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currently in the collection. These, together with the airplanes that must be moved from the Garber Facility and from storage at Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona, will require a net interior area for exhibition hangars calculated at 580,000 square feet. Most of this area will be needed for the new acquisitions, many of which are large. For example, one of the hangars must provide an internal vertical clearance of 75 ft and be able to accommodate a Boeing 747 (length 231 ft, span 196 ft, height 63 ft), the largest airplane to be acquired. The other hangars will require a vertical clearance of 50 feet and floors that can support point loads up to 42,000 lbs (for a Boeing 707).

These parameters, together with other assessments on the size and future growth of the Museum's archives and exhibition facilities, were translated by the design firm of Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum (HOK), into a preliminary program for buildings designed to house the collections, exhibitions, and staff. The attached Table 1 summarizes the HOK findings, comparing the BWI and Dulles sites. The primary constraints faced in devising these layouts were FAA regulations on obstructions in the vicinity of runways and the configuration of wetlands at each site.

The full-scale Extension will require 1.5 million gross square feet of building area, more than half of it for the exhibition and restoration hangars. It can be constructed and financed in three phases, in such a manner that Phase I will constitute a viable facility that can be opened to the public.

Phase I will require 673,000 GSF and will include most of the fundamental infrastructure required for the complete Extension, and will include: (a) an exhibition hangar space for the proper housing and care of the collections currently stored at the Garber Facility, with additional space for the expected growth of the collection over the subsequent five-year period (134,000 GSF); (b) a restoration hangar for the preparation of artifacts for exhibit (156,000 GSF); (c) one Mall-quality exhibition gallery (47,500 GSF); (d) storage for the Museum's study collections and archives (168,000 GSF); (e) office support for professional staff; (f) a large format film theater; and (g) the necessary building and visitor services. Phases II and III will include the additional hangars and three further exhibition galleries, plus the required office, visitor, and support facilities for the complete Extension.

During Phase I construction, the Museum would vacate the buildings currently occupied at the Garber Facility, freeing this site for other Smithsonian needs. At the Extension, activities carried out and collections stored at Garber would find a new home, with expanded exhibition space, sufficiently large hangars to hold even the largest of our airplanes and spacecraft, and much better protection against temperature and humidity variations, ultraviolet radiation, dirt, atmospheric pollutants, and other destructive agents. We would have parking facilities for an anticipated initial 1.3 to 3.0 million visitors per year.

Completion of Phase I construction could allow a public opening of the Exension on July 4, 1995. At that time, the Space Shuttle Orbiter [[underlined]] Enterprise [[/underlined]] could be viewed in the new Restoration hangar. On Aug. 6, 1995, there could follow the opening of a formal gallery exhibition of the B-29 [[underlined]] Enola Gay [[/underlined]] in the historical context of a strategic bombing in World War II.