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PostPosted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 9:19 am 
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Chris Brame wrote:
jdvoss wrote:
Beale AFB, CA used to have an air museum and I believe that it was closed about 25-30 years ago. It was a rather small display (possibly a dozen max A/C). Included in the collection was a B-17F "Homesick Angel" which was relocated somewhere in the mid-west ...??

That's 42-3374, now on display at Offutt AFB in Omaha.



Just to make it clear, it's the aircraft at Offutt, not the SAC museum.
The B-17 is displayed outdoors in a round-about.


gale_dono wrote:
the Ohio History of Flight Museum in Columbus, OH (located at Port Columbus International Airport.)


Is that the outfit founded by Charles (?) Lane?
He was a very early pilot....Jenny-era airmail pilot, not WWII...who became a successful FBO owner. He passed away in the 90s.

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PostPosted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 10:32 pm 
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I remember seeing the old Wings and Wheels Museum at Santee when we passed through on the way to Florida one time back in the late 60's. I wanted to stop, but we didn't have any spare time in our schedule. Of course, back then the road was littered with all sorts of roadside attractions of dubious value, so I'm sure that no doubt played a decision in our not stopping as well. A shame too, as I understand it was a nice little collection.

There was also briefly (very briefly) another Wing & Wheels museum located near Six Flags over Texas called Wings & Wheels over Texas. Apparently it was primarily a vintage car collection, with a few planes from Overton collection thrown in the mix. I remember seeing signs for it when we visited some friends there back in the 70's. Apparently they themselves had visited it, and said it wasn't worth the trouble, an opinion apparently shared by most everyone else as it was disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared.


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PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 8:38 pm 
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On a side note, in my opinion, this is the worst name change of them all:
National Museum of Aviation and Technology at Historic Willow Run (Pending) <--- Yankee Air Museum

What a DOG of NAME !!!

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 10:26 pm 
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I'm back! Sorry for the delay. Anyway, a couple things of note I came across.

First off, I found another WIX thread with old pictures from aviation museums.

Secondly, I found another museum - in this case modern - that I for a short time had confused with the one Spectre_I mentioned above. (Both are outdoor "airpark" museums with a connection to the government/manufacturer.) It's called the "Joe Davies Heritage Airpark at Palmdale Plant 42" and is near a seperate airpark, called the "Blackbird Airpark", that is connected to the Air Force Flight Test Museum. (As an aside, I am noticing a theme with multiple, but in some way interrelated aviation museums at one location. cf. B-36 'City of Dallas', Chino, Fort Worth & Seattle museums) It also counts as having a changed name due to it previously being called the "Palmdale Plant 42 Heritage Airpark".

Third, I am also looking into early warbird collectors like Walter Soplata, but don't know of that many offhand. You know, the men who were eccentric and more hoarders than historians? I do remember the story of one that, IIRC, was in Canada and had a large collection of trainers and engines for them. I think he eventually got into trouble for shooting someone on his property and his collection was auctioned off after he died. Does anyone know who I am talking about and remember his name?

Fourth, I scanned 4-5 pages out of what I can only assume is the June 1987 copy of the magazine Private Pilot that I recently was given. It's a table that is titled "Museums with Aviation Exhibits". If I ever find a good way to host them, I'll upload them here. On that note, hopefully I can get around to firing off a PM to Rauhbatz soon.

Finally, I thought I would list all the museums that have received any mention in this thread thus far - minus the ones I mentioned in my first post. By order of mention, here they are:

Museums Mentioned in This Thread
  • Victory Air Museum (Gilmer, IL) - aka "Polidori Air Museum"
  • Michigan Military Air Museum (Freeland, MI) - aka "Mid-Michigan Air Museum"
  • Pate Museum of Transportation (Fort Worth, TX)
  • Florence Air & Missile Museum (Florence, SC)
  • CAF Harlingen (Harlingen, TX) - also Rebel Field (Mercedes, TX) not previously mentioned in thread
  • Allied Air Museum (Allentown, PA) aka "Allied Air Force Museum"
  • Wings and Wheels (Orlando, FL)
  • Colonial Flying Corps Museum (Toughkenamon, PA)
  • Age of Flight Museum (Niagara Falls, Canada)
  • Flying Tiger Museum (Kissimmee, FL)
  • SST Museum (Kissimmee, FL)
  • Shannon Museum (Fredricksburg, VA) --> Virginia Aviation Museum
  • National Automobile Museum (Harrah's Automobile Collection) (Reno, NV)
  • J.L. Terteling Collection? (Boise, ID)
  • American Air Museum (Oakland, CA)
  • Yesterday's Air Force (Chino, CA) --> Military Aircraft Restoration Corporation
  • Kenosha Military Museum (Pleasant Prairie, WI) --> Russell Military Museum
  • Indiana Aviation Museum (Valparaiso, IN)
  • Wagons to Wings (Morgan Hill, CA)
  • Ohio History of Flight Museum (Columbus, OH)
  • Western Museum of Flight (Hawthorne, CA)
  • Beale AFB museum (?, CA)
  • Wings & Wheels over Texas (?, TX)

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 11:02 pm 
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Noha307 wrote:
I do remember the story of one that, IIRC, was in Canada and had a large collection of trainers and engines for them. I think he eventually got into trouble for shooting someone on his property and his collection was auctioned off after he died. Does anyone know who I am talking about and remember his name?

