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Museum of Flying Returning to Santa Monica Airport
The
Museum of Flying of Flying is returning to Santa Monica Airport. It will
be at the southeast corner of Airport Avenue and Donald Douglas Loop
South, adjacent to the recently completed DC-3 monument and across from
Airport Park. It will involve renovating the existing 3100 and 3090 Airport
Avenue Buildings plus installing a new structure that will bridge those
two structures. The Museum will ofter a wide
variety of exhibits that cover the span of aviation history in general
and Santa Monica Airport and Douglas Aircraft specifically. Below is a
rendering of the Museum which anticipates opening next Spring.
An
exciting addition to the Museum has already arrived at Santa Monica, the
nose section of a Boeing 727 aircraft. It will be installed on the north
face of the building (see above rendering) and will allow visitors to
experience what it’s like to be in the cockpit of a commercial airliner.
This
is a view of the nose after it was detached from the aircraft, and below
is a picture of it being delivered to the Museum of Flying site at Santa
Monica Airport.
For
further information on the Museum of Flying please go to their website
http://www.museumofflying.com/
Carbon
Offsets on Line
A new feature on the Santa Monica Airport website is an option for
people flying into or out of the Airport to calculate their carbon
footprint – the “green house gas” impact of their flying – and to
purchase carbon offsets.
The calculator will provide a
measure of the carbon produced by specific flight distances, the number
of passengers to be included and if one way or round trip. The amount can
be offset through purchase of offset credits. The purchases go to
non-profits organizations involved in reforestation and alternative
energy projects. The cost of the offsets are actually quite modest (e.g.,
for two persons round trip to San
Francisco it would be about $5.27) but
potentially can have great impact in terms of awareness, in investment
solutions, and in individual responsibility.
While local airports and
jurisdictions cannot set emission standards for the aircraft using them
(that is done exclusively by the Federal Aviation Administration with the
federal Environmental Protection Agency), they can seek to provide
awareness of, and options for, the people flying to and from the Airport
to address some of the environmental impacts of their flights. Some
airlines and commercial Airports have begun providing a carbon offset
option but Santa Monica
Airport appears to
be the first general aviation airport to do so.
The Airport plans to widely
publicize this opportunity to Airport users and seek support in this
effort from service providers. Please visit the carbon offset page, which
can be also reached from anywhere in the Airport’s website http://www.smgov.net/airport/
by clicking on the carbon offset button in the lower left corner. You can also use the listed
carbon offset sites for information on programs to calculate and offset
other activities, such as driving. Airport staff will be working with the
City’s Environmental Programs staff on adding additional carbon offset
sites and related information to the site.
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