CR Smith Museum
Ah, the American Airlines museum, named after C. R. Smith, the first and third CEO of AA. He was a pioneer in passenger travel, influencing or directly designing aircraft for the needs of his Airline.Without a doubt, AA would not be the airline it is today without him, and may not even have made it this far.
The Museum was built in 1993, south of DFW airport on the American Airlines corporate campus, which is a pretty large area, full of training stuff and people finding ways to charge you more to give you less when you fly.
Full of the history of AA, it's a really cool, a lot of interactive, and historical displays of nostalgic yearning for better days of being Up in the Air.
The Museum First Area
Nicely setup in a linear fashion to guide you through the experiences as they want them to be explored, it works.Main Section
After you leave the Hurrah for AA theater, you go into the main displays area, a pretty standard layout for museums, with some interactive, some historical, some immersive. I thought this was the highlight because of all the cool stuff, but well, you have to wait for the actual highlight later.Flagship Knoxville
The actual highlight, the Flagship Knoxville. The plane created for American, which CR Smith purchased 20 before they even started drafting design. The workhorse of the world for 20 years, major contributor to WW2 victory, and still in use in many places on the planet. Tough old piece of metal.The Shop
As with most any museum, a shop, this one dedicated to AA, TWA, US Air, and some other airlines former CEO Parker destroyed, plus just tons of airplane stuff including the airline models of the size I want to collect of every thing I have flown first class on in my life. (Yeah, it's quite a few actually)
Every flight on the Oneworld System, live, at their location
A large screen, for very dated, and exceptionally biased AA advertise... er, I mean documentaries
Old biz class seats is where you sit to watch, not sure what airplane they came from
Lots of model planes
This is the plane I spent literally 7 years of my life on going to and fro
Hey, do all the jobs for an airline. No thanks, I actually wrote many airline systems like these in the past, flashbacks!
I actually have this set in my collection. I had a hard time finding everything related, so thank you very much for this display to let me complete the service
Ahh, the mini's, our survival option for flying
Welcome to the jetage!
The turbo jet, which improved efficiency so incredibly much making ultra long haul flights possible
Here is where your lost luggage went, or let the kids play at a difficult job that is primarily outside in the weather
1970's 747 delight, the upstairs first class lounge bar
And while you drink maybe be crooned?
All the airlines that eventually became American
Airlines were always on the bleeding edge of communications tech
So many airline toys, you go Barbi!
Stunning plane, you can also host private events in this area, yes, I am considering it, look for an invite?
No heating food inflight, thermos or roomtemp were your choices
Well... better than not going I guess
Coffee mugs! Just tempting my Editrix who has a mug problem
Did I mention American is 100 years old? No? Oh, well, here ya go
Summary
Full on flying immersion without the delays. Very cool historical items from the decades of flight by American. A shop where you can get those "I didn't know I needed this" AA Swag. I'm lucky, I get some of this gifted at times as a long time AA elite, but you can get them here too (ok, there is a lot here I want dangit).Comments
Ryan - 2026-10-08
This has inspired me to visit this weekend, I've never been
Rob - 2026-10-08
From the Real Rob
I am glad, I find so many people miss the things right next to them, and I'm glad this helps them go see places. Also, they have TWA items... just saying.