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        • Experience Wings of Eagles Discovery Center in Person!

          Open to the public:

          Summer Hours: From Memorial Day to Labor Day,  Open Thurs-Fri-Sat-Sun 10:00am-3:00pm
          Winter Hours: From Labor Day to Memorial Day, Open Fri-Sat-Sun 10:00am-3:00pm

          Summer Day Camp Hours:  Student hours Monday thru Friday  9:00am-3:00pm (sharp)

          WEDC will be closed February 4, 2023 due to weather!

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You are here: Home / About Us

About Us

In short, our focus is two fold where our expertise learns from our historical past through our artifacts, airplanes by teaching new generations as well as looking to the aerospace future of NY.

Our History

The Wings of Eagles Discovery Center traces its heritage to the National Warplane Museum (NWM), founded in Geneseo, NY in 1984 by a passionate group of members who celebrated the lore of WWII aircraft.  NWM was a flying museum, by the New York State Department of Education.  The flag ship artifact was a B-17 “Fuddy Duddy” that toured throughout the flying season, offering a unique flight experience for paying customers.

In addition to offering unique flight experiences, the National Warplane Museum also staged the annual Wings of Eagles Airshow, a major event on the airshow circuit featuring a host of flying historic warbirds.

In the mid 90’s, the Board of Trustees decided to move the Museum to a larger venue and posted a Request for Proposals.  Chemung County was the preferred new site and the Museum moved to the Elmira Corning Regional Airport.  The new location provided much higher visibility, but also significant challenges.  As Federal Aviation Regulations governing airshows and warbird rides tightened, the founding business model became outdated and a financial crisis ensued.

While charting a viable future, the museum changed its name to The Wings of Eagles Discovery Center and while continuing to honor the past, began focusing on preparing a new cohort of aerospace capability among youth in our community.  Our futures theme shifted to NASA and space exploration, culminating with the establishment of the Mars Base Eagle display, which captures essential elements of life in a human colony on Mars. 

Built around the aerospace challenges illustrated by our displays is an extensive education outreach program, focused on project based education to promote STEM based critical thinking skills to meet the increasing demands of our technology based economy.

Our Present Board Members

Wings of Eagles Discovery Center prides itself for a well established and actively working board that works hard to  help keep our mission going forward. We go forward toward the future with each and every board meeting, function, and idea for our visitors and area youth.  Our STEM class focus is Aerospace training to help with the growing skilled worker deficit in our state. Please click on the board member names to read a short bio.

NAME	            WEDC TITLE	NOTED POSITION
Joe Panzarella	    Chairman	        The Hillard Corporation 
Mike Hall	            Vice Chair	       M/G (ret) USAF
Matt Cowen	    Finance	               The Hillard Corporation 
Tracy Sink	            Member	       WEDC President & CEO / RF Engineer
David Genitz	    Member	       Owner Total Recall Message Center
Allen Fusco	    Finance 	       Owner, Elmira Holiday Inns
Bill Cantando	    Member	       The Hilliard Corporation
Cynthia Haigh	    Member	       Retired School Superintendent
Don Keddell	    Member	       Chairman, GST BOCES Board of Directors
Maureen Nicolo       Member	       Retired ESD Middle School teacher
Paul Flagg	            Member	       Retired Aerospace Executive
Robert Pfuntner       Member	       Owner, Pembrook Pines Media Corp.
Todd Egan	            Secretary	        Elmira College Faculty
Tom Heil 	            Member	        Robert Packer
Van Harp	            Member	        Retired FBI Agent/Security Consultant
Angela May           Finance/Grants	Director of Development, Elmira College
William Brown DO Member(Retired)     Retired General Surgeon


“A good Board Of Directors team is one where ideas are flowing fluidly - and where each idea is met with an initial welcome, an intellectual challenge, an expression of gratitude, a rigorous scrutiny and a readiness for action.”   ― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

“A strategic board has a view of looking ahead, an insight to look deeper, and competency to look beyond.”  ― Pearl Zhu

Our Past Board Members

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Visit Us

Tour our 25,000 sq ft hangar with aircraft on display inside and outside. Experience our collection through static displays, docent guided tours, self guided mobile tours and flight simulators. Take home a momento from our Gift Shop to remember your visit and grab a bite to eat at the Wings Cafe. ‹more›

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ABOUT WINGS OF EAGLES

Wings of Eagles strives to educate residents of New York’s Southern Tier and Pennsylvania’s Northern Tier through formal and informal education programs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).
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GET IN TOUCH

339 Daniel Zenker Drive, Horseheads, NY 14845, USA

607-358-4247

Contact Us

2023 Events

1. Project-based Learning Saturdays (STEM & Tutoring)  (10am-113am)  See our Education page for more information and to purchase classes.

2. June 3, 2023 open to the public for donations - Cantata Singers in Concert https://www.cantatasingers.com/ 

 

 

Wings of Eagles follows CDC and Chemung County guidelines for facemask and social distancing requirements. 
 
Escape Rooms will be available with restrictions but must be reserved through Wings of Eagles staff. 
Requests for Escape Rooms are most easily handled by emailing info@wingsofeagles.com
or by telephone at 607-358-4247 during current hours of operation.
NOTE: email and voice messages are monitoring during non-business hours.

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