Windsor Locks, CT — After receiving nearly $1 million in state bonding, executive director Jerry Roberts can see his plans for the New England Air Museum starting to come to life.
Roberts, a writer and historian who became the museum’s leader a little over a year ago, has been a museum professional for over 30 years with stops at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, the National Lighthouse Museum and the Connecticut River Museum.
With 107 aircraft, the air museum has a world-class collection, but needs to display and market it in new ways, Roberts said.
“It’s one of the most amazing air collections in the world,” Roberts said. “But everything is very old-school. This place has to be reinvented. Now I’ve got the money I need to reinvent the place.”
The $985,000 in bond money will be used to construct a hangar that will serve as the museum’s new entrance and will allow the museum to double its education classrooms. There will also be new mezzanine space to allow guests to see aircraft from a new point of view.
But the reinvention will also update the way the museum presents itself to visitors right from the moment they drive into the parking lot.
“I want to recreate that magic we all have of flying from our youth,” Roberts said.
Instead of the feeling that you’re walking into a museum, Roberts said the main entrance will rather feel like a retro airport and the ticket desk will resemble that of an airline’s. Classic Frank Sinatra songs, like “Come Fly With Me,” will be playing over the loudspeakers and visitors will receive boarding passes instead of regular tickets.
Roberts also wants to focus on the museum’s neighbor, Bradley International Airport.
“There’s no connection between us and the airport,” Roberts said. “And the airport is why we’re here. I want to tie the feeling of the airport and us together.”
One way of doing that will be by building a replica of a former Bradley tower. The tower will be part of the new hangar that will allow guests to look above the trees across the street from the museum and actually see the airport and the aircraft taking off and landing.
Roberts also wants to tell the story of how the airport came to be, from tobacco fields to what it is today, and shed more light on the human-interest stories found at museum displays.
“The best stories we have here are hidden in plain sight,” Roberts said. “It’s about those people, those human stories. That’s what we need to connect with. We need to tell those stories.”
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