by Ivor Dawson
May 2005 (Pacoima Ca)
The County of Los Angeles and mangers of Whiteman Airport are considering a proposal submitted by the Traveling Space Museum to build an Aerospace Learning Center at the General Aviation airport in the City of Pacoima.
Making the project more enticing is the leasing of eight replica military aircraft to TSM by the Hollywood prop house Producer’s Air Force. The aircraft, built by movie producer Chuck Hood, are all full-scale high fidelity replicas featured in blockbuster movies like “True Lies,” “Independence Day” and “Air Force One".
Imagine an Amazing Place:
Imagine going to a museum that lets you ride around in a Lunar Rover and climb inside a flight simulator that was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Harrier seen in the movie “True Lies”
Imagine an amazing place where the best elements of a space museum, theme park, movie studio tour and air show can be found under a single roof.
TSM plans an economical multi-use Learning Center of simple design with donated exhibits ready to be installed. The Learning Center can be fully operational a year of the groundbreaking ceremony. It will be the first new museum or science center in the San Fernando Valley in fifty years!
Comprised mostly of exhibits, rides and simulations that visitors can climb in and explore, the TSM collection provides a bonus feature –“live” instrument panels that light up and react to buttons and switches! Live panels and real hardware allow visitors young and old to lose themselves in the fantasy of being pilots, astronauts and aerospace technicians
TSM seeks to attract a new generation who are just as inspired by cinematic memorabilia as they are by scientific artifacts.
The Learning Center will feature full-scale replicas of manned spacecraft, military aircraft and space station modules as well as real experimental aircraft, military jets, helicopters and commercial craft.
The 2.4 million dollar project could be operational as early as January 2007.
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