groundpounder wrote:
gary1954 wrote:
I alwas considered the MoF to be the de facto Boeing Museum.
Witness:
-The Red Barn
-The Boeing 40 replicas..full...and partial in the Bed Barn (what other museum would fund those?)
-The prototypes (727-737-747)
-The bombers; B-17, 29, 47, 52
and who knows what else is in their archives and lots of money over the years.
My point exactly. This gets brought more to the forefront when you hear that the MoF wants to go in a different direction (space).
Boeing had quit using the old Plant 1 building (Red Barn) located downriver from Plant 2 in the mid 1960's(KBFI) and was about to tear it down or let SFD practice fighting a large wooden building fire, the old PHAAHF (I forget the exact letter arrangement) got the ear of a columnist @ one of Seattles then two daily papers and a reporter @ a TV station and started a grass roots campaign to give it to the museum foundation and got King County to donate or sell the foundation some dirt for free/cheap. As the idea gained steam, Boeing saw the P.R. and goodwill aspects of donating the building. A local tug and barge outfit donated a barge and the services of a tug boat (more free goodwill) and a house moving company lifted and shored the building and got it on and off the barge.
The museums 'collection' consisted of a small handful of older private aircraft, a pretty moth eaten T mark Vampire, the NORTHROP N-156 prototype (still hanging from the rafters in the Great Gallery), a few scale models of parts of the 2707 SST and a LINK Trainer all in a couple of rooms on the Seattle Center grounds a stones throw from SPOOKY THE CATS business on lower Queen Anne.
The original Model 40 was just a soft steel mockup of the fuselage tubing to show visitors what was under the skin on old airplanes. It was sort of a 'space taker upper' to cover part of the pretty bare floor and the prints were donated by Boeing Historical. 747 #1 RA-001 'City of Everett' was done as a test vehicle and was being pushed around KBFI sans engines and was considered as a ramp hog, again the foundation talked Boeing into donating it a tax writeoff and more good P.R. In the early 80's UNITED expressed interest in unloading E-01
#1 727 and the P.R. machine fired up again. NASA wound up with #1 737 PA-001 and flew the dweedle out of it doing early video screen flight and landing tests and gave it to the museum when it was done with the airframe.
In 1969 the Air Force donated a WB-47E instead of sending it to it's doom in Arizona, which sat on the East side of KBFI so long that blackberry vines were covering it over. The story of Swages B-17 has been covered and I'm not touching that tar baby, the Air Force donated the B-52G when they were being phased out because of SALT 2 and rather than turn it into beercans it was donated (I helped disable the aircraft to meet the requirements of SALT 2 over a couple of weekends along with a couple of co-workers @ BADWRENCH), now if the airport or museum wants to move it the Russians, Chinese, and the Air Force from Upper Volta all need months in advance notice so they can overfly with satellites before and after, and do the same in reverse to move it back, a huge P.I.T.A. I've half jokingly suggested that the airport paint the top of the 114 million gallon water tank with a huge eyeball so some Russian intelligence dweeb can ask 'do you see airfield Ivan?' "Yes, and comrade, but it also sees us!"
When the Wright Family selected MoF as the repository for the Wright Bros documents, it put a real crimp in the NASM's bananna and created a surge tide of bad blood between the two organizations, most of the third floor office space is archives and the museum had to plead with SFD to be allowed to raise the humidity a couple points so priceless documents wouldn't turn into chaff from dessication.
The origins of the museum was the salvage of one of Bob Reeves Boeing 80A's from a city dump in Anchorage, it's on display restored inside and out in B.A.T. markings.
The focus of the museum changes drastically depending on who's driving the bus, Howard Lovering who started the foundation was a 'golden ager' so the collection was 1930's civilian, then Nick Bonafacio who was a very good friend of Gen Utterstrom who ran NMUSAF so the focus turned sorta military (F-4, SR-71, T square 54, etc), then a period of 'nothing with guns please' and donations went down to nothing as did offers of aircraft/artifacts and resulted in Main floor space being given over to a plywoood mockup of an FA-18 2 seater turned into a sort of kids play toy with a slide and old car stereos behind plexiglass in the 'cockpit'. Then Bonnie Dunbar former Shuttle astronaut was made Director and suddenly the focus is space so the collection is pretty eclectic and odd in places.
It's isn't 'Boeings Museum' and the staff makes that point clear in a nice way to visitors.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
