Museum News

Thanks to all the volunteers who helped move and setup the flyer at the museum. The Wings of the North Air Museum now has on display a full scale replica of the Wright Flyer! The original Flyer was flown four times by Orville and Wilbur Wright on December 17, 1903, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, becoming the first powered heavier-than-air craft to display sustained controllable flight. The original is on display in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. The replica aircraft was commissioned by the State of Minnesota to celebrate the centennial of the first flight in…

N69987 as it appeared in 1954-1955 from a quick scan of an original negative. Ed Pachnik's wife Shirley (left), his sister Helen Gaulke, and his sons Randy and Jim in the cockpits of N69987 circa 1954-1955. The Wings of the North BT-15 is nearly the completion of its 16 year restoration at the Wings Restoration hangar on the north side of Flying Cloud Airport. On Saturday, July 25, a visitor came to the hangar to tell some stories of the aircraft. His name is Mike Pachnik and his father Chester and uncle Edward were the last people to own and…

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.…

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…

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…