Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time OutI don't consider myself much of an aviation nerd, but standing in front of the fuselage of a 747 or craning my neck up at a fighter jet suspended from the ceiling is just awe-inspiring. The engineering and history are of course fascinating, but it’s the kne e-jerk “that big thing goes in the sky” reaction that really tickles my brain. After taking an early look at the California Science Center’s forthcoming aviation displays, I can pretty confidently say that there’ll be plenty more of that sort of aeronautical astonishment to go around inside the Korean Air Aviation Gallery. The museum recently completed building construction on the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, and artifact installation has now begun inside of the aviation-focused section of its expansion—including a considerable slice of a jumbo jet that you’ll be able to step inside. There are three main areas to the Exposition Park museum’s new building: the centerpiece Samuel Oschin Shuttle Gallery, the 20-story pinnacle-shaped home for Space Shuttle Endeavour; the Kent Kresa Space Gallery, a collection of robots, rockets and spacecraft; and the Korean Air Aviation Gallery, which I visited on Tuesday. (There’s still no public opening date quite yet, but museum president and CEO Jeffrey Rudolph says we can expect an announcement “in a matter of weeks.”) Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out About 20 aircraft will be on display in the space, which will be broadly divided between three themes: learning to fly, everyday flight and advanced aviation. Expect hands-on experiences across them, including wind tunnels, design demos and a drone flight area. The clear focal point, though, is the 70-foot forward section of a Korean Air Boeing 747-400. “It’s amazing that just two years ago, the 747 behind us, we were carefully taking apart into a dozen pieces, and now it’s all put back together again and repainted—and it’s beautiful, it's stunning,” recalls Perry Roth-Johnson, the museum’s science and technology curator. The 747 that Korean Air gifted to the museum logged 13,857 flights between 1994 and 2014. You’ll be able to step into the upper and lower decks and cockpit, as well as a theater that simulates a flight from Los Angeles to Seoul. And though I wasn’t able to step inside quite yet, I was able to peek into the cargo area. Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out “We want [children] to feel that sense of wonder and possibility that aviation creates,” says Walter Cho, chairman and CEO of Korean Air. “We want them to see more than airplanes, but the science, engineering and imagination behind them. And most importantly, we want them to think, ‘I can do that too.’” Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out Hanging above the long-distance-travel–defining jet you’ll find the triangular Convair F-106A Delta Dart, the fastest single-engine turbojet-powered airplane. And on the other end of the gallery, three other suspended aircraft were also visible: a supersonic Grumman F11F-1 Tiger, a vertical-takeoff-capable Hawker Siddeley Harrier T.4 and a Pitts Special S-1C, an aerobatic kit biplane that’s been positioned in a near-vertical position. In addition to those display-ready artifacts, there were four others in the middle of the restoration and installation processes: the de Havilland Vampire T.35, a British training jet, that’s currently separated from its wings; a supersonic F-100 Super Sabre that’ll eventually be suspended from the ceiling; and a pair of planes waiting to move inside, a corporate Douglas DC-3 and a high-altitude Northrop T-38 Talon. Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out That still leaves about a dozen aircraft yet to be installed—and that’s just for this third of the museum expansion. Though the other areas weren’t open during my preview, having now visited all of them at various states of construction, I was able to start building a clearer mental map of the 200,000 square-foot expansion. You’ll enter from the second floor of the existing building, above where the cafe resides. From there, the aviation galleries sit on the northern side of the building with the spacecraft to the south and the vertically-stacked Endeavour to the east. All three appear to be in relatively self-contained spaces, so it’s not like you’ll see a biplane placed next to a space shuttle. And each gallery is really playing up verticality; though I was only able to walk around a small portion of the Korean Air Aviation Gallery, it was clear that you’ll be able to view just about everything on display from three different levels.  Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out L.A. is in the midst of a museum boom at the moment: LACMA just debuted its David Geffen Galleries and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art will open its doors in September, while the Broad is already underway on an expansion due to be completed in 2028 and the La Brea Tar Pits is just about to start a museum overhaul also set to open in 2028. I don’t know yet quite where the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center will fall on that timeline, but I eagerly await stepping inside of its final form—and celebrate the fact that it will be free to visit. ...read more read less