Museum of Flight's B-17 & B-29

[Pat Carry]

Are they both back inside now out of the weather?

[The Inspector]

Can't say for sure, but the other day during one of our constant heavy downpours, in a news chopper shot about an accident on KBFI, I saw the DC-2 was sitting outside Clays hanger and it ain't exactly water tight.

[bombadier29]

Sitting outside and covered in snow right now. The B-29 is still sealed up in the shrink wrap.

[p51]

I had a long discussion with several key people at the museum at a space event early this fall.
There are no plans to get either bomber under cover, nor to build any kind of cover for the planes in the 'air park' across Marginal Way from the main museum building. Their key fundraising focus was to build a building to house a Space Shuttle, which they did and got the FFT instead. There are NO plans on the horizon to house anything else at this point. Anything outside now it going to be outside for quite a while.

[Chris]

bummer

[p51]

:( bummer

Yeah, that's what I said. The shuttle building really was their main focus, and now their thing is building some form of aviation high school on former Boeing property behind the line of aircraft in the airpark adjacent to the FFT building. Very long term plans involve a large overhead roof structure to cover all the other airplanes in the park area (and I'd assume, the 17 and 29 as well). One of their people told me that those plans are such long range they don't even exist on paper yet.
Keep in mind, this is on the heels of the FTT building and the large addition which houses the WW1/WW2 fighter collection, all done in the past few years. It's not like they have been standing around, that's for sure. I've talked with Boeing folks who swear they've been told that the MoF's focus for the future is on the space aspect, not the warbird aspect and that if the current leadership had been around a few years back, the fighter collection wouldn't be there right now...

[bdk]

Time to sell!

[mustangdriver]

We had one of the head guys from MOF on our show a while back. There are plans to build a facility for the large aircraft.

[Pat Carry]

Ok, I'm confused! Will they build a new building or wont they, that is the question. It seems they would want to build a new building at some point to protect their investment in restoing the B-17, the B-29 and of course the Connie. All of those had to be BIG bucks.

[The Inspector]

Ok, I'm confused! Will they build a new building or wont they, that is the question. It seems they would want to build a new building at some point to protect their investment in restoing the B-17, the B-29 and of course the Connie. All of those had to be BIG bucks.

Part of the problem (beyond needing a boxcar full of rectangular intaglio portraits of dead Presidents) is land. The MoF is sort of squeezed into a triangular corner on the Southwest corner of KBFI (GOOGLE Earth the field for a better idea). Boeing is still the owner of the ramp immediately to the South (Military DC delivery center for Wedgetails and soon P-8A's). To the immediate North is revenue generating tie down space and of course E. Marginal Way So. (6 lane major N-S arterial road) and the runways.
As Boeings footprint shrinks @ KBFI more dirt may become available but a lot of Boeing's smaller labs and 'SHHHH, nothing going on here' stuff still going on in those out of the way buildings.
The Hall of Heros or whatever it's called (I call it the mushroom factory because it's so dark) was built with VULCAN money so P. Allen could display his Champlain collection, and if you are familiar with VULCAN Co. architectural whims it looks like a huge corrogated chicken coop with some pretty wierd angles, so VULCAN/Allen aren't probably in the first que to put up another big building and other local money is still tight.

Last edited by The Inspector on Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[p51]

Ok, I'm confused! Will they build a new building or wont they, that is the question.

All I know is I talked with the chief guy in charge of fundraising, the money man himself. He's the one who told me everything I have written in this thread so far.
Yes, things might have changed since then, but as of early Fall of this year, there were NO plans to build anything other than the aviation high school down the street.
Naturally, I want to be proven wrong in the worst way!