Go to a specific gallery from the links below

Timeline Gallery          Combat Gallery         Hangar Gallery        Theater

A downloadable Gallery Guide is available here in PDF format.

Gallery Guide - Side 1

Gallery Guide - Side 2

The Timeline Gallery

To better illustrate just how the glider program was developed and implemented, two timelines and a global map of operations features 143 historic images. The first timeline depicts the history of military aviation by noting major events from 1910 to 1945. The second timeline stories the important events that molded the WWII military glider program from 1940 to 1945. Across from the timelines glider training sites; research & development locations; overseas deployments and glider operations are named and plotted. A well-dressed glider pilot manikin wearing his Class A “pinks and greens” welcomes visitors.
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The Combat Gallery

As you leave the timeline gallery, you will enter the darkened area of the Museum where the difficulties of being a glider pilot are portrayed. Past the re-created scene “Pre-Dawn Landing in Normandy,” three figures represent a pilot, airborne medic and glider infantryman. Museum- goers will be able to get up close to the main types of glider-borne equipment, including a bulldozer and artillery pieces like those carried into combat. Here, there are twelve large exhibit cases containing artifacts, maps and photographs from the various glider operations. Two touch screen interactive displays in the center of the gallery contain over two hours of oral history interviews with “the men who flew the mission.”
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The Hangar Gallery 

Inside this section of the Museum you will experience the training aspect of the US military glider program. A Link trainer, one of the earliest types of fight simulator, looks small beside the other aircraft. Suspended high above is a colorful Laister-Kaufman TG-4A glider used for primary flight training. The Waco CG-4A glider number 515690, restored by pilots in the 1970s ready for inspection. This is one of only a few completely restored gliders from WWII. At the request of the men who restored this aircraft, only WWII glider pilots may enter the CG-4A and once again man the controls. On the galleries south wall, under the large command insignia the design/development wall chronicles the history of how the aircraft went from drawing board to invasion-ready glider. The fateful events of the St. Louis crash and the lessons learned from Sicily inform visitors just how close the glider program came to being cancelled almost a year before the Normandy invasion.
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Silent Wings Museum Theater

Visitors are invited to view an orientation program in the theater outlining the origins and accomplishments of the military glider program in WWII. The Silent Wings Museum offers a unique dual-screen DVD presentation like no other in Lubbock. This presentation lasts approximately 15 minutes and features vintage black & white footage of combat gliders in action. You will also see and hear first-hand accounts from WWII glider pilots recalling what is was like to fly and land these unpowered aircraft, often behind enemy lines. 
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