Most American glider pilots of the Second World War trained at South Plains Army Air Field, the wartime base on the ground now taken by Lubbock's airport. The Army chose the site for its dry, warm weather and mostly clear skies, and the program ran here from 1942 to 1945. About 5,000 men, all volunteers, trained as glider pilots during the war. Their aircraft had no engines, which let them carry troops and equipment behind enemy lines in near silence, and every combat glider mission ended in enemy territory. Gliders landed in France, Holland, Germany, Italy, Burma and the Philippines, and the pilots' casualty rate ran to about 37 percent.
The collection began in 1984 as a project of the Military Glider Pilots Association and was first shown at Terrell Municipal Airport, east of Dallas. The city of Lubbock took ownership in 2000, and the museum opened here on October 20, 2002, in the airport terminal used from 1949 to 1976.
The centerpiece is a Waco CG-4A, the main combat glider of the war. Of 13,909 built, only three were known to survive in 1991, and this one was rebuilt from parts found as far apart as California and Pennsylvania. Built of wood and fabric on a steel frame, it carried a pilot, a copilot and thirteen troops, or a jeep or a howitzer. A restored C-47 tow plane, training gliders, nearly 10,000 artifacts and a research library fill out the galleries.
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