Warbird Information Exchange

Build Special Museum For
Goebel's Famous Travel Air

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By S. B. Kiefner
(Staff Correspondence)

WICHITA, KANSAS.-Assurance that
one of the most important airplanes figur
ing in American air history will be pre-
served and kept in this country was given
Wichita (sic) when Frank Phillips, president of
the Phillips Petroleum company of Bartles-
ville, Okla., announced that the Woolaroc
Travel Air monoplane which Col. Arthur
C. Goebel flew from Oakland, Cal. to Hon
olulu on August 17, 1927 to win the Dole
$25,000 prize, is to become a museum piece.

Mr. Phillips is building a hangar on his
3,000-acre ranch near Bartlesville to house
the airplane and keep it there permanently
for future generations to study.

For a time before the start of the race
across the Pacific it seemed as though
Colonel Goebel never would begin the
flight. He lacked the necessary funds.
Phillips, long an aviation enthusiast,
learned of this and urged Goebel to visit
him. Goebel, a flier of long experience,
called on the oil millionaire.

Phillips realized that a successful flight
to Honolulu would do much to help the
cause of flying in America. He cheerfully
advanced the money necessary to handle
the flight, as his contribution to aviation.

The Woolaroc, as preserved, will carry
all the original equipment that it had when
the historic trip was made. The radio al-
ready is obsolete. Some of the flying in-
struments are out of date.

The hangar under construction is of steel
and stone. It is planned to install the
plane in its permanent home on the second
anniversary of its flight.

Before the Woolaroc finds a resting place
in the museum it will visit the leading
aeronautical centers of the country. It
started a few days ago on its last flight.
Coloen Goebel is at the controls. Okla-
homa, Texas and Kansas cities are being
visited first. But before August 17 it will
have covered a major part of the continent.

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