Photos by Karen Quincy Loberg / Star staff Michael Gesser, left and Kaelan Hale, both 11, pretend to be soldiers on an M-113 personnel carrier at the Commemorative Air Force Museum in Camarillo. The facility has reopened featuring rare WWII aircraft.

Visitors to the newly reopened Commemorative Air Force museum and flight hangar in Camarillo only need look at the floor to see why this museum experience is the genuine thing — only real, flyable airplanes with rotary piston engines will drop oil when parked like that.

The World War II-era planes in the massive hangar are once again open to the public for up-close viewing after being declared off-limits by Fire Department officials last summer.

Volunteers at the Camarillo museum have arranged for new fire evacuation doors and lights, and a Klaxon is on order.

Museum officials say that will make the fire marshal happy — nearly as pleased as the retired military pilots who wait for visitors each day, eager to show the treasures.

Guide Russ Drosendahl, a retired TWA pilot and former World War II flight instructor who drives out from the San Fernando Valley most days, is happy to explain to visitors why oil-drip pans are needed on the floor of the museum.

"Those are 18-cylinder rotary engines, two rows of nine cylinders each in a circle," he said, showing off the engine of one plane. "The oil has to drip out of the air passageways down on the underside cylinders, and if there's no oil dripping out, that means the engine is not getting air and will seize up."

The 10 planes assigned to the Camarillo-based wing of the Commemorative Air Force spend spring and summer on the air-show circuit, being flown for revenue all across the country. But during the winter they are parked in the just-reopened hangar, where fans can walk right up to them.

Military precision and order are evident inside the hangar. Things that history buffs have only heard about, like a Norden bombsight, are laid out for all to see.

The bombsight, a complicated series of lenses, gears and mechanical relays, allowed the bombardier to compute exactly when to signal "bombs away." It is one of hundreds of gadgets and tools at the hangar dating from World War I to the Korean conflict.

One of only three Mitsubishi Zeros still flying, the fighter plane that rained misery on U.S. sailors and Marines in Hawaii and the South Pacific also is viewable for the first time in a year.

In the center of the hangar, undergoing corrosion repair, is the heart and soul of the Camarillo collection: "China Doll," the C-46 transport plane that was part of an air bridge over the Burma hump, arming isolated American troops in China from supply bases in India.

The 15,000-square-foot hangar is filled with mementos, maps, exhibits, souvenirs and artifacts.

"It's just chock full of a lot of very interesting things that the public hasn't been able to see for a long time," Drosendahl said.

The local wing of the Commemorative Air Force will have a grand reopening gala from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. The events on that day will include a flyby of some of the aircraft and the announcement of a new acquisition — an aircraft that will soon be stationed at Camarillo.

The museum, at 455 Aviation Drive at Camarillo Airport, is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day but Mondays and Wednesdays. To get there, take the Las Posas exit from Highway 101 and go south to Pleasant Valley Road, turn right, and then turn right onto Eubanks Street into the airport. The museum is at Eubanks and Aviation.

The Web site is http://www.orgsites.com/ca/caf-socal/; phone 482-0064. The suggested donation is $5 per adult, with no charge for active military or people with disabilities.