POSTED: 7:59 pm CDT October 16, 2009
UPDATED: 8:11 pm CDT October 16, 2009

HOLDEN, Mo. — Two of the model planes that appear in a new movie about Amelia Earhart are sitting in a local airplane hangar.

The airplanes featured in the movie “Amelia” were made by Robert Baslee, of Airdrome Aeroplanes in Holden.

“It’s just some passion about building something that doesn’t exist — just take raw materials, build a flying airplane, recreate history — that’s really neat,” Baslee told KMBC’s Maria Antonia.

Baslee said he started building planes when he was 15. By 1989, he had designed a Fokker triplane, which is a World War I fighter aircraft.

Baslee has built 20 different designs of World War I airplanes.

In 2005, the makers of the movie “Flyboys” asked Baslee to create the Nieuport 17 plane models that fly in the film.

“We actually created four airplanes in 52 days,” Baslee said.

Then, the producers of “Amelia” came calling. Baslee created a Bleriot XI and another aircraft for the film. Both planes are used in scenes that show how Earhart, played by Hilary Swank, became fascinated with the idea of flying.

“To me it’s about creating the aircraft. The (movie) glitz that goes around it just happens — I don’t get too tied up into that,” Baslee said.

However, he said his daughter enjoyed meeting actor James Franco on the set of “Flyboys.”

Meanwhile, in Atchison, Kan., where the aviation pioneer was born, the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum is offering $10 tickets that will get people in to see both the movie and the museum next weekend.

“Amelia” opens nationwide on Oct. 23.

To view original article, please click here.