Wings of Eagles Discovery Center

Our History

The Wings of Eagles Discovery Center traces its heritage to the National Warplane Museum (NWM), founded in Geneseo, NY in 1984 by a passionate group of members who celebrated the lore of WWII aircraft.  NWM was a flying museum, by the New York State Department of Education.  The flag ship artifact was a B-17 “Fuddy Duddy” that toured throughout the flying season, offering a unique flight experience for paying customers.

In addition to offering unique flight experiences, the National Warplane Museum also staged the annual Wings of Eagles Airshow, a major event on the airshow circuit featuring a host of flying historic warbirds.

In the mid 90’s, the Board of Trustees decided to move the Museum to a larger venue and posted a Request for Proposals.  Chemung County was the preferred new site and the Museum moved to the Elmira Corning Regional Airport.  The new location provided much higher visibility, but also significant challenges.  As Federal Aviation Regulations governing airshows and warbird rides tightened, the founding business model became outdated and a re-branding of the organization was needed.

While charting a viable future, the museum changed its name to The Wings of Eagles Discovery Center and while continuing to honor the past, began focusing on preparing a new cohort of aerospace capability among youth in our community.  Our futures theme shifted to NASA and space exploration, culminating with the establishment of the Mars Base Eagle display, which captures essential elements of life in a human colony on Mars. 

Built around the aerospace challenges illustrated by our displays is an extensive education outreach program, focused on project based education to promote STEM based critical thinking skills to meet the increasing demands of our technology based economy.