Jay Done Good

[Mason]

So I went to Iowa for Father's Day and got to see all 4 of my grandkids, even the ones from Texas who were in for a visit. Somehow we wound up at the Iowa Children's Museum at the Coralville Mall and pretty soon were attracted to the part about Flight. Lots of cool stuff there including some wide-screen flight simulators. Anyway, imagine my surprise when I see a wall display with Jay and Mary Honeck's names on it in thanks for their tireless help <VBG>. way to go, Jay....

 

[AdamZ]

Good stuff!

 

[Shepherd]

Two thumbs up for Jay and the Mrs.

 

[gprellwitz]

I see another friend on there too, Minnette Gardiner. We drove with her from Romeoville, IL to Cleveland, OH for a 99's Section meeting. She's currently flying in the Air Race Classic!

 

[Geico266]

Nicely done Jay & Mary!

 

[frfly172]

Good job Jay and Mary,way to go.

 

[asgcpa]

Way to go. Nice.

 

[JOhnH]

Must have been a different Jay and Mary Honek. Jay is a grouchy, greedy old conservative miser that steals from children and the poor!
Seriously though, good work Jay.

So I went to Iowa for Father's Day and got to see all 4 of my grandkids, even the ones from Texas who were in for a visit. Somehow we wound up at the Iowa Children's Museum at the Coralville Mall and pretty soon were attracted to the part about Flight. Lots of cool stuff there including some wide-screen flight simulators. Anyway, imagine my surprise when I see a wall display with Jay and Mary Honeck's names on it in thanks for their tireless help <VBG>. way to go, Jay....

 

[Mason]

I see another friend on there too, Minnette Gardiner. We drove with her from Romeoville, IL to Cleveland, OH for a 99's Section meeting. She's currently flying in the Air Race Classic!

I see I should have taken a pic of the bottom half too, didn't think of that and it is too late now. I was concerned to get close enough to make it legible in a small-file .jpg.

 

[Mason]

I see another friend on there too, Minnette Gardiner. We drove with her from Romeoville, IL to Cleveland, OH for a 99's Section meeting. She's currently flying in the Air Race Classic!

Well it is indeed a small world, when I worked at O'Hare I lived for a time in Bollingbrook, just a short hop from Romeoville.

 

[gprellwitz]

Well it is indeed a small world, when I worked at O'Hare I lived for a time in Bollingbrook, just a short hop from Romeoville.

Smaller than you think! We fly out of Bolingbrook!

Speaking of a small world, we just took a Mediterranean cruise last month. In Santorini, Greece, I started talking to a couple at the next table in the restaurant. It turns out that she grew up in Romeoville, and her parents live in Bolingbrook.

 

[Jay Honeck]

Thanks to Geico, for pointing out this thread that I otherwise would have missed!

Getting that exhibit built was INCREDIBLY hard -- much harder than you might believe.

The concept for it sprang, wholly formed, during planning for an on-airport event called "The Big Kids Toy Show" back in 2007. We needed to have a charity to benefit, and I fervently believed that an on-airport event should benefit something aviation-related. I thought an aviation exhibit sounded like a great way to capture the imagination of kids at a very young age. The rest of my fellow organizers agreed.

At first we thought we'd build it at the airport -- but that soon evolved into getting the Iowa Children's Museum involved. After all, they knew what they were doing, and we were just a bunch of pilots!

Fast forward through a year of planning and execution. The show was at last behind us, we had the check to give the museum -- and they didn't seem to care. Oh, they liked the money just fine, but the concept of building an aviation exhibit inside their museum was just so foreign, so weird, that they couldn't wrap their minds around it.

One thing you have to understand: This museum's biggest exhibit to date was a pretend grocery store. With fake food the kids could put in little shopping carts. This place was NOT the Museum of Science and Industry, right?

Meanwhile, just for fun I had hired my A&P mechanic to build a full-sized flight simulator fuselage that we kept at our aviation themed hotel in Iowa City. With cutting edge computers running Microsoft Flight Sim X, displayed on a 104" projection screen, it was VERY realistic and impressive. And it was incredibly popular, as we let hundreds of people "fly" it.

As the months went by, and no progress was made toward the aviation exhibit, I grew desperate. Pretty much as a last resort I invited the museum's board of directors to the hotel for a night of flying our sim, nicknamed "The Kiwi". We served snacks and beer, and made it a fun little party.

Within 30 minutes, I had 'em -- hook, line, and sinker. I set each of them up in a different scenario, from a Piper Cub to an F/A-18 Hornet. They were astounded at the realism and pure fun of "flying", and once they saw just how amazing that simulator could be they became HUGELY enthusiastic supporters of building our exhibit!

And then...they really ran with it! Museum president Deb Dunkhase applied for, sold, and ultimately obtained grants from NASA and Rockwell Collins -- the 600 pound aviation gorilla in Iowa -- that enabled her to take the exhibit concept light years beyond anything we could have ever envisioned!

And THAT is the exhibit you saw during your visit. My A&P buddy, Keith Roof, was contracted to build five more simulators just like the Kiwi, only better. Rockwell-Collins built a giant control tower, with a slide! There are balloon exhibits, a Cessna 150 for kids to play in, and all sorts of hand's-on things for kids to do.

The exhibit has attracted and entertained tens of thousands of kids, pulling them into our world of aviation. I would be willing to bet that we will get more than a few private pilots out of that gang!

Thanks for highlighting it. It's the crown jewel of the Iowa Children's Museum, and is truly worth a visit -- even if you don't have any kids!

