GROUP SEEKS IMAX THEATER TO SHOWCASE AIRPLANES.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writer

A volunteer group wants to raise an estimated $1 million needed to build a large-screen Imax theater to complement a display of historic aircraft.

The newly organized Friends of the Heritage Airpark hopes to stage Palmdale Playhouse performances to raise the necessary money, which a director estimates could take five or 10 years.

``This is a long-term project,'' said Ernest Bowe, a Palmdale retiree who is one of the group's five-member board of directors.

Other leaders of the group are Stormy Boudreaux, a retired SR-71 pilot; Harry Boyd, a retired Rockwell engineer; Jim Hull, a travel consultant; and Donnell Ruder, a retired Rockwell engineer. Their legal counsel is Lancaster attorney Larry Hales.

Twenty-three acres of vacant land along the southern boundary of Air Force Plant 42 became in October the Heritage Airpark, intended to display airplanes built in the Antelope Valley and to honor those who built them.

Bowe suggests the Imax theater could be located across Avenue P from the airpark.

The first three airplanes are Vietnam-era F-100, F-105 and F-104 jets, which are parked along Avenue P near the adjoining Blackbird Airpark.

Heritage Airpark, subsidized by $150,000 from the city, will include a picnic area, landscaping and lighting. Other aircraft are expected to be obtained for display from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base near Tucson, Ariz.

The park plan calls for a 3,500-square-foot restoration building and concrete pads for airplanes on exhibit.

When the air park will be opened to the public is an unanswered question. Volunteers working on the project hope to have at least five aircraft ready for display before the opening. Air park officials have identified a half-dozen aircraft that could be moved to the air park.

Lockheed Martin provided three buildings, dismantled and moved from its former Ontario plant. One could serve as a refurbishment facility, a second as a museum and the third as a hangar, officials said.

The idea for an Imax theater, which uses special, large-frame film and giant screens to provide sharper images than conventional movie theaters, was first proposed nearly four years ago by science fiction writer Ray Bradbury at the 1995 Business Outlook Conference.

It could present shows such as the space program documentaries and nature films shown at the Imax theater at the Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles, Bradbury suggested.

Nothing ever came of Bradbury's proposal.

Bowe said he got the idea for a local Imax screen showing aircraft documentaries after seeing one at a naval air museum in Pensacola, Fla. The Pensacola Imax theater showed a documentary on the Blue Angels aerobatics team.