Veterans and families.  Come by the museum on May 30th.  The museum will be open from 12:00 noon until 6:00 pm.  

Activity is starting to pick up.  We've had quite a few visitors to the museum in the past couple of weeks.  Many corporate pilots that come into Joplin are visiting the museum while they wait for their passengers to return to the airport after they do business in Joplin.

The space exhibit is complete and now features a video player to watch for additional information on the exhibit.  

We are working on the webcam for the airport and should have it running next month.

We are starting plans for the return of the 5K on the Runway event.  This year will be another night race and will be held on July 2.

We gave a tour to a Boy Scout troupe from Stockton Mo.  

With the latest high winds we have had to tie down the T-33.  As big and heavy as it is the wind still rocks it around some.  

That's all for now.

Snow days are for catching up on computer work and later a nap.

Lately, we have been making very good progress with the museum.  We have remade the Universe exhibit complete with new video viewer. We have had approximately 60-70 visitors since we opened to the public on Tuesdays and Saturdays.  We have been gifted a Lockheed T-33 trainer for future use as a gate guard for the airport entrance.  We have been gifted a BD17 kit plane that will be used as a STEM project by local high school students.  We have expanded the ASTC area to provide more space for exhibits and STEM education.  We are installing a weather and airport activity webcam on the museum control tower. With the help of a very generous benefactor, we repurchased almost all of the Allen Shirley aerospace collection.  We have installed several new display cases.  We have made several additions to the Rocketdyne exhibit. We have moved the Flight Stimulator 

to the first floor for better usage.  We have a T-38 flight simulator available to us located in the main hall.  Plans are being made for fundraisers.  I'm sure I have missed some things, but you can see we have been busy.  And very importantly we have been fortunate to attract several new members to our ranks.  Time for the nap.

Plan to attend our "soft" opening today from 2:00 pm until 5:00 pm.  

FoF PRESS RELEASE (2).docx

For those of you that weren't able to make it to the Alpha Airfest this year you really missed a great show.  Lots of great static displays, fantastic airshow, good food, lots of smoke and noise.  Everyone seemed to have a fun time.  The museum set up a booth with the Civil Air Patrol with several activities for the kids.  I think we probably had over 500 kids go through the booth.  Kids sat in the bomber, tried their luck at making things fly in our wind tunnel, made and launched straw rockets and tested their aircraft landing skill with the CAP landing simulator. We also talked to a lot of old timers that had flown or worked on some of the types of aircraft that were on display.  Many interesting stories.  Thanks to all of our volunteers that helped on the booth.  We couldn't do it without you. 

Our friends at TEC are getting closer to having the video units installed in both the exhibit hall and the control tower.  We will be able to add a great deal of content to the tower and exhibit hall with these units. We have also added a weather station to the control tower for use in our field trips. The station was donated to us by the Civil Air Patrol through their Associate Education Member program.  They have many nice educational packages available for AEM's so we hope to obtain additional materials and devices soon. 

Registrations are coming in fast for both our 5K Under the Lights and our 5K on the Runway.  Both are actually on the runway.  If you want to register go to LocalRaces.com for both events.  We could always use more volunteers!  Contact us through the website email and we will get you signed up to volunteer. 

This March we start our third year of elementary school field trips. 

The trips include a visit to the Joplin Regional Airport airline terminal.  Here the kids get a taste of what airline travel is like by learning how to buy a ticket, check luggage, go through TSA, and pick up their luggage. 

Next they divide into small groups and go through the Civil Air Patrol museum, the Freedom of Flight Museum and participate in a hands-on activity to make a fun aviation themed take home project. They also get to sit in a real airplane.

And finally they climb to the top of the old airport control tower and learn about airport and aircraft safety.

These trips are really growing in popularity and we need more volunteers for this function.  Most trips are scheduled from about 9:00 until around 12:00 during weekdays.  If you would like to help with these trips please let me know through the museum email and I will get you more information on volunteering. There is no experience necessary and we will train you for whatever job you would like.

Jobs include guides, activity helpers, tower guides.  In 2016 we enjoyed nearly 1800 students from area public, private and home schools.  GREATEST FIELD TRIP EVER!

We are so excited to bring you this new addition to an already amazing event!  This year we are holding the "Freedom of Flight 5K UNDER THE LIGHTS! on May 5, 2017.  You will be running a 5K on the Runway at the Joplin Regional Airport AFTER DARK with the RUNWAY LIGHTS UP showing you the way to the finish!  This race will be held the Friday night before the 5K on the Runway event on Saturday May 6th, 2017.  You can register for one or both races at LocalRaces.com.  The link is on this website under the 5K Registration tab.