A lifetime passion of one of Orange County’s business icons is on display at the edge of John Wayne Airport.
This week Gen. William Lyon, chief executive of Newport Beach-based homebuilder William Lyon Homes Inc., officially opens a museum of World War II planes, military vehicles, cars and other memorabilia.
The Lyon Air Museum is a labor of love for Lyon, a former fighter pilot and retired chief of the Air Force Reserve.
He’s spent the past two years building the 30,000-square-foot facility. It’s unclear how much Lyon spent on the project, though it doesn’t look like he scrimped.
The museum is a combination of Lyon’s passion for flying and his support for youth education.
“I’ve always wanted to share this with children because these things fade away into our history,” Lyon said.
The museum, which has been quietly open since June, holds its grand opening this week. It is starting to reach out to schools, history groups and the general public.
Admission is $5 to $7. Student and community groups are free.
Among the collection are bomber planes—a B-17 Flying Fortress, a B-25 and an A-26—a
C-47 transport plane and an American Airlines DC-3 known as the Flagship Orange County.
Each plane still flies, according to Lyon.
The museum also has a 1939 Mercedes-Benz G4 Offener Touring Wagon, one of 57 made.
The car was used by Adolph Hitler in Germany and Poland until it was seized by the French military.
The imposing vehicle sits next to the museum’s 1930s-style theater with posters of then-movie star Ronald Reagan and early American war films.
Lyon had a hand in all aspects of the museum’s design, said Mark Foster, president of the Lyon Air Museum.
Foster, who previously was vice president and general manger of Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino, was enlisted in early 2008 to run the Lyon Air Museum.
The museum, in a sleek, industrial chic hangar building, is a long way from the collection’s former home on the tarmac at the general aviation end of John Wayne Airport.
Lyon used to keep his planes on what’s known as the flight line—a parking and servicing area alongside the runway—outside Martin Aviation Inc., a company he owns that services aircraft.
There, Lyon gave impromptu tours to schoolchildren and others with planes buzzing in the background.
The setup wasn’t “conducive to learning,” Foster said.
The idea to build a museum came through Lyon’s involvement with the American Air Museum in England, which honors the 30,000 American airmen who died over Britain during World War II.
“I got very interested in bringing some part of that here,” Lyon said. “I found there were very few air museums anywhere near Orange County.”
In 2007, Lyon leased land next to Martin Aviation and broke ground. The museum was completed earlier this year.
Foster and others started free guided tours soon after the museum was done.
“We were having a lot of people coming by interested in the planes,” he said. “It started to break my heart when we told them we couldn’t, so we started giving quick guided tours.”
Now a team of trained volunteer docents—many former military—lead tours in their Air Force blue polo shirts.
The museum is working with local schools on visits.
Lyon’s “goal is for the museum to capture the spirit and feeling to share with the new generation,” Foster said. “He wanted to make sure these kids could come in and learn about their great grandparents.”
Lyon’s Role
Lyon himself won’t be giving any tours other than for select groups, Foster said.
“He’s so overqualified, but he is really fun to walk around with in the museum because he has a story for every airplane and vehicle,” he said.
Take the DC-3 Flagship Orange County. It flew in Operation D-Day in 1942, dropping the 101st Airborne Division over France.
Lyon’s B-17, which he recently flew to Washington, D.C., for a veterans memorial service, earned the name “Liquidator” after it was used at the end of the war to help top military brass dispose of war assets in the Pacific.
It later was used in the filming of two World War II-era films—actor Steve McQueen’s “War Lover” and “Tora! Tora! Tora!”—before ending up with Lyon.
Lyon bought most of the planes in auctions.
The museum has started to add memorabilia beyond Lyon’s collection.
“People started to hear about us and started bringing in things from their great grandparents or grandparents,” Foster said.
The museum put on display a wedding dress made out of a veteran’s parachute along with pictures.
“He’d been a B-17 pilot who’d flown 32 missions before coming home and getting married,” Foster said. “It just adds to the story of the people after the war.”
The docents have their own stories to share with guests, Foster said.
“We have a docent who bailed out of a B-17 and spent nine months as a prisoner of war and another who flew B-51s,” he said.
The average tour runs about an hour and is complete with a trip to the 1930s-period theater with footage and interviews from World War II.
Military History
Lyon has a long history with military planes.
He flew combat missions in Korea and had several assignments during World War II in Europe, the Pacific and North Africa.
He received the Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal and other decorations.
In 1975, he was named chief of the Air Force Reserves, commanding 53,000 troops from his office in the Pentagon for four years.
He eventually retired from the Air Force as a major general and served on the boards of the Air Force Academy Research and Development Institute and the Air Force Academy Foundation.
In addition to Lyon’s war birds, he also has a collection of about 100 vintage cars, including a 12-cylinder 1935 Packard, a 1908 Bugatti and several rare Duesenbergs.
