Hill Aerospace Museum: from a WWII warehouse to three galleries

The classroom at Hill Aerospace Museum is a C-130 fuselage. The museum finished converting it in 2019, and it now houses the Marc C. Reynolds Aerospace Center for Education. Students who run late can at least say the room was already built for boarding.

The museum itself started in a more modest building. Ground was broken in 1984 on an "Aerospace Park and Museum," and the museum opened in 1987 inside a World War II warehouse. Its own website gives 1981 as the founding year. By 1989 the original base chapel had been moved to the museum and rededicated, and in 1991 a new 9,600-square-foot administration building and a 36,000-square-foot hangar were dedicated.

The collection kept arriving. In the mid-1990s the museum recovered aircraft wrecks from Alaska, including a B-24, a B-26, a P-38 and a P-40. In 1996 it became the home of the Utah Aviation Hall of Fame. A second display hangar opened in 1999 as the Lindquist-Stewart Fighter Gallery, and a mezzanine was added to the first hangar, now called the Hadley Gallery, the following year. An exhibit on the Women Airforce Service Pilots opened in 2004.

The museum embarked on expansion in 2021, building a new restoration facility and receiving state funding for the construction of a third hangar. It also announced plans to demolish its World War II barracks, which were too deteriorated to repair. Ground was broken in October 2022 for an 80,000-square-foot building and a 7,000-square-foot connector. Aircraft began moving in during November 2023, and the hangar was dedicated as the L.S. Skaggs Gallery the following May.

The museum has more than 70 historic aircraft and aerospace vehicles, on display indoors and outdoors. The list includes a B-17G Flying Fortress, an SR-71C Blackbird, an F-117 Nighthawk, an F-22 Raptor, a Curtiss JN-4D Jenny and a Burgess Model F. The exhibits cover Utah aviators such as Brigadier General Leon C. Packer and former senator Jake Garn, plus the nose art of the 509th Composite Group and the Eighth Air Force. Inside the jet hangar, an AIR-2 Genie nuclear air-to-air rocket sits on a transport trailer.

The museum is just off base by the North/Roy Gate, and base access is not required. Wear comfortable shoes because there is a lot to see, and plan one to two hours. There are flight simulators and scavenger hunts, and food and drink stay outside, where there are picnic tables. Out in the air park, a B-1B Lancer is on display, and a Northrop F-89H Scorpion sits in front of the museum.