Hiller Aviation Museum
Aircraft on display
Where Inspiration Takes Flight!
Dedicated to the dreams of flight and the innovations of aviation pioneers, the museum chronicles over a century of history and provides a glimpse into air transportation’s future.
The Aero L-39 “Albatros” is a high performance military jet trainer developed in Czechoslovakia during the cold war. Pilots of the Warsaw Pact trained in the L-39 before moving up to MiG and Sukhoi jets.
Winner of the $10 million Ansari X-Prize for the first successful flight of a privately financed commercial spacecraft, SpaceShipOne was a prototype aircraft to test the feasibility of carrying human passengers into suborbital space and back to earth.
In 1954, Hiller Helicopters was selected by the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics to build a one man, foldable, self-rescue and observation helicopter.
The Grumman HU-16 Albatross was used by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard primarily as a search and rescue aircraft.
The Diamond airplane built by a couple of shipyard buddies in 1910 may not have been forever if it weren’t for the foresight to dig its pieces out of musty crates and build it again.
The Hiller Aviation Museum’s replica aircraft was built by museum volunteers over a four year period between 2016-2020 in celebration of the 100+ anniversary of the aircraft. The aircraft is designed so visitors can sit in the open-air cockpit.
The Aerocycloid was a concept aircraft, exploring VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and Landing) ideas which were truly “out-of-the-box” before the age of flight really even started.
Built in 1905, this John Montgomery glider had tandem wings. It was flown from Aptos California in rather an unorthodox manner suspended from a hot air balloon which rose to 4,000 ft. altitude.
In 1884 John Montgomery flew the first heavier then air glider from Otay Mesa near San Diego. It flew several hundred feet on this first attempt.
You can also browse the full list of our vehicles on display
Download The Hiller Aviation Museum Visitor Guide