 

[Geico266]

Nicely done again! Wow! You would think things like this would be easy, not hard.

 

[Bill Watson]

Well Done Jay and Mary!! Great Story Too

 

[Jay Honeck]

Nicely done again! Wow! You would think things like this would be easy, not hard.

The experience highlighted for me how truly foreign general aviation is to most people. Even highly educated, worldly folk can live full, rich lives without ever once coming in contact with this thing we all love so much.

What we, as pilots, think is obvious -- "What kid doesn't love aviation?" -- simply isn't, for many people. And getting those people to commit to a high dollar museum project, based solely on the love of aviation, turned out to be harder than I ever thought possible.

But all's well that ends well!

 

[Mason]

Here's my grandson flying the 150 at the museum.

Does he look hooked?

He seems to have a nice light grip, although using two hands, is looking out the window and not mesmerized by a glowing panel, and seems to have things well in hand.

Someday he may even be able to reach the pedals.


Jay is correct about the pretend grocery store.
We probably spent an hour in there with 4 kids "shopping." And the adults putting everything back.

We also spent an hour in the pretend pizza parlor, where the kids made us a pepperoni and sausage. Has a working cash register and the grocery store has a working bar code scanner.

But the highlight of the visit was the Flight exhibit. Spent a ton of time in there. There's a 3-story slide from the control tower, the simulators, you can make your own paper rocket and launch it on a stream of air, there is a 3-story parachute deal...pretty cool exhibit.

There was also a CFI sitting there at a table eager to answer questions.

 

[Jay Honeck]

Here's my grandson flying the 150 at the museum.

Does he look hooked?

He seems to have a nice light grip, although using two hands, is looking out the window and not mesmerized by a glowing panel, and seems to have things well in hand.

Someday he may even be able to reach the pedals.


Jay is correct about the pretend grocery store.
We probably spent an hour in there with 4 kids "shopping." And the adults putting everything back.

We also spent an hour in the pretend pizza parlor, where the kids made us a pepperoni and sausage. Has a working cash register and the grocery store has a working bar code scanner.

But the highlight of the visit was the Flight exhibit. Spent a ton of time in there. There's a 3-story slide from the control tower, the simulators, you can make your own paper rocket and launch it on a stream of air, there is a 3-story parachute deal...pretty cool exhibit.

There was also a CFI sitting there at a table eager to answer questions.

That CFI at the table was a crucial part of our vision. We really hoped that we could get the local flight schools involved, so that the easy next step for kids would be from the exhibit to the airport.

I'm really glad to hear that is still happening, all these years later! Thanks for sharing the great pix!

 

[Dallas]

With cutting edge computers running Microsoft Flight Sim X, displayed on a 104" projection screen, it was VERY realistic and impressive. And it was incredibly popular, as we let hundreds of people "fly" it.

Hey Jay... Remember me?... (from Usenet)

What ever happened to that rig?... Did you take it to Port A?

 

[Jay Honeck]

Hey Jay... Remember me?... (from Usenet)

What ever happened to that rig?... Did you take it to Port A?

We put the Kiwi flight simulator in storage in 2010, for the inevitable day when we would build a new, bigger lobby at our hotel in Port A.

That time came this past winter...and went. The architect we hired to design our second story submitted an illegal design that the city rejected, and we were unable to build the addition that would have given us room for the theater/meeting room, like we had in Iowa.

The Kiwi's computer -- which was absolutely bleeding edge technology in 2006 -- is in a box...somewhere. I'm sure it needs to be replaced with something newer/faster. The projector and screen are in my hangar. Everything else is just waiting.

Man, I wish we had room for it here. That thing was SO fun to fly!

 

[Dallas]

The Kiwi's computer -- which was absolutely bleeding edge technology in 2006 -- is in a box...somewhere. I'm sure it needs to be replaced with something newer/faster. The projector and screen are in my hangar. Everything else is just waiting.

Man, I wish we had room for it here. That thing was SO fun to fly!

Aw.. that's a shame! But hey, don't worry, if the 2006 computer could run FSX ok... it would probably run Lockheed's P3D just fine.

Dallas

 

[Dallas]

That time came this past winter...and went. The architect we hired to design our second story submitted an illegal design that the city rejected

BTW.. Good onya mate for making that hotel a going concern.

 

[Jay Honeck]

BTW.. Good onya mate for making that hotel a going concern.

Thanks! It's been amazing here. We've doubled the business in four years, which is certainly better than our expectations.

Timing helps. We bought in 2009 -- the worst year in hotel HISTORY. The only direction to go from the bottom was up, of course. lol

We've been continuously upgrading/remodeling since Day One. The hotel is now virtually brand new, rebuilt from the inside out. Our delivered breakfast has been wildly popular here, and we've built a pretty fanatical following of repeat guests.

Best of all -- it's been a lot of fun building this place, on our island paradise!

 

[Scott@KTYR]

Thanks! It's been amazing here. We've doubled the business in four years, which is certainly better than our expectations.

Timing helps. We bought in 2009 -- the worst year in hotel HISTORY. The only direction to go from the bottom was up, of course. lol

We've been continuously upgrading/remodeling since Day One. The hotel is now virtually brand new, rebuilt from the inside out. Our delivered breakfast has been wildly popular here, and we've built a pretty fanatical following of repeat guests.

Best of all -- it's been a lot of fun building this place, on our island paradise!

Do I hear a Jimmy Buffett song playing in the back ground?