One of the major collecting areas for Wright State University Libraries Special Collections & Archives is aviation history. As a result, we have acquired tens of thousands of amazing and unique aircraft photographs.
A few years ago, we began a long-term digital project to illustrate the breadth and variety of these photographs by sharing a sampling of them online in the Wright State University Campus Online Repository, at CORE Scholar: Aircraft Photo Gallery.
Currently, the Aircraft Photo Gallery contains over 1,800 images, primarily from the William F. Yeager Aviation Collection (MS-223) and the Walter Matthews Jefferies Aviation Collection (MS-344). We will soon add selections from the Bernard Lindenbaum Vertical Flight Research Collection (MS-364) as well.
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- Boeing 40B (NACA cowling) (ms223_033_13_004)
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- Northrop 1-D Delta (ms223_043_064)
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- Monocoupe D-145 (ms223_049_209)
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- Beechcraft AT-11 (ms223_053_073)
William F. Yeager (1915-1990) was a military and commercial pilot, as well as an aviation photographer and collector who owned an aviation photography business. His collection consists of information about Yeager’s WWII experience as a B-25 pilot in North Africa and his post-war flying experience as an Air Force and commercial pilot. The collection also contains flight training books, flying tools, correspondence, and aircraft history and design information. The bulk of the collection is more than 25,000 aviation photographs and negatives that have been organized according to make, model and type of aircraft. Learn more in the MS-223 William F. Yeager Collection finding aid, or view selected images from the Yeager Collection in CORE Scholar.
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- Curtiss P-6E (ms344_050_004_00569)
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- Grumman F9F-8T (ms344_086_009_01057)
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- Convair 240 (ms344_177_012_00004)
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- Thomas-Morse O19-B (ms344_187_005_00016)
Walter Matthews Jefferies (1921-2003) was an aviation illustrator, his most famous work being the design of the “Starship Enterprise” for the Star Trek television series. The Walter Matthews Jefferies Aviation Collection (MS-344) His collection consists of more than 15,000 photographs and over 1100 books, pamphlets, and journals. The bulk of the photographs pertain to aviation from the 1930s to the 1960s. Most of the photographs document military aircraft produced by a variety of aircraft manufacturers. However, the collection also contains a significant number of photographs taken by movie studios during the filming of aviation-themed movies. Learn more in the Walter Matthews Jefferies Aviation Collection (MS-344) finding aid, or view selected images from the Jefferies Collection in CORE Scholar.
This digital project has been a collaborative effort between the University Libraries’ Special Collections & Archives and the University Libraries’ Digital Initiatives and Repository Services (DIRS) Department, which provided the digitization, metadata encoding, and uploading of digital content to CORE Scholar.
Please visit the Special Collections & Archives’ CORE Scholar page to browse additional digital collections. Don’t forget to check out the University Archives’ CORE Scholar page as well.