Warbird Information Exchange

Museum of Flight leader stepping down
Puget Sound Business Journal 04/30/05

Ralph Bufano, president and chief executive of the Museum of Flight in Seattle for the past 14 years, is retiring from the museum effective late this year.

The museum's board has formed a search committee to conduct a national search for his replacement, according to an announcement. Bufano will help with the replacement process, officials said.

you mean the Museum of NON Flight in Seattle. Lets get someone in there who will fly the planes.

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Live to fly, Fly to live.....

Good riddance.

I worked at the MoF for about 4 years while I was in high school and college. I've never seen an aviation museum with more awesome potential that was completely suffocated by leadership.

The problem there, as I see it, is that the leadership is *not interested in aviation*. The museum was marketed in the Seattle area as an educational or artistic item. Decisions were made based on a perceived educational value, versus what would be best for the preservation and promotion of aviation history.

This ethic was echoed at many levels in the executive chain there, and has been in effect for at least the last 15 years that I've had any association with the place.

There are -- and have been -- many knowledgeable, skilled, creative people that worked at the MoF, and were real aviation enthusiasts. They did everything in their power to make it a great museum. The vast majority of the time, though, their efforts were squashed by management who had a very different agenda. I witnessed many really talented people disassociate themselves with the MoF, disgusted with the corporate mentality of the place.

Having Mr. Buffoon-o step down is finally an opportunity for someone to affect corporate change in that place, and more importantly, take the MoF on the road to the world class collection that it should be.

Chuck, while I sympathize with your view about flying historical aircraft, you have got to recognize that there are many significant and well-respected aircraft collections out there that don't fly their aircraft. Singling out the MoF is not really fair. Judging from what I saw when I worked there, I don't see where they're going to get an operations, maintenance, and training budget to fly any one of those airplanes. Plus, without an established staff of people that know how to operate a fleet of warbirds, it would be a *significant* risk to the airplanes for them to start now.

That being said, I think the entire Champlin collection, as well as the Lake Washington Corsair should fly. The N17W B-17 should fly, too, but obviously the issues with the Richardson estate would need to be cleared up (and they obviously never will be).

With baby steps, perhaps, this could happen but not any time soon.

If you're in the Seattle area and you want to see a warbird collection owned and operated by someone who appreciates aviation, go see Paul Allen's stuff.

I call it the Seattle Museum of Static Display.

They are still on my excrement list as they stole a pair of F-86
drop tanks from me a number of years ago.

Some good points are made on the fly/no-fly thing concerning
the MoF, but with someone new steering the ship, I would hope
they would at least entertain the thought of flying / operating select
aircraft on a limited basis (similar to how the Paul Allen collection is
operated).

Bela P. Havasreti