Yes, it was Ernie Simmons:
http://www.spitcrazy.com/Simmons-2.htm

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PostPosted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 7:10 am 
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Another museum for your list- the Northern Indiana Aviation Museum in Goshen, IN. It didn't exist very long in the late-90s and early-00s. They had a really nice airworthy C-45, a T-6 and Skyhawk and T-33 projects. I think the ex-Steven Hay TBM Avenger was also associated with that group. Never found out what happened to this museum or any of the aircraft, other than the TBM.

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 11, 2015 1:25 pm 
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Another one to add: the Combat Jets Flying Museum, formerly located at (going by the address on aero-web.org) William P. Hobby Airport, Houston, TX. I stumbled across this when reading about the history of the MiG-15 on display in Oshkosh, WI.
A note on http://www.aero-web.org/museums/tx/cjfm.htm says the museum has closed and all the aircraft were moved to Oshkosh.

Good luck with your quest!

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 11, 2015 1:34 pm 
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The Bristol Heritage Collection was in Tennessee I don't know if it was ever open as a museum. They had a beaufort, Swordfish, Bolingbroke and Lysander projects. I cant find any info on what happened to these aircraft.


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PostPosted: Sun Oct 11, 2015 5:14 pm 
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Chris Brame wrote:
Noha307 wrote:
I do remember the story of one that, IIRC, was in Canada and had a large collection of trainers and engines for them. I think he eventually got into trouble for shooting someone on his property and his collection was auctioned off after he died. Does anyone know who I am talking about and remember his name?

Yes, it was Ernie Simmons:
http://www.spitcrazy.com/Simmons-2.htm

Not only did you nail the name, but also even managed to find the page I remember reading! Thank you! :drink3:

If you can think of anyone else that fits this category, don't hesitate to mention them.

EDIT: Somehow I managed to miss the fact that there were more posts on page 4 since I last commented. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that I addressed everyone's comments and thanked you guys as well.

kalamazookid wrote:
Another museum for your list- the Northern Indiana Aviation Museum in Goshen, IN. It didn't exist very long in the late-90s and early-00s. They had a really nice airworthy C-45, a T-6 and Skyhawk and T-33 projects. I think the ex-Steven Hay TBM Avenger was also associated with that group. Never found out what happened to this museum or any of the aircraft, other than the TBM.

I found a WIX thread from 2007 asking whether it had closed. According to the Registry, you're correct about the Avenger. According to a non-profit tracking website, Mr. Hay was not only associated with the museum, but actually ran it.

As an aside, while looking for information on the museum, I also found an article on the closing of the previously mentioned Indiana Aviation Museum. Furthermore, I came across a whole long list of aviation museums. Apparently it's somewhat old, so I need to go through it and see what no longer exists.

XL446 wrote:
Another one to add: the Combat Jets Flying Museum, formerly located at (going by the address on aero-web.org) William P. Hobby Airport, Houston, TX. I stumbled across this when reading about the history of the MiG-15 on display in Oshkosh, WI.
A note on http://www.aero-web.org/museums/tx/cjfm.htm says the museum has closed and all the aircraft were moved to Oshkosh.

I found a couple pages from a book that provide some more detail on the museum. According to the book, it was founded in the mid-to-late 1980s, "was intended to be [focused on] the first generation of jet fighters" and would "eventually include no less than 9 jet fighters". Apparently, it was also the featured story in the March 1991 issue of Air Classics Magazine. My search also turned up an article on warbirds in the June 1990 issue of Popular Mechanics that includes a list of aviation museums.

jspott wrote:
The Bristol Heritage Collection was in Tennessee I don't know if it was ever open as a museum. They had a beaufort, Swordfish, Bolingbroke and Lysander projects. I cant find any info on what happened to these aircraft.

Strangely enough, I found a bit of information on this collection - in of all places - a book on British folk music. Apparently, a man named Graham Kilsby donated the Bolingbroke from that museum to the Bristol Aero Collection in England. If anyone wants to updated the Registry entry on this aircraft, I found some more information on it in a blog post.

Once again, thanks for the information. I've simply used this post to create quick reference for any information I've found on the museums, so that's why my responses are written the way they are. I also hope my answers were able to provide a little bit of help in return.

