Ground has officially broken on the Palm Springs Air Museum’s extensive renovation and expansion! Helmed by the HED and Cioffi Architect firms, the project is set to reimagine the main entrance with a mid-century façadeinspired by the Pearl Harbor National Memorial, as well as add 9,000 square feet of office and classroom space. The beloved facility, which boasts one of the largest collections of aircraft in the world, will remain open throughout the process. And there’s never been a better time to visit! While the museum is teeming with interesting exhibits (you can easily spend all day there!), I’ve detailed five of my current favorites below.
xo, Lindsay
“MICKEY MOUSE ONE”
One of the museum’s most unique acquisitions, Walt Disney’s personal 1963 Grumman G-159 Gulfstream, aka “Mickey Mouse One” or “The Mouse,” is on long-term loan from the Walt Disney Archives. Custom-designed by Walt with 15 seats, a full galley, 2 bathrooms, and an office, all awash in an orange, white, and black motif (to match Walt Disney Production’s then logo), the aircraft quite appropriately bears the tail number N234MM. Following nearly 9,000 flights, the plane was retired in 1992 and ultimately relocated to the museum in 2022 along with a slew of related memorabilia.
F-117 NIGHTHAWK
The Palm Springs Air Museum is one of only a handful of places to catch an in-person glimpse of an operational F-117A Nighthawk! Restored stealth fighter #833, aka “Black Devil,” was unveiled to much fanfare in 2022 following more than 5,000 flight hours and stints in both Operation Desert Storm and Operation Allied Force. Now standing proudly in its own hangar in the James R. Houston Pavilion, sheathed in an ominous flat black with wings stretching an impressive 43 feet, the streamlined vessel is overwhelming to behold.
B-17 TOURS
Spanning nearly the entirety of the Thomas L. Phelps hangar is perhaps the museum’s most heralded attraction – “Miss Angela,” a restored 1945 B-17 Flying Fortress open for tours! Sleek, shiny, and shockingly massive, even just seeing the long-range bomber up close is worth the price of admission. But getting to venture inside is a next-level experience! I’ve had the privilege of exploring “Miss Angela” on several occasions via tours led by former airmen who actually manned the gargantuan warbirds during World War II, making for some of my most cherished desert memories.
“(THE MOVIE) MEMPHIS BELLE”
A bonafide film star is stationed inside the European hangar! Known as “(The Movie) Memphis Belle,” the craft started life as a B-17G plane but was modified into a B-17F by its owners, Military Aircraft Restoration Corp. (MARC), which acquired it in 1986. The changes made it an obvious choice to stand in for the fabled “Memphis Belle” airplane in the 1990 war drama of the same name. While two different birds actually portrayed the vessel onscreen, this one garnered the most screen time and, thus, its cinematic moniker. It is currently being restored to airworthy condition and should resume flight next year.
“LIFE” MAGAZINE ARCHIVES
Tucked on the museum’s second level is the James C. Ray Educational Resource Center, a sprawling space boasting a research library complete with flight simulators, a large selection of aviation and military-related publications and an archive of every issue of “Life” magazine published from 1936 through 1972 – all fully available for public consumption. As an Old Hollywood lover, I’ve often gotten lost in the “Life” stacks, reveling in the opportunity to personally pore through the many historic issues, most notably that of August 3, 1962, which features Marilyn Monroe’s final interview.