Taking Flight

MAC 100 Stories: A Centennial Exhibition

In 1929, aviator Nick Mamer and mechanic Art Walker held the Spokane Sun-God aloft for five days and nights - America's first nonstop, round-trip transcontinental flight. Refueling in the air was the biggest hurdle. The Sun-God crew caught fuel hoses or canisters swaying by rope from aircraft overhead. Since there was no two-way radio in the cockpit, Mamer filed his newspaper dispatches by dropping them out of the plane. Two years later, Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon Jr. took off from Japan, dropped landing gear over the ocean to lighten the aircraft, and belly-landed in Wenatchee - the first nonstop flight from Japan.

MAC 100 Stories: A Centennial Exhibition is told on the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture campus in Spokane's Browne's Addition, with additional highlights at 15 sites in Spokane and eastern Washington. The exhibit experience (February 22, 2014 - January 2016) weaves stories and programs about Inland Northwest people, places and events by capitalizing on the MAC's extraordinary collection. www.northwestmuseum.org

Spokane Historical presents 15 regional and city tours in partnership with the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture and its 100 Stories exhibition.

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