This series consists of scrapbook pages, watercolors, prints (both original and reproduction), drawings, handbills, calendars, and plates from publications, relating to aviation. It is particularly strong in French and British aerostation (ballooning), 1783-1785, in 19th-century ballooning, and in historic U.S. civil and military aircraft, 1903 to circa 1950.

The materials include prints from Barthélémy Faujas de Saint-Fond, Première suite de la description des expériences aérostatiques de MM. de Montgolfier, Tome second (Paris: Cuchet, 1784), as well as original and reproduction prints--many of the latter taken from François-Louis Bruel, Histoire aéronautique par les monuments peints, sculptés, dessinés et gravés, des origines à 1830 (Paris, 1909)--of most of the earliest balloon ascents from 1783 to the late 1780s. The collection also contains several scrapbook pages and a large number of prints and handbills relating to ballooning in Britain, 1836-1870, in particular the career of Charles Green. The materials include portraits of many pioneer balloonists, including the Montgolfier brothers, James Sadler, and Vincent Lunardi, and depictions of the most famous balloons, including "Le Flesselle" (1784), Count Lennox's "Eagle" (1835), the "Vauxhall Royal Balloon" (later, "Great Nassau Balloon"), and Professor Lowe's "Mammoth Balloon" (1859).

Other prints document the 18th-century obsession with methods of steering balloons, in particular the use of eagles, and the 18th- and 19th-century fascination with fantastic flying machines, including two prints, from the mid 1780s and 1843, respectively, based on the engraving "Pro bono publico", first printed by Willir in 1784. The materials also document the ceremonial and military uses of balloons. Balloons are also represented in several satirical prints, including James Gillray's 1810 caricature of the installation of Lord Grenville as Chancellor of Oxford University and the "Ascending and Descending, or Balloon and Dragoon, A scene at Portobello Baracks, June 27th, 1822".

Twentieth-century materials include a calendar of exhibits in the National Air And Space Museum; pochoir prints of European aviation events, 1908-1910; photographic images of airships, dirigibles, and airplanes, 1919-1931; large-size color lithographs of military aircraft built by Consolidated Vultee, circa 1941-1945; as well as several portfolios containing reproductions of paintings of historic aircraft, by Charles H. Hubbell; and computer-generated renderings of a U.S. military "flying wing", circa 1980.