1930s Aviation Photographs: Stratobowl Balloon Launch, Burbank Grand Central Airport

Item Details

1930s

Small collection of 16 early, historical aviation photographs from the 1930s. Especially notable are 3 showing actual balloon launches at the South Dakota “Stratobowl”—a site chosen in 1934 by the National Geographic Society and Army Air Corps to launch manned balloons into the stratosphere. Heralded as the “birthplace of the space age”! Original overhead images showing the actual balloons are scarce, and these must have been taken in-flight by the airplane pilot shown in one of the other photos of the same size (5 ¼”x3 ¼”).

The smaller photos (about 3 1/2”x2 1/2”) are of the Grand Central Airport in Burbank, CA and include the Curtis Wright mechanic’s school (technical institute), while another small lot show images of a biplane, likely depicing the same pilot who took the Stratobowl shots. All original photographs.

Some wear to corners due to once being in an album.