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The Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a new exterior paint design and the ‘Biggest Little Air Show’ on Saturday.
Having trained to fly aircraft for years, Anthony Turner guides young museum visitors through an experience with the flight simulator at the museum’s summer camp.
From carpeted walls and static displays to interactive flight simulators and an invention lab with 3-D printers, the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos has undergone many changes since it opened its doors in 1998.
Though some of the museum’s features — such as aircraft of all shapes and sizes hanging from the ceiling — have attracted visitors throughout its 20-year history, museum staff have been working on making interactive experiences available to appeal to younger visitors, said Willie Turner, the museum’s vice president of operations and marketing.
The Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a new exterior paint design and the ‘Biggest Little Air Show’ on Saturday.
Anna Schuessler/Daily Journal
“Whether you’ve never been here, or you were here 10 or 20 years ago, it’s very different,” he said, of the addition of interactive displays to the museum. “The aviation enthusiasts found us already. This is for the public, this is for the kids.”
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of its opening June 5, 1998, the museum is hosting the “Biggest Little Air Show” Saturday, which will allow visitors to fly drones in the museum’s “Drone Plex” and try their hands as pilots in one of several flight simulators the museum has installed in recent years, said Turner.
He said the museum’s new features — which also include an Invention Lab where students can create their own airplanes using 3-D printers — as well as the drone racing, aerial acrobatics and a parachute jump will be on display this weekend, in part to continue introducing those curious about the world of aviation to new ways of experiencing it.
But the museum is also offering these new experiences to help visitors better understand the technological advances taking shape around them, said Turner. Noting many were wary of drones when they first took off years ago, he said the museum’s “Drone Plex” has given visitors a chance to see how the technology behind them can be applied.
“We realized ‘hey Silicon Valley is what’s making these things work,’” he said. “We’re here in Silicon Valley … and so we want to be a part of that, too.”
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Having trained to fly aircraft for years, Anthony Turner guides young museum visitors through an experience with the flight simulator at the museum’s summer camp.
Anna Schuessler/Daily Journal
The museum was a dream of Stanley Hiller Jr., a longtime Silicon Valley venture capitalist who began his career by founding a helicopter manufacturing business. Though Hiller died in 2006, Turner said he enjoyed coming to the museum and talking to visitors without telling them he founded it to hear from them what they liked to learn about most.
Turner said the museum has become a center of activity for school groups and those participating in the museum’s summer camp, which he said has grown from 20 kids when it was first started to the some 1,500 who participate today.
Though his son Anthony Turner, a senior at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona and a member of the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps, has been flying aircraft for years, he said he enjoys guiding summer campers through simulated flights to give them a chance they might not otherwise have.
“It’s definitely a fun experience. I like kind of showing people what it’s like to fly even if it’s in the most basic sense,” he said. “Most people feel a lot more comfortable coming and doing something like a simulator … than they would hopping in a real airplane and going for a flight.”
The Biggest Little Air Show will be held 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. June 2 at the Hiller Aviation Museum, 601 Skyway Road. Visit hiller.org/event/biggest-little-airshow for more information.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
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PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
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