Story ID: 
New Aviation Experience Opens at APA
By: Curt Epstein
Caption: Exploration of Flight, housed in the Boeing Blue Sky Gallery, aims to spark interest in aviation at one of the nation's busiest GA airports.
Word Count: 220
Visitors to Denver Centennial Airport can enjoy a new aviation-themed attraction, which made its debut last week. Exploration of Flight, located in the 19,000-sq-ft Boeing Blue Sky Aviation Gallery, features two separate experience areas with numerous interactive exhibits intended to inspire the next generation of aviation professionals. On the first floor, the Experience of Flight exhibit lets guests strap into a gyro chair to feel the effects of G-forces on their body, test items of their own design in a wind tunnel, and take a virtual-reality flight.

The upper level focuses on the Sequence of Flight, from mission planning to career readiness, including pilot-quality flight simulators. A viewing lounge offers panoramic views of operations at one of the nation’s busiest general aviation airports and visitors can put on a headset and listen in to the ATC communications from the airport’s control tower.

Created by Colorado-based non-profit Wings Over the Rockies, which aims to educate and inspire people about aviation and space endeavors of the past, present, and future, the Centennial facility is an offshoot of Denver’s Air and Space Museum. Located on the south side of the airport, it is open on weekends. The facility also offers tours of the airport and flights through a partnership with the Aspen Flying Club.