BLOOMINGTON - Teenagers Haley Gaddis and Gage Mossberger linked arms and slowly walked up to the F-4N Phantom II fighter jet parked just off Illinois 9. | Photo Gallery | Video

With their free arms, each reached high and "looked" over the aircraft, carefully dragging fingertips along the wingspan as Prairie Aviation Museum tour guide Pete Troesch explained details.

"That's so cool. I've never seen anything like this," said Gaddis, of Bloomington. Mossberger, of Pontiac, agreed as he slowly guided his arm around the fuselage to the jet engines.

The 15-year-olds were among nearly 40 high school students from Jacksonville-based Illinois School for the Visually Impaired who toured the museum and its planes on Monday.

The trip gave students a chance to hold tiny model planes and authentic U.S. Air Force flight gear, and to gain firsthand experience near actual aircraft. It also allowed a lesson in maneuvering through an unfamiliar setting, said Cathy Bissoondial, museum board president.

"I think it's been great," said ISVI science teacher Barbara French, who proposed the trip after passing the museum earlier this spring. "I'm watching them, and they are so engaged, and interacting and learning."

French said many of her students have ridden on a passenger jet, but most - because of no or limited eyesight - were unfamiliar with the size and shape of planes.

"I've never seen them so gung-ho for a field trip," said Jim Strader, the school's orientation and mobility specialist.

Before the visit, French translated informational sheets on each aircraft to forms written in Braille and large-print type.

During the tour, Troesch led Gaddis, Mossberger and students Aaron Engel of Lindenhurst and Bradley Matthews of Chicago around the plane, stopping at various points to describe details.

"Now put your hand up here," Troesch directed them. "This light tells other aircraft that this is the right wing."

And later: "Feel how the paint is raised there. That's a white star with red and white stripes behind it - it shows this is a U.S. plane."

Each also got a chance to reach into the cockpit and feel the thrusters and dashboard controls.

Volunteer Frank Marten showed off a 20-foot-long B-52 engine, helping each student pass a hand over the raised screws and wires wound tightly to keep screws in place.

"The engine sucks air through the front, squeezes it back, then blows it out through the back," Marten explained.

Four other students learned about the museum's AH-I J Sea Cobra helicopter. Museum volunteers Ryan Weishalla and Larry Cox described both the physical details and the military purposes of the Cobra as a CD player humming the sounds of a helicopter's blades played in the background.

On the Net

www.prairieaviationmuseum.org

www.isvi.net