There’s a new museum in town, a hidden gem. It’s for anyone who’s stood at a fence at an airport, watching planes take off and land, just for the thrill of it.
The Aviation Museum on the Beach in Juno Beach is filled with more than 1,000 scale models of commercial aircraft — suspended from the ceiling as in flight, standing ready for takeoff on the dozens of shelves, and hovering over the room on giant, sweeping stands.
It’s the culmination of a vision by David Marx, a business owner and former aviation toy manufacturer. The planes are his personal collection, now shared with the public in an office building near the Juno pier.
Though he isn’t a pilot and never worked for an airline, to call Marx an aviation enthusiast is an understatement.
He loves all aspects of what he calls the “glory days of aviation.”
Surrounded by the models, he said, “This is the history of passenger flight; these are the pioneers.”
Marx, 73, who grew up watching the planes take off and land at JFK airport from his home in Huntington, N.Y., on Long Island, said, “I’ve been interested in aviation most of my life.” As for the models, “I’ve been collecting since I was 8 or 9.”
He lived in Florida for two decades before making Palm Beach Gardens his home in 2021. He opened the for-profit museum without government assistance.
The models are mostly metal and plastic mockups of the actual planes flown since 1950, with correct detailing on the cockpit, fuselage and tailfins. Some are open on one side as cross-sections, with passengers seated as for flight and cockpits showing pilot and crew.
From tiny toy models of prop planes to the sleek, giant Concorde with its delta wings — the first supersonic passenger airliner — the planes represent a history of air transportation.
In the light and airy 2,750-square-foot space, Marx has set up dozens of lighted shelves filled with the models of big airlines of the past: Pan Am, TWA, Braniff. He’ll be flying out next month to pick up another collection of 16 Braniff models he bought from the firm that archived the airline’s history.
“It’s a treasure trove,” he said.
One will have more than a 5-foot wingspan. It won’t fit in the building’s elevator, but Marx said he’ll dismantle it enough to get it up a stairwell.
The museum was planned ever since he bought the west half of the fourth floor at 790 Juno Ocean Walk in June 2024. The museum, which opened in May, is west of U.S. 1 behind a Shell gas station about a mile north of Donald Ross Road.
It took months to set up and hang all the models, with special backlighting along walls and spotlights to accent the planes. “It was a lot of work,” he said.
The plane that lifts the president’s limo
Giant replicas of curved desktop stands support the biggest airliners, such as the De Vliegende Hollander, “The Flying Dutchman,” a Lockheed Constellation, four-engine prop plane.
The early Constellations pioneered the pressurized cabin. The model on display was owned by KLM Airlines, the oldest airline in the world, at 125 years, still operating under its original name.
A large C-17 Boeing is also a rarity.
“It’s the plane used by the president to move everything that travels with him: his limo, Secret Service vehicles, etc. Boeing tried to sell a civilian model of this airplane, but it never took off.”
There are names seniors recognize: National, Eastern, and one of his favorites — still flying, Delta. He’s a million-miler with that airline.
“Professionally run,” he says, explaining why it’s still around.
Dressing up for a flight
Along with the planes, there are flight bags, ticket covers and wing pins that were handed to kids on flights. Mannequins sport the uniforms worn by crew members.
He’s nostalgic for those days when passengers considered it an occasion to fly.
“I remember when women wore gloves and hats, and men wore suits and ties to fly. It was classy.”
Meals were served on china with real glassware.
Today, he said, airplanes are more like cattle cars.
“They try to see how many seats they can get in each plane.”
And forget passengers in formal wear, he said, “You’re lucky if they wear a T-shirt.”
The planes were more distinctive, too. He points to Braniff.
“It was way ahead of its time. They paid Alexander Calder to paint their planes. Their stewardesses wore Gucci and Pucci.”
‘Spruce Goose,’ Sully Sullenberger and the Enola Gay
Marx talks about the planes intimately, as he does the companies and people who started them.
He brings up notorious billionaire Howard Hughes, longtime owner of Trans World Airlines, famous for his “Spruce Goose,” a huge wooden airplane built for World War II troop transport that got off the ground only one time.
World War I hero Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker ran Eastern Air Lines, well known to South Floridians, as it was a major hub for years at Miami International Airport.
Other pieces of history dot the museum. A replica of a panel from the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, is signed by the pilot and navigator and other crew members, and hangs on a wall.
Nearby is a replica of the nose cone of the US Airways plane signed by Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger. He’s the pilot played in the movie “Sully” by Tom Hanks celebrated for acing an emergency landing on the Hudson River and saving all of his passengers and crew in 2009.
Rare international models from South Korea and Iran are here, alongside South African and United Emirates airlines.
While some military planes are displayed, the focus is on commercial flight. Marx points to the many military flight museums, but only a few have commercial planes.
“There’s the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum,” he said. “But my uncle’s name isn’t Sam.”
He owns every plane, bought over the years from other collectors, the airlines, and online, from sources around the world. Some of the larger ones are going for $35,000, he said.
But he doesn’t sell his planes. “I’ve been fortunate. I owned a toy company with my brother and we sold it, and I still work in freight forwarding,” coordinating the shipment of freight.
Collection so large, exhibits will rotate
These represent only a fraction of his collection. Others are in his home, “A lot of Air France and Pan Am.”
He also maintains two storage units with even more models.
But rather than expand to accommodate more, he’ll likely keep the museum to this size, changing out the exhibits, he said.
He loves discussing the planes, especially with those groups who visit from senior centers who remember them.
“We had an 86-year-old retired pilot come in. He said he’s flown most of these types of planes.”
As he talks, a large flat-screen TV in front of a bar set up for events displays a live feed of the Los Angeles International Airport runway.
“Real time,” he says, smiling.
“There are two things in life,” he said. “Health and happiness. I’m relatively healthy.
“At the elevator, you can turn right, and go see a psychiatrist. Or turn left and come here. These planes make me happy.”
The Aviation Museum on the Beach is open weekdays, 10 am to 4 pm. As of Oct. 1, it will be open weekends as well. Admission is free, but donations are suggested. The museum is offered as an event rental space, as well, for up to 50 people.
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
