New Hampshiere Aviation Museum Gets Grant

MANCHESTER -- New Hampshire Aviation Museum at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport has received a grant from BAE Systems to build three interactive exhibits.

The exhibits will be a Wind Tunnel, Airplane Flight Control Emulator and Audio Connection to Manchester airport and are designed to stimulate students' curiosity about aerodynamics, navigation and propulsion.

"BAE Systems is pleased to help support this worthwhile goal. Sparking young people's interest in science and engineering is central to our corporate responsibility role, and as a leading aerospace electronics company was a perfect fit for community outreach," said Lu Goncalves-Getty, community relations manager for BAE Systems in Nashua of the $3,000 grant.

Housed in the 1937 art deco terminal that served Manchester Airport until 1961, the museum opened in September. The terminal building was moved to the east side of the airport in 2004 and restored for use by the aviation museum.

The museum is open to the public Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and is staffed by volunteers.

"Most of the volunteers are retired aviators," said Scott Westover, president of the New Hampshire Aviation Historical Society. "It's a living history as well as a static museum courtesy of those volunteers, They're really neat guys."

Barbara A. Miller, of CC Stephens & Co. Inc., in Peterborough, who prepared the grant application to BAE for the New Hampshire Aviation Historical Society, said the museum will work with school systems to encourage more students to take courses in math and science.

"Enrollment in math and science has been declining. This is one way of sparking interest," she said.

Westover said work on the exhibits is just beginning and should be completed over the next couple of months.

The NH Aviation Museum is managed by the New Hampshire Aviation Historical Society and is the state's only working museum of aviation history.

"New Hampshire Aviation Historical Society is committed to preserving New Hampshire's aviation history, and the museum is one way of doing that," said Westover, who is a pilot himself. "We also have member events throughout the year. It's really about building an aviation community as much as it is about a museum. The museum gives us a home, but it's a statewide community."

For more information about the museum or the society, go to .

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