Five Museums Give Wings to the Flight Fans’ Fancy

David G. Price says his fascination with airplanes started when he was 7 years old. He lived half a block from what was then known as Clover Field and today is Santa Monica Airport.

“It was during World War II and I used to go over to the field and watch the airplanes take off,” says Price, 56, president of the new Museum of Flying.

“My parents were from England and as a little boy, I’d dream of flying Spitfires,” he recalls. His dream came true: He eventually became a Navy pilot, and four years ago, he flew a Spitfire over the hedgerows and green fields of England. He purchased that Spitfire and another and brought them to Santa Monica Airport, where, after talks with Donald Douglas Jr., the idea of a new Museum of Flying was conceived.

On the same site where Donald Douglas Sr. once built airplanes, the museum is part of an ultramodern complex adjoining the DC-3 restaurant and Supermarine, a fixed-base operator that services private aircraft at the Santa Monica Airport.

The Museum of Flying is one of five major air/aerospace museums in Southern California, where aerospace is a key part of the economy. Although operating independently, the museums are united in their reverence for vintage aircraft and frequently cooperate on restoration projects or loan planes to each other.

Two museums, the Aerospace Hall at the California Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles and the Aerospace Historical Center in San Diego, trace flight from its beginnings into the Space Age. A fourth, the March Field Museum at the Air Force base near Riverside, is a military museum as well as a flying museum. And a fifth, Planes of Fame in Chino, offers a nostalgic look at famous “Warbirds.”

Douglas Artifacts Used

Many artifacts from the Donald Douglas Museum were incorporated into the Museum of Flying, including furnishings from Douglas’ boardroom with more than 60 models of Douglas aircraft. Also, there is the drafting table where he created the likes of the New Orleans, a Douglas World Cruiser now hanging from the museum’s ceiling, along with several other aircraft.

Other Douglas planes on display include a DC-2, a DC-3 (widely acclaimed as one of the greatest aircraft ever built), a 1951 Navy AD-6 Skyraider bomber, an A-26 Invader bomber and a Douglas A-4 combat aircraft.

Price’s British Spitfires also are on display. His Mk XIV served in the Indian Air Force and was rescued derelict from an Indian airfield in 1978. His Mk IX was assigned to the U.S. Army Air Force in Casablanca and may be the last surviving Spitfire that flew with American colors.

A Curtiss JN-4D “Jenny” hangs over a display and video exhibit on wing-walkers of the post-World War I era when many Americans were introduced to airplanes through barnstormers at carnival-type air shows.

Early air exhibits at the Aerospace Hall of the California Museum of Science and Industry include an airworthy replica of the Wright Brothers’ Model B aircraft. The craft was used in a 1978 television movie, “Winds of Kitty Hawk.” Later aircraft include a T-38 on loan from the Air Force, a DC-3, a DC-8 and a police helicopter.

However, a major emphasis at this museum is space exploration. From Aug. 21 to Aug. 29, for instance, the Aerospace Hall will present live photos broadcast from Voyager II as it passes Neptune before leaving the solar system.

Pictures Relayed to Museum

“These will be the first close-up pictures we have of Neptune,” says Eugene Harrison Ph.D., aerospace curator. “The satellite will transmit the data back to Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory will turn around and broadcast what it is receiving via satellite. . . . Visitors to the museum will be seeing Neptune at the same time as the scientists at JPL.”

Special exhibits through Sept. 4 include “Visions of Space,” 25 years of the space-probe photos recorded by JPL, and “Apollo 11 Revisited,” a special tribute to the July 20, 1969, moon landing.

The Aerospace Historical Center in San Diego also has space exhibits, including mock-ups of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space capsules.

Exhibits are arranged chronologically and start with a replica of a Wright Brothers plane, followed by World War I-era planes and a replica of Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis.

From Mail to War

“We have an excellent exhibit on early airmail,” says William Immenschuh, president of the San Diego museum board, “a barnstorming exhibit and airplanes of the ‘30s.” These are followed by planes for sport flying and a special exhibit honoring the Flying Tigers for their activities in China during World War II.

Military buffs may enjoy a mock-up of a portion of the deck of the U.S. aircraft carrier Yorktown, a 1940s-era ship.

“You walk onto the deck of the carrier and there are some American airplanes and a Japanese Zero and the ready room and the bridge of the carrier,” Immenschuh says.

