Warbird Information Exchange

The last aircraft to fly out of Quonset Naval Air Station back in the 1970’s sits alongside a torpedo bomber flown by the U.S. Navy in World War II. They’re just two of the 28 aircraft that are part of the Quonset Air Museum’s collection, many of which are displayed at the Air Show.

Nate O’Donnell, who volunteers at the museum, says many veterans come to the museum to check it out. “We have lots of veterans who come in and sit in the aircraft and we get first hand accounts from those who flew them.”

Fast forward to March 2015 when heavy snow caused the museum roof to partially collapse... and now, the building is condemned.

Everything inside the hangar has to be out by September 30. The only problem is that there’s no new facility to house the museum.

State Representative Doreen Costa says, “ I can’t imagine the Quonset Air Museum in Charlestown, or in Narragansett...”

She is pushing the North Kingstown Town Council to keep the museum where it is, but the museum president says repairs would be beyond their $150,000 budget.

Next week the museum president is meeting with the Rhode Island Airport Corporation and Quonset Development Corporation to figure out what they can do.

“I can’t imagine RIAC coming in and saying ‘Okay get out, destroy the airplanes’…”

Representative Costa says she won’t let that happen.

In the meantime, the museum is closed, and there is no access for the public or the veterans who visit the base.

“We have tours of veterans that come back and the museum is the only landmark they recognize.”

The Airport Corporation told ABC6 they will be trying to identify alternative places for relocation ahead of the September 30 deadline.

man that sucks. It looks like the Collings Foundation owns some of these aircraft according to the website.

I guess the Navy and Army will be getting airframes back.

Nope. We had the A-1E Skyraider based there for a while (its last service duty was there at Quonset), but we moved it out of the museum over a year ago. We have not had anything based there since.

Maybe they can move it down the road to Stratford, Ct., at the Connecticut Air and Space Center.

Phil

The website lists a Hellcat replica, does anyone know the disposition of F6F-5 Bu 70185? The were restoring it after it was discovered and fished out of the sea off Martha's Vineyard?

The last aircraft to fly out of Quonset Naval Air Station back in the 1970’s sits alongside a torpedo bomber flown by the U.S. Navy in World War II.

Which plane is that?

By Donita Naylor

Journal Staff Writer

Posted Oct. 5, 2015 at 11:15 PM


NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. — The Quonset Air Museum has been given six more months to vacate the World War II-era hangar at Quonset Point, and an anonymous donor has expressed an interest in helping build a new facility, the museum's vice president said on Monday.

John Kane said the Rhode Island Airport Corporation, which owns the hangar and had imposed a September deadline for the museum to vacate the space at 488 Eccleston Ave., near the Quonset State Airport, organized a Sept. 24 brainstorming session for the museum.

Participants included those representing the museum, the airport corporation, Quonset Development Corporation, airport manager AvPORTS, state Rep. Doreen Costa, the president of the North Kingstown Town Council, an organization that helps nonprofits and an organization that is trying to get the USS John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier donated to Newport.

The parties agreed not to discuss details of their talks, but Kane was told the deadline would be extended to March 16, 2016, and that if the museum needed more time, another extension would be granted, he said.

Last March, snow and ice caused part of the hangar's roof to collapse. Days later, safety officials condemned the hangar. The museum then moved its 28 aircraft onto the tarmac and began transferring artifacts into shipping containers, Kane said.

"It's a daunting task," Kane said. The artifacts include flight data, newspapers, personal belongings, memorabilia, books, parts, tools and equipment. "There's stuff in that building that's been there since World War II," he said Monday.

The hangar, built at the height of activity for Naval Air Station Quonset Point, was used as an aircraft painting facility.

Participants in the brainstorming session agreed to meet again but have not set a date, Kane said.

Of the potential donor, Kane said no dollar amount was discussed, but representatives of the anonymous individual "said they would try to come up with some money for us." He said he knows nothing about the possible donor except that he or she is an individual who "is quite capable" of giving a substantial amount.

That was about six weeks ago, he said. "Nothing has materialized since."

Since 1991, the museum has planned a 60,000-square-foot building that would house the aircraft, archives, a small restaurant, meeting rooms, classrooms, an area for restoration work and an area for visitors.

Kane, who is vice president while the president's position goes unfilled since the retirement of David Payne, said his next step is to commission an architectural study and get a cost estimate for the building.

Ninigret Park in Charlestown has been ruled out as a site, he said, because the cost of moving the planes was prohibitive.

The museum would have to be somewhere between West Davisville and the waterfront, where available land is owned by the R.I. Airport Corporation or Quonset Development Corporation, he said.