Yanks Air Museum facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Yanks Air Museum

Preserved North American P-51A Mustang on display
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Established	1972
Location	Chino Airport, Chino, California
Type	Aviation museum
Founder	Charles Nichols

The Yanks Air Museum is a special place in Chino, California. It's a non-profit museum that collects, keeps, and fixes American airplanes and other aviation items. Its main goal is to show how American aviation has changed over time. You can find it at Chino Airport.

Exploring the Chino Museum

The Yanks Air Museum in Chino has one of the biggest and most important collections of American aircraft. This includes famous planes from World War II, like fighters and bombers. The collection starts with a copy of the 1903 Wright Flyer. This was the very first successful airplane!

The museum also has planes from the 1980s, like the F-15 Eagle and the F-16 Fighting Falcon. There are more than 190 aircraft in total. Some of these planes are the last of their kind in the world.

How Airplanes Are Restored

The Yanks Air Museum works hard to fix all its aircraft. They want them to be able to fly again. When they restore these rare planes, they use only the original plans and materials. This makes sure the planes are just like they were when they were first built.

The museum building in Chino is huge. It covers about 176,000 square feet (16,350 square meters) under its roof. The whole area is about 10 acres (40,000 square meters). You can even visit the main workshop where old planes are being fixed. This is called the "boneyard." Here, you can see historic aircraft at different stages of being restored. Some planes are so rare that they won't be flown. But they are still fixed up to perfect flying condition.

Future Plans: The Greenfield Project

The Yanks Air Museum is also working on a second location. This new museum will be in Greenfield, California. It will be much larger, covering about 440 acres (1.8 square kilometers).

The main part of this new campus will be a huge museum building. It will be about 250,000 square feet (23,225 square meters). There will also be an active airport. This airport will be used for museum flights and for visitors who fly their own planes.

Other cool things planned for the Greenfield site include a high-tech education center. There will also be a hotel, restaurants, shops, and even a place for RVs. The museum announced in 2019 that work on this exciting project has started again.

Amazing Aircraft Collection

The museum displays 190 aircraft. These planes cover the years from 1903 to 1984. This includes planes from the time between World War I and World War II. Some examples are the Ryan Brougham and the Swallow TP.

You can also see very rare planes from World War II. These include the P-51A Mustang, the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, and the Lockheed P-38 Lightning. Many of these famous planes were built right in Southern California.

Aircraft collection

See also

• Planes of Fame Air Museum, another air museum located at Chino Airport
• List of aerospace museums