Military buffs will also enjoy a trip to the March Field Museum. Originally a pilot training base, March later was a base for combat-unit training, a World War II fighter and bomber crew training base and a Strategic Air Command installation. It is now home for the 15th Air Force and SAC bomber and tanker units.

Survey of Eras

The museum reflects these various eras, from inside exhibits like the trainer “Jennies” to a U-2 spy plane out on the flight line.

Exhibits inside include a P-59 (one of the first military jets), a B-1 jet engine split in half and positioned on opposite sides of the aisle, a ball turret that carried the belly gunner on a B-17 bomber, models of planes and missiles, cut-aways of engines, flight suits and other uniforms and other vintage planes.

A full-size, cut-away cockpit of a B-47 used in the movie “Strategic Air Command” offers an inside view of this plane that was based at March through the early 1960s.

From the museum, visitors can take a bus out to the “flight line” and see 31 vintage aircraft, including the F-4, F-105, F-89, B-52, B-24, B-17, T-38, 0-2, B-47 and KC-97.

“The majority of all those airplanes are tied into March Air Force Base in one way or another,” says Senior Master Sgt. Stephen P. Condos, director of the museum.

Military Planes in Chino

Military planes are also the foundation of the Planes of Fame at the Chino Airport. Sixty rare planes are crowded into two hangars, one additional building and surrounding grounds.

A special exhibit of World War II Japanese aircraft includes a Mitsubishi A6M5-Zero, believed to be the only flying Zero fighter left, and a rare kamikaze suicide device, the OHKA-11, which was basically a piloted bomb. The OHKA-11 used rocket fuel and was carried by a mother plane and released a few miles short of the target.

German warplanes include the Stormbird, a 1942 jet-powered ME-262A-1a Luftwaffe Messerschmitt and the Volksjager (People’s Fighter), a Heinkel HE-162A-1 jet flown in the last days of World War II.

The museum’s Soviet planes--a MIG-15 and a MIG-17, which were acquired through a broker from Poland, and a 1947 biplane--currently are the center of a controversy.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms says the planes must be surrendered to Customs or sold to a U.S. military facility because they were purchased in violation of regulations forbidding transportation of military equipment from certain countries. Museum officials believe they have not done anything wrong and have negotiated a five-month reprieve to resolve the problem, according to John Maloney, a vice president of the museum.

American Planes

American planes displayed include a 1944 Ryan FR-1 Fireball--with a combination of reciprocating (piston) and jet-power plants--and an RB-26C Invader used in Korea. The Invader sports a Black Birds emblem lettered with the motto of reconnaissance crews: “Alone! Unarmed! Unafraid!”

Fighter Rebuilders, a private company that restores the museum’s planes in addition to private planes, works on the premises, and visitors can peer into the hangar.

Locating parts is sometimes a challenge and often expensive, according to Maloney, who is also the restoration foreman.

David Price says his Spitfires were “in pretty good shape” when he bought them, but previous owners had spent thousands of staff hours building them from “rusting hulks.”

But Price feels the end result is well worth the effort.

“Our prime hope is that (people) get excited about what their predecessors created,” Price says, “so when they leave they can say, ‘You know, maybe I can do something like that too.’ ”

The Museum of Flying is open Tuesday-Sunday from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. at 2772 Donald Douglas Loop North, Santa Monica (on north side of Santa Monica Airport). Admission is: adults, $4; seniors 55 and older, $3; children 13-17, $2, ages 3-12, $1. Call (213) 392-8822.

The Aerospace Hall of the California Museum of Science and Industry is open seven days a week 10 a.m.-5 p.m. at 700 State Drive (Harbor Freeway at Exposition Boulevard), Los Angeles. Admission is free. Call (213) 744-7400 for information.

March Field Museum at March Air Force Base near Riverside is open Monday-Friday from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays noon-4 p.m. Admission is free. Call (714) 655-3725.

Planes of Fame is open from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily at 7000 Merrill Ave., Chino, at Chino Airport. Admission is $4.95 for adults and $1.95 for children under 12. Call (714) 597-3722.

The Aerospace Historical Center is open daily from 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. in Balboa Park at 2001 Pan Am Plaza, San Diego. Admission: adults, $4; children 6-17, $1; 5 and younger free. Call (619) 234-8291.