Free First Thursday: Eight things kids love about the Museum of Flight

If you’re the parent of a transportation-obsessed toddler, preschooler or elementary-aged child, consider yourself lucky. The Puget Sound is a great place to raise a plane-crazy kid, because we’ve got the Museum of Flight. My toddler still talks about our trip to the museum, and we visited back in May.

Want to make the most of your trip? Here are eight must-do items for your next visit, which might be tonight –- it’s Free First Thursday:

1. View the six-story-tall Great Gallery, packed with more than 80 planes, including: an authentic 1914 fighter plane, the 60s-era “Aerocar III" and a 1903 Wright Brothers flier replica.

2. Eavesdrop on air traffic control in the control tower exhibit and watch planes land.

3. Navigate the “Flight Zone” kids’ area, where children can play in a hot-air balloon basket or steer a hang-glider simulator. (Note: This area is often packed with school groups and/or closed between 10 and 2 on weekdays).

4. Maneuver into the sound-effect-equipped cockpit of an SR-71A Blackbird reconnaissance plane.

5. Play angry businessman vs. screaming toddler inside the passenger jet. Just kidding. But it is nice to sit back in the jet’s plush, roomy seats and order imaginary banana splits. So much less messy than the real thing... 

6. Pilot the toddler-friendly plane ride (first floor of the Great Gallery), or for-older-kids, flight simulators.

7. See where astronauts eat, sleep and play in the New Frontier exhibit.

8. Climb aboard a Concorde or Air Force One jet (only between the hours of 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. until Nov. 2, then 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.) out on the airfield.

One caveat: It can be really hard for toddlers to resist reaching out for the off-limit switches and wheels that practically scream “Touch me! Drive me!” (And I even flipped a few switches before noticing a sign that said DO NOT TOUCH).

Stephanie Jones-Gunn, on-site education coordinator, says that most off-limits pieces are behind toe-rails or in glass. “Often if parents start out in the Flight Zone, where all is touchable, then the kids seem to have an easier time wandering through the rest of the Museum,“ she says.

I think that’s a fabulous idea, and we’ll have to try that next time. Maybe I'll have an easier time keeping my hands off all that neat stuff.

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