One quick final note: If anyone wants to try and look up information on these museums on their own, it really helps to put your search terms in quotation marks since that makes the search engine treat them as a single phrase. Given the frequency with which a lot of the words in aviation museum names are reused, it outputs a lot less extraneous results that way.

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PostPosted: Sat Jan 28, 2017 8:06 pm 
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ship 9048 from Tallichet to Nashville to Bristol Aero Collection.....


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 1:39 pm 
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Another now closed museum was Planes of Fame east out of Eden Prairie MN, closed in 1997.


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 10, 2017 7:16 pm 
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C-47A-30 42-23668 was at the Edward F. Beale Museum at Beale Air Force Base in 1993. I remember they also had a B-25 (some VIP’s plane) and the nose section of a B-29.

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PostPosted: Fri Feb 10, 2017 8:46 pm 
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You can remove the (pending) from Octave Chanute air Museum. Closed for good Oct. 31 2015.

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2017 11:50 am 
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Effective March 1, 2017 - the EAA AirVenture Museum is changing its name to the EAA Aviation Museum.

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PostPosted: Sun Jul 29, 2018 7:26 pm 
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It's been a while since I've posted to this thread, so I though I'd update it with my list so far. The list is taken from an Excel spreadsheet on my computer.

Closed Aviation Museums
Name of Museum - Date Closed - Location - Notes - Reference(s)
  • A.A. Cunningham Air Museum - Havelock, North Carolina - Apparently was planned, but never opened - [1], [2]
  • Ada Aircraft Museum - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma - [3]
  • Age of Flight Museum (?) - Niagara Falls, Canada
  • Air Acres Museum (?) - Woodstock, GA - [4]
  • Allied Air Force Museum (?) - Allentown, PA - Relation to Mid-Atlantic Air Museum?
  • American Air Museum - Oakland, CA - Relation to Oakland Aviation Museum?
  • Antelope Valley Air Museum - Lancaster, CA - Relation to Milestones of Flight Air Museum? - [5], [6]
  • Arlington Naval Air Museum - Arlington, WA - Status Unknown
  • Bristol Heritage Collection - Hohenwald, TN
  • Champlin Fighter Museum - 2003 - Mesa, AZ
  • Coleman Warbird Museum - 1993 - Coleman, TX - [7]
  • Combat Jets Flying Museum - Houston, TX
  • Flightarama - Santa Ana, CA
  • Florence Air & Missile Museum - 1997 - Florence, SC
  • Florida Military Aviation Museum - Saint Petersburg, Florida - Previously known as the Yesterday's Air Force Museum - [8]
  • Flying Tiger Airport & Flight Museum - Paris, TX - [9], [10]
  • Flying Tiger Museum - Kissimmee, FL - [11]
  • Gallery of Aviation - Madison, WI - Personal collection of aviation artifacts, likely no aircraft - [12]
  • Indiana Aviation Museum - 2010 - Valparaiso, IN
  • International Flight and Space Museum - Santa Ana, CA
  • Michigan Military Air Museum - 1974 - Freeland, MI - aka Mid-Michigan Air Museum?
  • Midwest Aviation Museum - Danville, IL
  • Movieland of the Air Museum - Santa Ana, CA
  • North Cascades Vintage Aircraft Museum - Closing - Concrete, WA
  • Northern Indiana Aviation Museum - Goshen, IN
  • Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum - Closing Rantoul, IL
  • Ohio History of Flight Museum - 1999-2000 - Columbus, OH - [13], [14]
  • Pacific Military Air Museum - Los Gatos, CA - [15], [16]
  • Pate Museum of Transportation - Cresson, TX
  • Polar Aviation Museum - Blaine, MN Relation to Golden Wings Museum?
  • Southwest Aerospace Museum - Fort Worth, TX - Relation to B-36 Peacemaker Museum? - [17], [18]
  • SST Museum - 1981 - Kissimmee, FL - [19], [20]
  • United States Aviation Museum - South Euclid, OH
  • Victory Air Museum - 1986 - Mundelein, IL - aka Polidori Air Museum? - [21]
  • Virginia Aviation Museum - Closing - Richmond, VA
  • Wagons to Wings Museum (?) - Morgan Hill, CA
  • Wings and Wheels Museum - 1981 - Santee, SC/Orlando, FL - [22], [23]
  • World Aircraft Museum - Calhoun, Georgia - Mercer Aircraft Museum?
  • Yesterday's Air Force (?) - Multiple locations? - Comparable to CAF?

A couple notes. Some of these may have never existed on anything other than paper. Others may have simply been personal collections that the owner haphazardly attempted to put on display or tried to organized into a "museum" to get a tax write off. I don't know if the names used here were the official names of the museum or just something they were referred to by. Some of these may have morphed in museums that still exist today through transfer of their collection.

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