Who doesn’t like free? And who doesn’t like great iPad apps? When the two come together it’s good stuff. With that in mind, we’d like to share our Best Free iPad App of the Week here every weekend.

This week’s pick is Boeing Milestones, a fantastic collection of archive images and videos celebrating Boeing’s innovations and history in aviation and aerospace. I’ve often said that I enjoy a number of great ‘coffee table book’ type iPad apps and I love that this app is described as a digital coffee table book.

Boeing Milestones has a simple UI that allows you to dig into the excellent content with ease. You can just pinch outwards within the timeline to go choose a period of years to look at, (most of them are in roughly 10-15 year blocks) then pinch again to choose a specific year. once you’re on a page for an individual year you can simply swipe left and right to move back to the year before or ahead to the next year.

The app features milestone moments and aircraft starting right from their very beginning and their first ever airplane in 1916. There’s some Mcdonnel Douglas history thrown in as well, as it was merged into Boeing in the late 1990s.

Of course the images of the numerous famous aircraft produced by Boeing are superb. Here’s just a few that stood out for me – a B-17 prototype, a Chinook helicopter, and an early airliner used by Pan Am:

Although the app is image heavy and quite light on text, the small text blocks accompanying each image are full of fascinating details. A few quick examples – starting with this image of wartime B-17 production, and the text tells how at the peak of production there was one rolled out every hour:

This one informs us that the Boeing 777 was the first jetliner to be 100% digitally defined using 3D computer design tools …

The photos and background on some of Boeing’s more recent landmark projects, and the short videos offering insight on the technological innovations behind them, are equally impressive.

If you’re even a little interested in aviation history or modern aviation, then this app should have huge appeal. It really is another great iPad coffee table book sort of app. I’m not a big aviation buff, but I got quickly hooked by this app and couldn’t put it down until I’d been all the way through it.

Here’s an App Store link for Boeing Milestones.

If you’re after more great free iPad apps, be sure to check out our previous choices for Best Free iPad of the Week.