A special dinner program for SCAA members and guests gave the group a detailed look at the new Western Museum of Flight at the Torrance Municipal Airport in March.

Museum voluteers gave the 50 visitors a guided tour of the museum’s new quarters, where the large collection of historic aircraft and other exhibits were relocated last year after being moved from Hawthorne.

The Torrance airport is also named Louis Zamperini Field, and the city’s sports and aviation hero attended the dinner program. Zamperini, 91, was a high school and college track star and was on the U.S. Olympic track team at the 1936 games in Berlin. Later he served as a B-24 bombardier in World War II and after a mishap forced his bomber to ditch in the Pacific, survived 47 days in a life raft at sea.

Fred Pietzman, a retirned Northrop executive who is now chief financial officer of the museum, briefed the visitors on the museum’s history and future plans. He said the current hangar at Torrance will soon be outgrown by the exhibits and aircraft restoration projects, and a fund of $400,000 is being raised for a larger hangar at the field.

    Aviation pioneers Bob Gilliland, left, first test pilot to fly an SR-71, and Louis Zamperini