Technology's constructive and destructive uses are shown in the aviation panel where both passenger and war planes are being assembled. This theme is reinforced in the two smaller panels depicting peaceful and predatory birds, the airplane's counterpart in nature.

From 1925 through 1932, the Ford Motor Company Airplane Division manufactured planes at the Stout Engineering Building near the Henry Ford Museum. Ten days after Rivera arrived in Detroit, Ford unveiled its largest commercial transport plane (the Tri-Motor, depicted on the left side of the aviation panel) at the Ford Airport (now the Dearborn Test Area). The perspective of the airplanes and hangar in the panel was adjusted to the vantage point of the viewer standing on the floor of the court. Not only were the architectural divisions of the upper register disregarded to extend the airplanes into the side panels, but the adjusted perspective visually implies a ground line below the upper register and behind the middle register to create the illusion of a window opening out on the hangar and airfield.

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