Museum of Aviation in Warner Robins: Your Fall 2026 Guide

Last weekend, the Museum of Aviation's SR-71A had company. Blackbird Days ran September 24 through 26, with expert panels on Thursday and Friday and a Family Aviation Day on Saturday that brought aircraft tours, cockpit viewing, STEM activities, reenactors and food trucks. 41NBC reported that pilot Lt. Col. Don Watkins and crew chief Master Sgt. David Burns met visitors through Saturday.

Now the campus off GA 247 goes quiet. The museum's Upcoming Events page lists only two items for October through December, and both are the Festival of Trees, which opens November 22. That leaves about seven and a half weeks with no headline event. For anyone who lives within a short drive of Russell Gate, those weeks are the museum's most useful stretch of the year. It's free, it isn't crowded with an event, and it's big enough that one visit barely covers it.

What it costs you to come back

The museum charges nothing for admission or parking. The posted hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday. The entrance is at 1942 Heritage Blvd., just south of Robins AFB's Russell Gate on GA 247. From I-75, use exit 144 at Russell Parkway or exit 146 at Watson Boulevard. The museum describes itself as open to the public. The hours page was first published in 2023, so check it before a holiday-week visit.

Since every visit is free, nothing pushes you to see the whole place in one exhausting afternoon. The museum spreads its collection across four climate-controlled exhibit buildings, and the campus map names them Eagle, Nugteren, Scott Exhibit and Century of Flight. Each one holds a different era of flight, so a fall of Saturdays splits up easily.

Four buildings, four Saturdays

Anyone who has been gone for a while may remember the Nugteren building as Hangar One. It took the new name at a 2017 dedication for a retired general, so it's the same gallery you knew, not a fifth one.

The SR-71 at the center of Blackbird Days lives in the Century of Flight Hangar, and it is the airframe that set the 2,193-mph world absolute speed record in 1976. Seeing it on an ordinary Saturday in October, without panels and food trucks around it, is a different experience from last week's. The Scott Exhibit Hangar has the one exhibit that changes over time, because its B-17G is listed as under restoration.

Some of the biggest aircraft sit outside the buildings altogether. The museum's exterior list includes a B-1B, a B-52D, an AC-130A, a C-141C and an E-8C. On a mild fall afternoon, the outdoor rows work as a fifth stop.

Plan lunch ahead. The gift shop sells snacks and drinks, and the museum doesn't list a separate café. Visitors may bring food to eat at Freedom Park on the campus, and the museum's campus map says food deliveries there are allowed. A packed lunch between two hangars is how the campus is set up to be used.

The newest room is upstairs in the Eagle Building

The biggest change at the museum this year isn't an aircraft. On May 6, 2026, the Museum of Aviation Foundation cut the ribbon on its GEAR Lab, which stands for Georgia, Engineering, AI, and Robotics. It's on the second floor of the Eagle Building. The Houston Home Journal described it as a hands-on space where attendees can build robots, write code, explore machine learning and create simulations, with subjects such as cybersecurity, aerospace systems, virtual reality and advanced manufacturing.

Foundation President and CEO Daniel Rhoades told the paper that students from kindergarten through college can visit, and he encouraged local business owners to come learn how to use AI in their work. He credited the Peyton Anderson Foundation, Perry-based Sigma Defense, the 21st Century Partnership and the Flint Energies Foundation with providing both funding and volunteers. Sigma Defense announced it was also the lab's technical partner, contributing hardware and systems-integration work on an AI-enabled platform built with the Foundation's IT team.

The lab also serves the base. 78th Air Base Wing Commander Johari Hemphill said it will host the Robins Spark Hub, where airmen, civilians and community partners can work together.

"The pace of change is not slowing down, it's actually speeding up. Therefore, spaces like this matter."

This is also where the museum's fall calendar for kids comes into play.

The fall calendar is a kids' class schedule

Without public events, the museum's fall runs on its paid STEM labs. Each session listed this fall runs 9:30 a.m. to noon and generally costs $30 per class. Most meet at the Century of Flight Hangar, and some meet at the Space & Innovation Center. The schedule mixes Saturday labs, which work for families with school-day schedules, with Wednesday homeschool labs.

1. Saturday, October 3: "Survivor," a Mission Quest lab for grades 6 through 10, at the Century of Flight Hangar.
2. Wednesday, October 21: Homeschool labs, with "Civics" for grades 6 through 10 and "Boo-Prints Lab" for younger grade bands starting at 1st and 2nd.
3. Saturday, October 24: "Codes & Cauldrons," offered for several school-age groups.
4. November 4 and November 7: "Rocketry Science," with "Clue Crew" also on November 7.
5. November 18: "Astronomy" and "Animal Adaptations."
6. Saturday, December 5: "Merry Mixtures."

Registration runs through the museum's online booking page, and spots come in fixed class sizes, so a listing can fill before the date. Labs end at noon and the exhibit buildings stay open until 5 p.m. on Saturdays, so a family could pair a morning lab with an afternoon in one of the four hangars.

Teachers have their own track. The National STEM Academy's educator workshops are set for Saturday, October 17, on "Animal Adaptations" and Saturday, November 14, on "Economics of Innovation." Both run 8:45 a.m. to noon at the Innovation Center and require preregistration, and participants receive a certificate and a stipend.

Then the Eagle Building fills with trees

The quiet stretch ends on Sunday, November 22, when the 2026 Festival of Trees opens. It runs through December 29, with decorated trees in the Eagle Building rotunda and on its second and third floors. Admission is free during normal operating hours. Opening day falls on a Sunday, so doors open at 1 p.m. The museum is closed on Thanksgiving, November 26 this year, and on Christmas Day, so the trees can't be seen on those two days.

Visitors can vote for the People's Choice tree at $5 per vote. Businesses and organizations can sponsor and decorate a 6.5-foot tree for the display, and a reception is listed for December 10. The reception listing gives a date but no start time, so check with the Foundation before planning around it.

One holiday tradition isn't confirmed yet. Last year's Planes and Trains, the Middle Georgia Model Railroad Club's 17th annual holiday-week show in the Century of Flight Hangar, ran November 23 through 30, 2025. As of today, the museum's Upcoming Events page doesn't list a 2026 date. If it returns on a similar schedule, it would overlap with the first week of the Festival of Trees, which would put both holiday displays on campus at once.

The festival's upper-floor trees share the Eagle Building with the GEAR Lab, the P-40N and the F-15A, so even the holiday visit covers one of the four buildings in the table above. A family that starts with the Scott Exhibit Hangar in early October and works through Nugteren and Century of Flight on later Saturdays would reach the Eagle Building just as the trees go up.

If you're relocating to Robins and want to know which neighborhoods put Russell Gate and the museum's Heritage Boulevard entrance a short drive from home, the Margie Stachurski Team can walk you through the map street by street, whether you're touring in person or by video. Work With Us.