The inclusion of the Federal Express Falcon 20 in the collection of the National Air and Space Museum is important for a number of reasons. First, it is representative of a new category of airline, the exclusive air express carrier. Several other enterprising individuals and corporations, recognizing the essential logic of Fred Smith’s innovative idea, have gone into business with similar hub-based systems. The Falcon therefore reminds us that the development of air transport is as dynamic today as in previous decades, and that history is concerned with today’s events as well as yesterday’s.
Second, the Falcon was the first commercial jet to be placed in the Air Transportation gallery. Previous candidates for inclusion were too large to go into the building on the Mall. The Falcon. therefore, was a welcome addition, and makes a fascinating contrast with the Douglas M-2 mailplane. The M-2 inaugurated air mail service almost half a century before Federal Express took wing.
Third. the Falcon is a French design, built by Avions Marcel Dassault, headquartered at Vaucrosson, France. Most foreign aircraft are rare and difficult to obtain, and until recently the Museum has been unable to include a foreign-built commercial aircraft in its collection.
One of the customs at Federal Express is to name each aircraft after a child of one of the airline employees. The name is now chosen at random, but the Falcon in the National Air and Space Museum was the first, and is named Wendy, after Fred Smith’s daughter. The tail number, N8FE, does not mean that it was the eighth in the line. In fact, it was the first one delivered, but Smith felt that no harm would be done if the public assumed that the number on the tail indicated that Federal Express already had a fleet of eight aircraft when his enterprise first got under way.
Dassault Falcon 20, number N8FE, was donated to the National Air and Space Museum by Federal Express in 1983.
