New England Air Museum

Mon Sep 04, 2006 10:34 am

The NEAM has re-tooled it's web site. There's a drop down for the 58th Bomb Wing Memorial with a link to the B-29 restoration. Unfortunately it says virtually nothing! The couple of pictures that they have posted can't be enlarged! What a shame since they have done a first class restoration on that plane and not everyone has the means to visit the museum in person. To bad they don't have pictures taking you step by step through the restoration process (they use to have periodic updated that stopped a few years ago). They've short changed themselves on this one...

http://www.neam.org/

Mon Sep 04, 2006 10:54 am

Hi,

I've visited the NEAM in person, having relocated to Connecticut for a new career. The layout of the facility is abit cramped, but their B-29 looks very well done since the Tornado damage that was inflicted on it some years past. It appears that the -29 is getting quite abit of TLC. And it is in it's own hangar. From the outward appearance it is, in my opinion pretty well taken care of. The last time I saw it, about 3 or 4 months ago, the exterior is polished and detailed with the airframes' original artwork applied. Inside the other hangars, photography is abit problematic due to how the aircraft are stacked. They do have the -29 roped off so you can't get too close and the cockpit area appeared gutted out and the greenhouse glass has not been reinstalled. But they are doing what appears to be a first rate static restoration to it.

Just my two cents. If anyone wants some newer pic's let me know...I only live about 15 minutes away and I always enjoy hanging around vintage aircraft. I also have a buisness card of the restoration leader, so I am kind of kicking around the idea of actually joining the museum to participate and keep my skills intact. Hopefully they can make use of my talent, as I have worked on many flyable warbirds in my career from rebuilding a T-6G to Planes of Fame (when they had their facility in the Minneapolis area) to the Mid Atlantic Air Museum's fleet.

Paul

Mon Sep 04, 2006 10:59 am

It looks like it is still "under construction as only one "article" is available at the site (where they list several).

New England Air Museum's Open Cockpit Sunday's are a great opportunity to sit in some significant warbirds (including F4U Corsair, P47 Thunderbolt, F100 Super Sabre, etc. The next one is Sunday, October 15th.

RE: B29 artwork - go to the Bomb Wing part of the web site for a short description of how they chose this particular artwork (not artwork from this specific B29's history).

Mon Sep 04, 2006 11:15 am

The "guts" of the B-29 were in the restoration area when we visited last spring. So I'm sure in a few years everything will be put back in and it will look Great.

I wish they had some more room to allow 360 access to all aircraft, even if they were still roped off. I think that is one way they could improve a very nice museum. Maybe another way is the web site, I think it does the museum an injustice not to advertise themselves better on the web (IMO).

Tim