Air Mobility Command Museum opens its cockpits to public

In most museums you can look at history, but not touch. However, in Dover at the Air Mobility Command (AMC) Museum, that’s not the case at all.

Saturday the museum opened the doors to many of its planes, as part of their monthly “open cockpit” day.  

Not only do the hands on element of the museum set it apart from others, the tour guides help accomplish that as well. The tour guides not only know the ins and outs of every plane, most of them either flew or worked on them as well, which allows guests to hear history from the people who lived it.

Guests, like Cynthia Acevedo, say they appreciate that.

“It’s very cool to hear (history) from people who have experienced being in those planes before,” Acevedo said.

Possibly one of the coolest planes in the museum is the C-47, which played a key role in American History.

“We had two paratroopers in here that jumped from this (C-47) on D-Day at 400 ft. over Saint- Mere Eglise,” said retired Maj. Will Maroon.

According to museum officials, the C-47 was one of the first planes to drop paratroopers behind enemy lines on D-Day.

Although tour guides like Maroon have plenty of information on the planes, they also have plenty of stories from their days in the service their willing to share. Maroon who flew in a C-130 in Vietnam shared with 47 ABC a bit of his memories from the war.

“We’d fly (the C-130) to small fields,” Maroon said, adding that the C-130 only needed 2,800 ft. to land. “We’d drop off cargo everything from beans, bullets, bagels, to bombs, to body bags you name it we carried it.”

Each tour guide is a volunteer, and most say if the job paid, they wouldn’t do it. All they want is to pass their legacy on to those who will listen.

Although the museum only holds “open cockpit” day on the third Saturday of every month, the museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.  Admission is free, but groups of 10 or more that want a tour are asked to call ahead.