Dan K wrote:
Just to clarify from the "Closed Museums" list on page 4:
There really is no connection between Polar Aviation Museum and Golden Wings (in Blaine, MN), other than they are/were based at the same airport.
What is is about that airport that is so unconducive to aviation museums? Along with the American Wings Air Museum, it is currently zero for three in terms of successes. What doesn't make sense to me is that, according to an
Air & Space magazine article, there's a large community with an interest in aviation history there. There's an
aviation historian club in the area.
Pat Harker's F-82 is even somewhere at the airport. Given that level of support, it seems like they should have easily been successful.
Is it a case of oversaturation where they are just unintentionally cannibalizing off of each other's visitors? Maybe a case like the situation at Chino where Planes of Fame and Yanks where the airport is "
not big enough for the both of us"?
I might have guessed that maybe it's a case of people who are great mechanics and pilots, but lack the skills of administration. However, if anything, the history in the forum thread you linked demonstrates that Wally Fisk ran a tight ship that even established a cordial relationship with the FAA. On the other hand, it seems clear it was run as more of a business than a museum.
Maybe it's just the informal culture at the airport? (Something I took away from the ASM article above.) Or in the region as a whole? Unfortunately, the story of aviation museums at the nearby Flying Cloud Airport isn't much better. First, the Planes of Fame East closed in 1997. Then Wings of the North was only able to hold on to its museum facility for 5 years. The Minnesota Air National Guard Museum still exists, but if I remember correctly it's had its own set of difficulties. (e.g. the SR-71 transfer
[1],
[2], an
AH-1 transfer; lack of display space. However, this latter issue probably has more to do with the fact the museum is located on the grounds of a major international airport. Admittedly, MNANGM is really in a different category anyway, since it is a static, more directly military oriented museum.) On the other hand, the CAF Minnesota Wing has been operating since 1971, so I might be reaching a bit with this connection.
On the other hand, there seems to be an emerging group of "Northern Tier" aviation museums: Dakota Territory Air Museum, Fagen Fighters, and Wings of the North. They are tied together by their connection to their use of AirCorps Aviation as a restoration shop. (I recently received a mailer from them that included all of these museum's logos.) Hopefully they will have better success.
By the way, none of this is to impugn the efforts of anyone involved in these museums. (I greatly admire Greg Herrick for his unique accomplishment of
requiring the FAA to preserve technical drawings and design data.) It's very likely that it is in large part due to factors outside of their control. I want them to succeed, but if we don't know why some have failed, it is hard to know what to do to ensure the others' survival.
Dan K wrote:
For those interested in learning more about Wally Fisk, Amjet, and the Polar Aviation Museum, one would be hard put to find a better source of detail than this thread:
http://forums.thecmp.org/showthread.php?t=191805&page=4Thanks! I took a look through that thread, it really does have some excellent information. That write up by "J.R." is probably one of the best inside histories of an aviation museum I have read.