Pacific Coast Air Museum

Set on the grounds of Charles M. Schulz–Sonoma County Airport, the Pacific Coast Air Museum presents a concentrated cross-section of late-20th-century American air power in a straightforward, working-airfield environment. Founded in 1989 from an Experimental Aircraft Association offshoot, the museum has grown into a collection of more than 30 military aircraft spanning propeller designs to front-line jets. Its setting retains tangible links to the World War II Santa Rosa Army Airfield: the main building once housed the dope and fabric shop, and the adjacent Butler Building hangar, built during the war, later gained fame as the structure flown through in the film “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” Enthusiasts encounter a preservation effort that emphasizes airframes as technical artifacts—ranging from early Cold War types to more modern fighters, including an F-15 Eagle that was among the first jets over New York City on 11 September 2001. Inside, engines, cockpits, simulators, and dioramas of regional wartime airfields anchor the aircraft outdoors to the operational realities they once served.