April 27, 2024

No: 2406

April Monthly Dinner

Shawn Dugan

International Initial Attack Captain

Wednesday May 1

No Host Bar: 5:30 p.m., Dinner starts at 6:30 p.m.

Those who live on the central coast are all too familiar with the sight and sound of fire fighting aircraft racing to make strategic dumps of retardant on wild land fires. This month you have a rare opportunity to hear first hand from an air tanker pilot exactly what is involved with flying the aircraft involved in firefighting. This is another dinner you won’t want to miss.

Shawn Dugan is an International Initial Attack Captain, currently flying converted Boeing 737 Fireliners for Coulson Aviation. Coulson contracts aircraft or crew services to different wildfire defense agencies around the world. An ex CAL FIRE pilot with over a decade of airtanker experience, Shawn has flown the B-737, S-2T, DC-10(VLAT), and MD-87 in the United States, Chile, and Australia. Shawn is an Atascadero native and currently resides in Santa Margarita with his wife and two sons.

Dinners are catered and open to the public ($25/person), and reservations are required prior to 6 p.m., Monday prior to dinner, either On-line HERE or call 805 296-1935.

Keeping Ken Busy

Ken Neuman went to stock the restroom and wound up setting a Howitzer in place! In today's zany museum news, he needed to stock one of our restrooms to make it successful for our guests' use and happened upon our restoration team moving the M-101 Howitzer out of Restoration ahead of schedule. Since it is finished and ready to go back to its new enhanced home he figured he would document its replacement and lend a hand. Priorities!

I am happy to notify everyone that it made its way to the desired location with no mishaps or injuries. The M-101 will be the centerpiece to our new "Firebase Lightning" display.

Thanks to Scott Stelzle, Jim Brass, Mark Lovell, Dennis Johansen and Greg Heydenreich for making this "gun run" possible!

Ken Neuman- Curator du Jour

Home to the world class Woodland Auto Display:

Come Grow With Us!

The Estrella Warbirds Museum has always been "the place to go" for local meeting, group dinners and even company events. We greet visitors from around the world!

If you enjoy new people and groups, love history and want to be involved in a community project, we'd love to hear from you! We always need volunteers in our gift-shop, or docents in the museum or Auto Display. Maybe you want to get involved in restoration?

Best Links

Current Events Here

Past Member Newsletters

Volunteer Positions

Group Tours

805 674-3939

Facility Rental

805 674-3939

Got a Question?

Stuck on what to buy for a special person?

There is always the perfect gift of a flight on a real WWII veteran, our C-47B, Betsy's Biscuit Bomber.

Find more information here.

EWM Aviation Youth Group

Carl Ford with students learning about measuring, drilling, and riveting pieces of sheet metal together. Also, drilling out bad rivets. Using tools we didn’t know existed. There is a lot of riveting in airplanes.

If you are a middle or high school student with an interest in aviation and want to know more, we would love to meet you and have you join us. For more information, contact us here.

Calling All Dedicated Volunteers

We are expecting close to twice the amount of visitors to the museum grounds on May 11th! Many of you have asked why more guests or what makes it more special? The simple answer is that we are adding different elements to the mix which will be more family oriented for different ages. This includes more kids interactive zones, new food vendors, new retail vendors, more types of car classes. We are reaching out to even more prospective guests who may have never been here before but would be crucial for our future.

We are reaching out to help on Saturday, 5/11/24 (or even 5/10/24 or 5/12/24) for Warbirds, Wings And Wheels 15 + National Motor Fest 2.

If you did not know, the museum's operating budget for the fiscal year depends on the revenue that is brought in from this event making it one of the most important and special events we do at EWM in any given year!

How can you help?

It is as easy as signing up or even emailing or calling me and saying I want to help the museum!

We can use your help for several hours or half day or all day:

Food and non food vendor parking ambassadors
Information Booth
Thursday and Friday pre event set up help
T-Shirt celebration booth
During event clean up and maintenance
Day of registration assistance for show cars
Spectator parking ambassadors
Liquid asset sales
Fireworks technicians or general love of explosives
Parking show cars
Photographers
Show car judge manager
Show car judges
Raffle ticket sellers
Post event clean up
Early Morning Registration Help
Raffle ticket sellers
Smile Coordinator
Full Listing of positions available, click here.

If you have already contacted me by volunteering for WWW15+ NMF 2- THANKS SO MUCH!

Please and thanks to any of you interested out there,

Warbirds Wings & Wheels 15 +

National Motor Fest 2

The 15^th annual Warbirds, Wings & Wheels will be happening, on May 11, 2024! And we’re excited because this year will be the first-time collaboration between Estrella Warbirds Museum and Stier Events LLC, and will include National Motor Fest! Two legendary events come together for a bigger, better event full of every car class imaginable on display.

May 11th, auto entry gate opens at 6:30 a.m. - 9 a.m. Visitors 9 a.m.- 4:00 p.m. All museum buildings open at 10 a.m. Admission, day of event: $20; 12 and under plus military free. Buy tickets in advance and save $5

Registrations are now open for the 6 p.m. Friday before awesome dinner & dance (paid reservations required), vehicles, vendors, Dyno Day, volunteers and sponsors! More information and breaking news and registrations can be found here.

New at the Woodland Auto Display

Approximately 11,000 Austin A-40 Pickups were built in 1951. Of those, only ONE was built by Austin of England as a fire truck or "fire tender". It came equipped with a ladder, hose rack and pulled a utility trailer with a pump unit. This mini fire truck was built specifically for, and did service in, the Cheddar Gorge area of England. (This was a tourist area along the coast which had very narrow roads carved out of the bluffs which made it impossible for larger fire fighting equipment to navigate).

See more: 1951 Austin A-40 Fire Tender

Are

You

Member?

Membership has its benefits! Why become a member? The museum is supported solely from private sources. Minimal membership dues go a long way in helping to preserve history for tomorrows generation. Membership gives you free access to the museum and our wonderful research library. Individual memberships are pro-rated at $75/year or $125/year for families. We have six different categories. You can find more information on membership and how to sign up the the link listed below.

Yes! I'm interested in membership

Estrella Warbirds Museum

& Woodland Auto Display

4251 Dry Creek Road

Paso Robles, CA 93446

805 238-9317

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