Donald Lopez, 84, Air Museum Director
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Donald Lopez, the deputy director of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and a veteran World War II fighter pilot, died Monday at a North Carolina hospital. He was 84.
Lopez joined the Smithsonian in 1972 and was part of the team responsible for planning and opening the air and space museum in 1976. Museum curators and administrators said he came to provide much of the institutional and aviation knowledge that guided the museum for decades.
Before his career at the museum, Lopez was an aviation legend in his own right as a fighter pilot in the 23rd Fighter Group of the 14th Air Force in China. He had enlisted at age 19 and flew Curtiss P-40s and North American P-51 Mustangs. Lopez flew 101 missions and tallied five victories to become a World War II “ace.” He later qualified to become an Air Force test pilot. “He kind of spent the first half of his life living and making aviation history, and he spent the last half of his life preserving it and sharing it with the public,” a curator of aeronautics at the museum, Peter Jakab, said.
