What In The Wide Wide World Of Sports Is A Going On Here? 
More squawking over historic bird
Ottawa raises roadblock for Seattle museum
But which country would give it the best treatment?
Feb. 21, 2006. 01:00 AM
SCOTT SIMMIE
STAFF REPORTER
Ottawa has written the Seattle Museum of Flight, saying an historic airliner that's been rusting for years on Derry Rd. is a "movable cultural property" — meaning it has historical or cultural significance to Canada — and that a special permit will be required for its export.
The request is a potential roadblock to the museum's plans to move the country's last remaining Super Constellation to the U.S. for restoration and permanent display in Seattle. If the permit (and a potential appeal) is denied, Canadian institutions will get a chance to buy the craft at market value and keep the plane in this country.
"If we have to sell the airplane at fair market price, it won't be coming here," says Bonnie Dunbar, president and CEO of the Seattle museum.
"I'll be quite frank — it would be a big disappointment," she added, saying museum members and other donors have already contributed the necessary funds to buy, dismantle and transport the aircraft. Yesterday, a crane was on the scene as the work continued.
Since late 2001, the old Lockheed aircraft (most recently a bar/restaurant called "Super Connie") has been sitting abandoned on property owned by the Greater Toronto Airport Authority.
No one's paid rent on the space or maintained the 1950s-era aircraft in years.
"It was derelict. It was basically rusting away," says Dunbar.
But aviation buffs have kept a close eye on the Connie, which was once a flagship of Trans Canada Air Lines in the 1950s. Before being replaced by jets, the Super Constellation was the fastest and most luxurious way to fly to Europe. It is, say aficionados, the sole remaining prop-driven passenger airliner from that era in all of Canada.
As the plane sat empty, the Seattle Museum of Flight, which has one of the best aviation collections in North America, started talking to a woman named Catherine Scott who said she owned the aircraft. In April of 2003, the museum says, Scott agreed to sell it the Constellation. A final bill of sale was concluded last May 1.
From the Seattle perspective, that means Canadian museums had plenty of time to put in an offer.
"That's fact. It was on the open market ... and my understanding is it was also on eBay," says Dunbar, a former NASA astronaut and veteran of five space flights. "Apparently several other (Canadian) museums had said they weren't interested." Scott says the same thing.
But the Toronto Aerospace Museum says it wasn't quite that simple. Far from it.
"We're not this Johnny-come-lately that we're being made to look like," says Paul Cabot, the museum's manager/curator. "We've been negotiating with the GTAA since 2003. They were saying they were going to take possession of it and make it available.
"They're (Seattle) portraying themselves as the knights in shining armour who rode in to save this plane from a bulldozer. That's not the case at all," he says. In fact, Cabot was so certain he would acquire the aircraft that he sought and received permission from Ottawa to display the Constellation outside the museum at the federally-owned Downsview Park.
Meanwhile, the Toronto museum and a group of retired Air Canada employees have been running two online petitions to keep the Connie on Canadian soil.
Though there's been a swell of grassroots pride for plane, questions have also been raised over which museum would ultimately provide the best nest for this bird. It's a question some say is well worth considering.
"We'd like to see it stay in Canada — you never like to lose historical aircraft," says Anthony Worman, curator of the Aero Space Museum in Calgary.
"But the question comes up: If it stays in Canada and it's not restored for 50 years and it just deteriorates — in the end, what do you have left?" he said.
"We're not trying to make this a controversy," says Bonnie Dunbar. "We really care about the airplane."
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Looks like things are gonna get ugly!
Robbie
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