September 2020 WAAAM Newsletter


As always WAAAM continues to get better and better!

Even without our big annual events, there's still lots going on in daily museum operations!

Ever wonder about an object on display at the museum but it doesn’t have any surrounding signs and there isn’t a nearby tour guide? Most of our exhibits now have a digital presence with all your information needs thanks to the QR codes on their signs! All you need is a smartphone or tablet with a camera feature to have a whole world full of WAAAM at your fingertips.

Museum Hours of Operation 9am-5pm Daily
Updates
Its our Birthday!
& Second Saturdays are still on hold, and will go ahead as regular museum days until the restrictions are lifted on social distancing. But never fear, the WAAAM collection is still a living, breathing thing; and with or without our special event days we've still been getting our collection out and about for some exercise.
Join us now for a virtual event on our social media to celebrate our upcoming birthday!




The museum opened September 7, 2007 and we normally mark our anniversary day with the Annual Hood River Fly-In. While the Fly-In has been postponed to 2021 we still want to have a little virtual fun with everyone to mark the occasion. Remember - this is only a virtual event so you have to tune in online to get in on the digital action.


The future of the past is taking shape here at the Museum. We are soon to be in the Ride Hopping
Barnstorming, Once in a Lifetime Experience Offering Fundraising Business.

We have great plans for 2021. Come be apart of of our fabulous past. Stay tuned here and on social media for details.

We are so excited!
Great news! The 1910 Aultman & Taylor Steam Traction Engine project has made great progress. The crew poured 4 new babbitts and are now able to start putting some pieces back together again. Check out the crew reinstalling the cylindrical valve - - - these are jumbo pieces for sure!
Deep in the Depths of a Museum .....
The WAAAM crews have been working double time to do some extensive deep cleaning in the museum's shops. H1 and H3 are currently a mess of bits and bobs but we've made a lot of headway so far.

WAAAM Volunteers are the absolute BEST in the entire world! Hands Down & Bar None. Get involved with us. We are having fun and learning every day.
We like operating our collection!

WAAAM got to test fly our 1929 Curtiss Robin.(Pictured above with Mt. Hood in the background) We had this aircraft in the restoration shop for a much needed tune up and were excited to get it back up in the air again. We also flew the newly donated 1930 New Standard too.(pictured above & red in color). This biplane was a familiar ride hopping craft for many years and we are glad to have it in our permanent collection. We don't have a schedule when we get things up and going these days so be sure to keep your eyes peeled on the skies around the museum to see if we have anything up and going.:
Gift Shop Purchases Support the Museum

The first signs of Fall are upon us. We may find ourselves drawn to a cozy corner, losing ourselves between the covers of a book, unaware of the passage of time.
 

Browse the our bookshelves and we can help you choose a book!

Journey along with a historic road trip of adventure in this just-released book,
1930: Manhattan to Managua, North America's First Transnational
Automobile trip. The Lyon brothers completed their amazing 4,562 mile trek in just 54 days.Pick up a copy for yourself or a friend. It all goes to support WAAAM and the vision to keep airplane and automobile history alive and moving!

We have copies of the WAAAM 'Our Story' book bundle which includes the Avian Dreamer and tote, all ready to go wherever you're headed. Have you picked up a copy yet?

What a perfect way to spend an afternoon! We can ship to wherever you are!
Restoration & Maintenance
AEROPLANES

This past month here at waaam we have been doing a huge amount of cleaning and organizing, starting with Bruce and the car guys cleaning out hanger H3.

With H3 cleaned out me and my crew moved all the projects that we are not currently working on out of hanger H1 to H3 to make the work shop functional.
Now to explain what started all of this, A few years back Columbia Airmotive in Troutdale Oregon closed its doors much to the sadness of the Oregon aviation community, and sold what was left of their hardware and parts to Hood Rivers own TacAero, two 40 foot shipping containers in all.
Fast forward to 2020 TacAero generously decided to donate this incredible haul of hardware and airplane parts to WAAAM thus initiating our hanger cleaning to make room for everything.
On top of all that Jeremy Young decided to donate his large stash of supper higher quality aircraft spruce wing spar material that he inherited years ago from his Grandfather, this very generous donation of now almost unobtainable wood will enable many restoration projects here at WAAAM to be completed.

I would like to give special thanks to volunteers Butch Hunting and Bob Madsen for putting in extra hours of hard work retrieving our new treasures, With additional help from Bret Russle, Jim Richardson and Geoff Curtis, and not to forget the the crew back at the shop getting everything ready, Leon Serber, Pete Forsyth, Bud Musser, Ed Madena, Ron Wilkins and Martin Chorley. You guys are all awesome.

When you all can come back when shop tours resume In the future you will not believe how great everything looks thanks to the hard work of our awesome volunteers.


Jay Bell
Visit this week druring our Virtual Event this week and you will be entered to win a WAAAM Hat Shirt Combo

Memberships, Donations, Admission and Smiles...
Keep WAAAM alive.
AUTOMOBILES

The Car Guys continue to make progress on out 1928 Pierce Arrow. It now has new tires, engine started and is in good working order, fuel system addressed and the original generator was overhauled and now functions.

The 1948 DeSoto was thought to be finished until a fuel system issue cropped up and is now back in our garage.

On August 6, the Car Guys had a work party in H3 to identify and sort out more parts for future disposition.

The 1920 Willys-Knight continues restoration. Don Ferency is fabricating a steering column insert to control the timing and throttle rods. Buz Morris is helping too.
Tony Ackerman continues restoring the Detroit Electric switches and contactors (pictured below). I was able to make with help from Robert Smithwick, a replacement 80/20 Nichrome high current shunt resistor wound with AWG-5 Ni/Cr wire. You just can’t buy one of these parts any longer!

A special shout out to Chris Gardner and Patrick Mercurio for becoming new Model-T “in car instructors”. This is an important task as the Model-T class and the just completed Decades Class, are the only extra events that generates revenue for WAAAM due to the Covid-19 issues and limitations.
Thanks to Steve Roberts for quickly solving and repairing ignition issues with two of the four Model-Ts used in our class last Saturday…..Whew, just in time!

We held the first ever, “Driving through the Decades Class” on August 22. It turned out to be a blast for 8 students. After the classroom lecture, the students were able to drive 8 vehicles covering the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. Steve Roberts threw in two bonus cars, a 1962 T-Bird convertible and the 1966 Corvette roadster. I want to thank Steve Roberts, Robert Smithwick, Chris Gardner and Stephanie Hatch for making the cars ready to drive, in car instructions as needed and support from start to finish!

If you have not noticed, the cars in Museum 3 look really nice and dust free due to the efforts of Bonnie Wright and llaMae Schneeberg. These Car Guys Ladies are a great team and we really appreciate their dusting work.

We are down to just two more Model-T classes for the year. If you want to have a good time learning how to drive a Model-T, make sure you sign up early next year.
 
The Car Guys are actively seeking additional volunteers to join our team. If you are interested in becoming a WAAAM Car Guy Volunteer, please contact [email protected]  

Dale Nicol
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Contact Us
Plan Your Visit Today!

1600 Air Museum Rd.
Hood River, OR 97031

(541) 308-1600
Open Daily 9 - 5
Closed: Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Day
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