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Cirrus SR22 to be Donated to AirSpace Minnesota

Aviation Learning Center to open within two years.

Cirrus Aircraft is donating an SR22 for AirSpace Minnesota’s planned Aviation Learning Center to give young students the chance to experience the wonder of aviation firsthand.

AirSpace Minnesota is joining with the Museum of Flight in Seattle to create the Aviation Learning Center in the Twin Cities area. When completed, the center will feature hands-on demonstrations in science, math, technology and reading that ask students to think critically, test hypotheses and solve problems – all of them related to aviation.

“The art and science of flight hold a unique power to spark imaginations,” said Dale Klapmeier, Cirrus CEO and board chair of AirSpace Minnesota. “Young people need dreams that inspire confidence to master new skills and opportunities to see what’s possible for their futures.”

The AirSpace Minnesota Aviation Learning Center, he said, will provide a unique and proven way to address this need. The center will include a Learning Lab with computer-based workstations that present key aviation concepts, as well as a hangar where students can create flight plans, chart short flights and perform pre-flight safety inspections of a Cirrus SR20 that is already part of the center’s collection. A flight simulator will let young aviators virtually navigate their pre-planned routes.

The Museum of Flight in Seattle serves more than 150,000 students each year with rigorously tested programs. In the case of the Aviation Learning Center, outside science and curriculum experts evaluated each component and designed the workstations to serve the academic and developmental needs of upper elementary, middle school and high school students.

AirSpace Minnesota is actively exploring potential sites in the Twin Cities area and hopes to be open for business within the next two years. This is the first step in a long-term goal to develop an Air & Space Learning campus that will feature the Aviation Learning Center, a Challenge Space Science Center and research center, as well as a proper home for the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame and Minnesota Air National Guard Historical Foundation.

Cirrus is based in Duluth, Minnesota.

View our Cirrus SR22 photo gallery here.

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