Lucille M. Wright Air Museum

We have a small local air museum in downtown Jamestown. It isn't very big, but the volunteers are very excited about teaching young children about flight. I took the boys to the museum on a weekday during our "air and space" week, and we had the museum to ourselves.

The gentlemen in the museum were wonderful, and gave Matt a one-on-one lesson in the physics of flight.

Even though the museum is very small, my boys learned more about flight than at any big "fancy" science museum. The personal attention from the volunteers was incredible.

Matt and Nolan were both able to sit inside a small helicopter and work the controls. Nolan liked tilting the rotors, and Matt was very intrigued by the number of buttons and controls a helicopter requires.

A flight simulator is within the museum, and Matthew took a flight over Chautauqua lake. He was surprised by how sensitive the controls were. After some practice, he was able to fly the plane under the bridge over the middle of our lake and return to the runway. He never was quite able to land the plane, as he is a bit young and would often over-correct.

Nolan also took a turn at the controls and the wonderful volunteer helped him navigate the skies of Chautauqua County.

While Matt played on the simulator, Nolan and I went to look at a few other exhibits in the museum.

After about 2 hours, we had finished seeing everything and left for home. Three months later, the boys still talk about visiting the air museum in our little town - they really loved it!