By CLAUDIA ELLIOTT For Tehachapi News
Donors and supporters of a new flight test museum to be built just outside the gates of Edwards Air Force Base took to the skies above Tehachapi on Saturday.
Organizer Rex Moen said glider rides and a related ground school were provided as part of the Life Friend fundraising drive for the Flight Test Museum Foundation.
Life Friend memberships range in price from $500 for senior citizens to $100,000 for diamond memberships. When the membership campaign was kicked off earlier this year, teams were formed and the glider rides are provided to the top teams each quarter.
Saturday’s event was the second held at Skylark North Glider Flight School at Tehachapi’s Mountain Valley Airport. The first event was held during the Tehachapi Mountain Festival in August as storm clouds from Tropical Cyclone Hilary were gathering.
Nick Markroglous, 13, a Civil Air Patrol cadet from Tehachapi, was among those riding in gliders Saturday. His parents, John and Sam Markroglous, and grandfather Jed Hannan, turned out to watch.
Others enjoying flights were Jose Rios Jr., representing Allen Hoffman of Grayson Foundation, Daniel Osborne, representing the National Electrical Contractors Association of Los Angeles County, Cody Brooks, representing Kern County International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Dominic Moen, who handles video and photography for the foundation, and Drew Avery, representing Rex Moen.
The glider pilots were David Lynes and Andrew Dever, flight instructors from the Edwards AFB Test Pilot School who volunteered for the event. Ivan Briggs of Skylark North piloted the tow plane.
The museum
The current museum is on base grounds, about five miles past the base’s Visitor Control Center.
For more than 40 years the foundation worked to raise funds to support the museum.
Prior to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the current museum was more accessible to the public. But since then, access has been very limited, and the foundation has committed to building a new structure to allow exhibits in the museum to be housed in a larger space in a location that can allow much more public access.
At the groundbreaking for the new museum in March 2018, estimates were that the first building could be complete in about two years. But then along came the COVID-19 pandemic — accompanied by supply chain issues — and then inflation. Construction is currently stalled until more funds can be raised.
“We had the money,” Moen said in April when the current fundraising campaign kicked off. “But inflation means that materials will cost about $1.2 million more than projected. Just the hangar door will cost $300,000.”
On Saturday, he said the current campaign had raised almost enough money for the door.
A former Tehachapi resident, Moen moved to San Diego County in 2013. Still, he remains active with the foundation, serves as an executive board member, and chairs fundraising.
To learn more about the planned museum and how to donate, visit flighttestmuseum.org.
Claudia Elliott is a freelance journalist. She Can be reached by email: claudia@claudiaelliott.net.
