Oakland Aviation Museum, Aviation museum at Oakland International Airport, US

The Oakland Aviation Museum is an aviation museum located on the grounds of Oakland International Airport, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It displays aircraft, engines, and flight equipment inside a vintage hangar that is itself part of the experience.

The museum was established in 1980 by Ron Reuther and opened in 1986 in a room inside Hangar 5 at Oakland Airport. In 1988 it moved to Building 621, the former Boeing School of Aeronautics built in 1940. A Short Solent arrived in 1987 and a Lockheed Electra in 1989; in 1998 the museum announced plans to expand to Hangar 41 at the former Naval Air Station Alameda.

The museum's galleries cover Oakland's role in aviation history, with sections on the Eighth Air Force, Jimmy Doolittle, US naval aviation, the Tuskegee Airmen, women in aviation, Transocean Air Lines, World Airways and Trans International Airlines. An aircraft engine room holds engines and other equipment. The museum also hosts open cockpit days, when visitors can sit in real aircraft.

The museum sits right at Oakland International Airport, so it pairs naturally with a trip through the area or a layover. The hangar layout is all on one level and easy to walk through, though giving yourself extra time means you can look at the aircraft up close without rushing.

On select days, visitors are allowed to climb into the cockpits of real aircraft and sit in the actual pilot seats. These events happen only a few times a year, so checking the schedule before a visit is worth the effort.