The Benefits of an Aviation Museum

[Jay Honeck]

The Iowa Children's Museum opened an aviation exhibit last year. This project was the idea of a group of us who put together an on-airport airshow/car show for the museum back in 2006 that provided the seed money for the exhibit.

It was a tough sell to the museum folks, at first. They simply didn't see the potential of an aviation exhibit for kids. It took the better part of a year, but we eventually won them over to our side. Once this was achieved, it really took off, with grant money from NASA, Rockwell Collins and others.

Today, "Take Flight" is truly a world class exhibit, but the question remained: Did it help the museum in any way? Well, the numbers are now in. From the Iowa City paper today:

"The Iowa Children's Museum...had about 135,000 visitors last year, up from 71,000 in 2003." Woo hoo!

Nothing changed at the museum except that enormous new exhibit -- so I think it's safe to proclaim that "aviation" is still a hot seller with kids! Let's hook 'em young, and you CFIs will get to "clean 'em and fry 'em" later on!

See it here: http://www.theicm.org/exhibits/take-flight

 

[gprellwitz]

Congratulations, Jay! I only wish there was more info on it on the website!

 

[Jay Honeck]

Congratulations, Jay! I only wish there was more info on it on the website!

Museum people are funny. Although it's their most successful exhibit, ever, it's almost like they are subconsciously embarrassed by its economic success.

I think deep inside, they wanted the "pretend food store" and "arts & crafts" areas of the museum to be more of a "home run", and are just a bit aggravated that everyone is coming to see the airplane stuff.

It was a tough sell, getting them on board. Even after we donated the money, they dragged their feet on it for a year. It wasn't until we sat each director down in our flight simulator, one at a time, and laid the whole idea out before them that the light bulbs went off and they realized what kind of a gold mine they were sitting on.

It's nice that the attendance numbers prove it! I can't tell you how proud I am of that exhibit. I'd be willing to bet that it plants the seed of flight into a whole bunch of young 'uns. (Heck, I could play in it all day long! My mechanic built five full-scale flight simulators for it -- one that looks EXACTLY like my old Ercoupe, right down to the N-number! How cool is that?)