Category: Museum News

A new display was installed in the gallery over the last weekend. It’s a 1/4 scale Ryan Broughm B-5 uncovered airplane frame. The model was donated to the museum by Michael Wallman and was hand made by his father. The Ryan Brougham was a small single-engine airliner produced in the United States in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Its design was reminiscent of the M-1 mailplane first produced by Ryan Aeronautical in 1926, and like it, was a high-wing, strut-braced monoplane of conventional design. Ryan Aeronautical also built the Spirit of St. Louis for Charles Lindbergh. A replica of the Spirit of St. Louis is on display in the hangar.

Greg Kaminski, our resident BT-15 Guru, provided a very interesting talk about our team’s restoration project. The BT stands for Basic Trainer used during World War II as the aircraft in between the Stearman biplane (PT-17, PT-13 or N2S) and the Advanced Trainer (AT-6 or SNJ). The visitors were able to sit in the cockpit and witness first hand what the restoration team has been laboring to rebuild. The team's goal is to have this plane flying by summer. There will be more tours of the hangar, check the events page and come out and join us! Greg Kaminiski from the restoration team.

https://youtu.be/X1qQ3TYjI-Y December 14, 2019 (50 yr anniversary) Wings of the North Air Museum hosted Rick Snyder as he reminisced about his unplanned free-flight hot air balloon ride during the Minnesota Vikings Football Game halftime show on Dev 14, 1959. Then 11 yr old Ricky was swept out of the stadium and landed on the Minnesota River where he was rescued and rejoined his family at the stadium. The hot air balloon was owned by Ricky’s family and they weaved their own baskets with reeds found in northern Minnesota by a lake and they flew it at many county fairs. Wings of the North Air Museum, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, serves Eden Prairie and the Twin Cities by showcasing our fleet of restored aircraft to: Bring history to life honoring our…

Wings Restorations (the restoration arm of Wings of the North) has been restoring a Vultee BT-15 since its acquisition in 2004. After the BT-15 entered the civilian market in 1946, it spent its entire civilian career in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois. The last flight in the logbook took place in August of 1955 while owned by Edward and Chester Pachnik. This year has seen a rapid increase of restoration activities with the goal of getting the aircraft flying within a year. Over the weekend of September 28-29, 2019, the aircraft roared to life again as a test of the 450hp Wright R-975-11 Whirlwind engine. As can been seen in the video, there's still much to do on the airplane such as recovering control surfaces, but the engine run marks major…