PRESS RELEASE
The Museum of Flight celebrates Women in Aviation Week with Women Fly, a free aerospace career event for middle and high school girls on March 15. The event offers participants the opportunity to meet dozens of women aviation and space professionals and learn about STEM careers. The event’s keynote speaker is Sarah Knights, Director of the New Shepard Astronaut Office at Blue Origin. Knights has trained every astronaut crew that has flown on New Shepard (which currently accounts for 12% of all women that have flown to space).
Women Fly is open to middle and high school girls; students under age 14 must be accompanied by an adult. The 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. event is free and includes admission to the Museum for the day; space is limited and registration is required.
Women Fly also includes a “Fly Fair” that is open to all Museum visitors and will host a variety of STEM industry professionals, community-based organizations, local and regional clubs, and schools including:
- Civil Air Patrol
- Red Tailed Hawks Flying Club
- Green River College Aviation
- Women in Aviation – Washington Chapter
- TLG Aerospace
- PNAA – Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance
- Girls Scouts of Western WA
- Teams representing various educational programs at The Museum of Flight
Founded in 1965, the independent, nonprofit Museum of Flight is one of the largest air and space museums in the world, annually serving over 600,000 visitors. The Museum’s collection includes more than 160 historically significant airplanes and spacecraft, from the first fighter plane (1914) to today’s 787 Dreamliner. Attractions at the 23-acre, 5-building Seattle campus include the original Boeing Company factory, the NASA Space Shuttle Trainer, Air Force One, Concorde, Lockheed Blackbird and Apollo Moon rockets. In addition to the Seattle campus adjacent to King County International Airport, the Museum also has its 3-acre Restoration Center and Reserve Collection at Paine Field in Everett (not currently open to the public).
With a foundation of aviation history, the Museum is also a hub of news and dialogue with leaders in the emerging field of private spaceflight ventures. The Museum’s aviation and space library and archives are the largest on the West Coast. More than 150,000 individuals are served annually by the Museum’s onsite and outreach educational programs. The Museum of Flight is accredited by the American Association of Museums, and is an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution.
