A Frail Child’s Wish Takes Wing : Charity: Edwards Air Force Base puts 10-year-old Max in the pilot’s seat at the start of his California tour.

Given his choice between touring Disneyland or Edwards Air Force Base, Max Ryan Smith had no hesitation. The true magic kingdom for 10-year-old Max, who probably does not have long to live, is the realm of the fast, the high and the mighty.

The frail blond boy from Red Wing, Minn., who has cystic fibrosis and spinal cancer, was given a daylong tour of the high-desert Air Force base Monday worthy of a visiting senator.

Bone-chilling blasts of desert wind did not stop Max--a military buff who yearns to be a pilot someday--even though he traveled in a wheelchair and has only a 10% chance of survival, his mother said.

His tour, courtesy of the Air Force, was the highlight of a trip funded by the nonprofit Make-a-Wish Foundation, which fulfills the dearest hopes of children with life-threatening diseases.

He got to sit in the pilot’s seat of a B-1B bomber, race down the runway in a T-38 training jet and collect enough mementos to stuff any child’s room, including a green flight suit, a black leather pilot’s jacket and Air Force caps, pins and patches galore.

“It was one of my wishes that came true,” said Max, who stands just 4 feet 3 inches and weighs only 52 pounds, peeking out from under a blue-and-white cap from the test pilot’s school. “I wished to go to an Air Force base. I’ve always wanted to go to one.”

Trailed by his parents, Dale and Mary, and his two younger sisters, 8-year-old Tina and 4-year-old April, Max was wheeled about the sprawling base, meeting pilots, watching flight films and inspecting an array of jets and other military hardware.

And that was only for starters.

Today, they are set to tour the NASA facility at Edwards, see the space shuttle Atlantis that landed there Sunday, tour the 747 jetliner that carries the shuttles back to Florida and inspect a mock-up of a space orbiter. Later in the day, the family will take a flight in an Army helicopter.

They arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday, and Max and his father spent Sunday at the Redondo Beach Marina, fishing and taking a boat ride.

Max and his best friend at home like to draw pictures of planes and helicopters. Max said he reads library books about the Air Force. And when asked whether he thought he’d prefer seeing Edwards or Disneyland, Max picked Edwards without hesitation.

He will get to see both. To close out their first trip to Southern California, the family is scheduled to spend Wednesday at Disneyland before flying home Thursday.

Mary Smith said her only son knows his chances of survival are slim. The worst time was when Max had surgery to remove part of a malignant spinal tumor in late November, she said. That was followed by six weeks of radiation therapy that have left the boy weak.

Now that Max’s doctors say they have done about as much as they can, Mary Smith has a wish of her own: that the family can raise enough money to send Ryan to a clinic where his cancer could be treated by nutritional therapy and other non-traditional means.

What did Max think about his visit to Edwards?

“I’m having fun. I hope it lasts,” the boy said.