We took advantage of some good weather the other week to clean out some hangars, shuffle some things around and find a new home for our Grumman Widgeon. Spring cleaning is actually kind of fun when you get to move a lot of airplanes. The only catch is that it can get a bit crowded on the grass getting all of the airplanes out of the hangar so you can sweep the floor.

Part of our goal was to consolidate some of our non-aviation things into one of our smaller  hangars so we could create some room for airplanes in one of our bigger hangars. Though we also moved a few airplanes that aren’t quite together to the small hangar as well. Among them was a pair of Culver Vs. The Culver V came out after the end of World War II and was designed by Al Mooney.

One of our big goals for the day was to get our Grumman Widgeon out of the small hangar where it has sat all alone for a while now, and move it into the hangar with a bunch of friends. The Widgeon was flown regularly up until a few years ago, and we’re excited to get it on the restoration list. It is a J4F-2 model and served during World War II in the Navy and was stationed around the Pacific, including at Pearl Harbor. For now it will have to be content in its new parking spot.

We’ll be adding pages to the aircraft section of the website for both the Culver V, the Widgeon with more pictures and the history of the airplanes. We’ll be adding a bunch of our other project aircraft in the coming weeks as well. One of our big goals for the summer is to get all of our airplanes on the website whether they’re flying or just dreaming of flying.

With better weather on the way (it was here last week, we’re hoping it will return soon), we’re getting ready to host our first theme day of the summer. And to celebrate warmer weather, we’re going to kick things off with an open cockpit day on Saturday, June 12. If you have an open cockpit airplane, we encourage you to fly in and enjoy a relaxing day in the North Cascades. And if you don’t we encourage you to fly or drive in to have a look at some of the open cockpit airplanes that will be here at 3W5.

In preparing for open cockpit day, we realized one of our most active open cockpit airplanes wasn’t even on our website yet, so we finally added the Waco INF to the website. The Kinner powered INF is from 1930 and is flown regularly when the weather is good here in Concrete and we’ll be flying it on June 12.

Of course we will also have several of our other open cockpit airplanes out of the hangars including the PT-19, the Baby Great Lakes, the Rose Parakeet and we’re hoping to get the Baby Ace in the air.

Of course there are lots of other airplanes to look at as well. If you haven’t seen our Bulldog project, it’s sitting in the shop with its new engine, right next to the open cockpit Waco QCF-2 fuselage.

We’ll start pulling airplanes out of the hangars around 9am and will have the grill out with some hamburgers and hot dogs. We hope you’ll join us on June 12 to celebrate summer with some open cockpit flying.

We recently received a bunch of pictures and a great story from one of our most active volunteers here at the museum. Kerry Sim is a veteran pilot who has been helping out here in Concrete for a while now, and last fall he started bringing his 15 year old son Cameron along.

Cameron is a great help whenever he’s here and doesn’t just sit around looking at the airplanes. Every time he is at the airport he’s hard at work helping with the basic maintenance and learning about the airplanes. He’s worked on a lot of the planes here, but he’s really getting to know the PT-19. It’s really great to see a teenager changing the oil in a World War II trainer, and even better to see him going for a flight in one!

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We have an engine! The Hall Springfield Bulldog project has passed an important milestone with the purchase of a Pratt & Whitney R-1340. With generous donations from members of the Hall family,  Eric Hall and Skip Hall, the project facilitator Griggs Irving and the person responsible for building the airplane, Jim Jenkins, our Bulldog is one step closer to taking to the skies.

Ever since the Bulldog project was pulled down from the rafters, there have been a few major components that have been glaring because of their absence. The airplane was missing both an engine and propeller. Jim had been keeping his eyes open for a Wasp motor, and earlier this year spotted one online that looked like it might work.

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