing, a technique later used in the Mosquito bomber, and its wing was a single wooden cantilever with no struts at all. Look at the smooth skin and the cowling around the engine, which cut drag so effectively that a Vega could outrun most military fighters. Earhart called it her little red bus. During the Atlantic flight the altimeter failed, ice forced her down close to the waves, and flames leaked from a cracked exhaust manifold for most of the night.
Earhart bought the aircraft second hand in 1930 and sold it to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia in 1933 after her records, which is why it survived; her later twin engined Electra vanished with her over the Pacific in 1937. The Smithsonian acquired the Vega in 1966 and has shown it since the building opened. It returned to the renewed Pioneers of Flight gallery in July 2025, close to the Spirit of St. Louis, the aircraft whose flight she was measured against for her whole career.
Did You Know? Earhart nicknamed the Vega her little red bus, and during the Atlantic crossing she flew much of the night with flames flickering from a cracked exhaust.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.