High hopes for Pacific Coast Air Museum

Twenty-five years have soared past since a clutch of pilots and others fascinated by the contrivances of human flight created an aircraft museum at the Sonoma County Airport. Today, their baby has grown tremendously and spread its wings.

And if Lynn Hunt and Christina Olds have anything to do with it, the Pacific Coast Air Museum, host of this weekend’s popular air show at the airport between Santa Rosa and Windsor, will one day really take off.

Today, the heart of PCAM resides in the fascinating array of airplanes, many of them vintage war birds, that fill an unpaved, unshielded field on the eastern edge of the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport.

The organization’s 1,200 members delight at allowing kids and adults to board the inoperable and permanently grounded planes, but many are keen to see the air museum take to the air. A new subset of about 100 members is preparing the way to offer rides in the functional civilian planes that PCAM has begun to attract.

“It was always our intention that we would have flying assets,” said Hunt, a pilot, aircraft restorer, mechanical wizard and co-founder of the nonprofit museum.

Also high on the organization’s list of goals is to garner the additional community support it will need to construct and move its airplanes into a showcase building and events space.

“Our vision is to have our own beautiful, flagship hangar,” said Olds. She is PCAM’s director of museum operations and daughter of one of the country’s most celebrated combat flying aces, the late Robin Olds.

As an interim step, she and the museum’s officers seek to expand to the adjacent, open-ended Butler Hangar.

The structure dates to the first year of World War II, when the precursor to the county airport, the Santa Rosa Army Airfield, trained pilots in P-38 Lightning and P-39 Airacobra fighters. The hangar earned its 15 minutes of fame when stunt pilot Frank Tallman flew a Beech D-18 through it in the 1963 epic comedy “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.”

PCAM hopes also to lease the space near the hangar that formerly was the longtime home to the now-defunct Dragonfly flight service.

At present, job one of the museum run by volunteers fueled by what Hunt calls “raw, genuine enthusiasm” is the successful hosting of this weekend’s Wings Over Wine Country air show.

Typically drawing nearly 20,000 spectators to the county airport, the show has always taken place in August. Olds and Hunt said several factors caused PCAM to move it this year to September.

For years, many of the show’s major attractions were active military aircraft, from the massive but agile C-17 Globemaster transport to ear-splitting F/A-18E Super Hornet fighters.

Though the armed forces have tightened up on such performances, the show this Saturday and Sunday - wingsoverwinecountry.org - will star the Marine Corps V-22 Osprey, the tilt-rotor aircraft capable of taking off and landing like a helicopter.

There will be aerobatics and exhibitions by civilians on the air-show circuit and by keepers of World War II aircraft. A peak moment at Friday evening’s sold-out pre-show gala, the Mustang Roundup, will be the drawing to decide who will go up in a P-51 Mustang and fly with a second P-51 just beside.

Hunt said he expects a crowd-pleaser this weekend with the first local performance by “Malibu” Chuck Aaron in the Red Bull Helicopter. Aaron flies it upside-down, spins back-flips and 360-degree rolls and sends it into a tumble he calls the “Chucksilvak.”

The air museum’s expansion plans will cost money, so Olds and Hunt have high hopes for the sales of $125 President’s Club tickets that entitle holders to premium parking, VIP seating in a tent on the flight line and a generous offering of food and beverages.

As always, the museum’s aircraft collection will be on display at the show, as it is each Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.

Said Hunt, “If you want to sit in the cockpit of an F-16, come to our air show.” He and Olds said PCAM is proud to be one of few aircraft museums that allows visitors to climb into the planes.

Throughout its quarter century, the Sonoma County museum has aimed high to fulfill its mission to educate and inspire children of all ages, preserve air-and-space technology and honor military veterans.

“That’s the litmus test in all our decisions,” Hunt said.

He expects that to one day have a new museum building at the airport will be a boost to all of the above.

You can reach Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@press?democrat.com.