Pacific Coast Air Museum

The Pacific Coast Air Museum, in Santa Rosa, California, is dedicated to promoting and preserving aviation history through the acquisition, restoration, and display of historic aircraft. Founded in 1989, the museum is a non-profit organization, located about 8.5 miles northwest of downtown Santa Rosa, at the Charles M. Schulz - Sonoma County Airport.

The museum displays a varied collection of over 30 American military, propeller and jet, aircraft from World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam War, along with an example of the world's smallest jet aircraft, and a hand built replica of civilian aviation's most famous historic aerobatic airplane, a Pitts Special S1, first designed in 1945.

Exhibits documenting local aviation history are housed in an original WW II era fabrication shop, along with an aviation reference library, and gift shop featuring aviation themed books, clothing and toys. The museum is open for tours 4 days per week, and can be reserved for corporate functions or birthday parties.

The Pacific Coast Air Museum, as an educational venue for students and the community, promotes aircraft operational safety, offers classes on aviation history and principles of flight, conducts an aviation summer school and Merit Badge in aviation program for Boy Scouts, and has an aviation Master Story teller for story time. The museum is very actively involved in community cultural events, supports many civic organizations, and also provides speakers for civic groups.

An annual 2-day weekend air show in August draws over 20,000 visitors for events featuring military jet demo teams, skydiving, hang-gliding, biplane aerobatics, and tours of all the museum's airplanes, including an A-26 Invader attack bomber, the only aircraft to see combat in WW II, Korea, and Vietnam.

Next to the museum, immediately to the north, is the airplane hangar used in the 1963 Hollywood all-star comedy movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. In the movie, stunt pilot Frank Tallman flies a Beech D-18 full bore, at about 150 knots, through the airplane hangar in less than a second, with only 23 feet of clearance from wingtip to wingtip, and only 15 feet from the top of the tail to the hangar ceiling.

Known as the Butler Building, the hangar was built during World War II, and is still in use today.

The Pacific Coast Air Museum continues to grow and expand, with plans to build and move to a new larger facility, still at the airport, as its fleet of aircraft increases.

In December 2010, the museum acquired the historic USAF "First Responder" F-15 Eagle aircraft. Dispatched from the Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, it was the first of a dozen planes over New York City and Washington, D.C., on 9/11. The plane, with a Revolutionary "Minuteman" emblem stenciled on its tail, will ultimately be fully restored and the centerpiece of an interactive, educational exhibit, as the museum is dedicated to honoring the heroic aviators who have contributed so much to the growth and defense of the American way of life.

The museum employs corporate sponsorships for a majority of its fund raising money, and hundreds of various corporate logos can be seen everywhere, next to displays and exhibits, throughout the Pacific Coast Air Museum.

References

Pacific Coast Air Museum