VININGS - Board members of the Aviation Museum and Discovery Center have disputed some perceived problems with a possible merger of their museum with the Marietta Museum of History.

Last weekend, Mayor Bill Dunaway sent out an e-mail opposing the merger, saying the city, which subsidizes the history museum, simply doesn't have the resources to take on the aviation museum as well.

"I think the mayor missed the point. We're not asking for any money," AMDC Chairman Chuck Clay told his board, which met Wednesday morning at Vinings Bank. Members of the two museum boards will meet at 2 p.m. Tuesday at the MMH for an information session regarding the proposal.

On Nov. 9, Clay was one of three signers on an email to AMDC leaders explaining the museum's financial problems. The e-mail noted that the AMDC needed $65,000 to meet its obligations through the end of the year, as well as $20,000 per month in 2010 for operations.

But Clay said those numbers assume that the AMDC continues to operate on its own, and would not be an issue if MMH took over.

Bob Ormsby, AMDC president emeritus, addressed Dunaway's claim that displayed aircraft must be in controlled humidity and temperature environments, which could be a costly endeavor.

"The notion that you have to have a big hangar is pure wrong," said Ormsby, retired president of Lockheed Martin Aero Company. The Navy planes the AMDC has have never been in a hangar, he said.

The museum gained its 15.5 acres of property at the corner of Atlanta Road and South Cobb Drive, which is owned by the Air Force, through a sublease from the Cobb Board of Commissioners for $1 a year. The county leases it from the Air Force for 50 years with an option to renew. It is on this site where it parks its various aircraft. Maintaining the property would cost the MMH nothing, Clay said.

Micky Blackwell, AMDC vice chairman, suggested the AMDC would be depositing its assets with the MMH, with the history museum holding the aviation museum's mission and education in trust until the economy turns.

The AMDC board members would still be involved, whether as an advisory board or subcommittee, to continue with fundraising, Clay said.

"I can't see a downside to it," Blackwell said.

Not having a museum building has caused the AMDC board "tremendous grief in raising money," Blackwell said.

Donors don't want to give until they see an actual building, he said. Without a museum building, the AMDC does not have museum certification. Joining with the MMH will gain it accreditation, Clay said.

Ormsby said the MMH stands to benefit because drivers on Interstate 75 aren't likely to stop to see the MMH, but they will stop to see aircraft, which fascinate children.

For the last three years, the AMDC's education program has worked with young people across the county on activities that promote science, technology, engineering and math. The fees from that program have helped keep the AMDC self-sufficient, Clay said.

Clay said the idea for an aviation museum has been around forever, since "some of the most sophisticated and long-serving aircraft in the world are produced on this hill." Ormsby spearheaded that effort, forming the nonprofit corporation and board in 2003, and the original plan was to have a museum devoted to aviation history.

The AMDC board also leased the former Corps of Engineers building that faces South Cobb Drive, which the MMH could use for storage or exhibits, Clay said.

"It is an enormous building that could house classrooms, certainly rotating exhibits from downtown on the Square to there and back. It would be a wonderful place to store acquisitions and you could put a big sign up there and say we're here, we're not going away," he said.

Clay previously said that the museum has $8.3 million in assets, including the AMDC's land value of $5.5 million. Counting the aircraft, the museum's assets are about $12 million, he said Wednesday.

Cobb Chairman Sam Olens said a merger is worth considering. About five years ago, the county pledged $500,000 to help build an aviation museum if the museum could raise $2 million, and that offer still stands, Olens said.

"As there are many common synergies, I do believe the proposed merger deserves full and serious discussion. If the numbers work, I would heartily support the merger," Olens said.