Alaska Air Museum

The Alaska Aviation Museum has been open to the public for 25 years, its goal is to display the history of aviation in Alaska as well as to restore and display vintage aircraft. The museum is located close to the International Airport and is next to Lake Hood. The area around the museum include a number of aviation related businesses and the roadway is also a taxiway (there are “Give Way to Aircraft” signs at various points. The museum web site that describes many of the aircraft on display, it can be found here.


	A typical scene as you approach the museum with a number of parked aircraft including float planes. The picture below shows an example of an aircraft using the taxiway, note the taxiway markings of a single continuous yellow line centre line and double yellow lines to define the taxiway edge.


	One of the parked aircraft, note the “balloon” tyres for landing on soft ground.


	If you are uncertain about the conditions why not have two aircraft, one with balloon tyres and the other with floats.


	A view of Lake Hood with the snow covered mountains on the background.


	This is how you park your float plane, the cutouts in the lake shoreline allow you to step from the aircraft to the ground without messing about with boats. The tie downs (vertical lines) stop it drifting away.


	The museum area, the PBY Catalina is in a fairly “worn” state but is basically complete and is under restoration.


	The largest exhibit is this 1981 Boeing B737-290C that was presented to the museum by Alaska Airlines.


	Near to Lake Hood is this magnificent 1943 Grumman G-44 Super Widgeon with a most striking paint scheme.


	Moving inside the museum main building there is this beautifully restored 1929 Travel Air 6000B on display. It is on the colours of Al Jones Airways of Bethel Alaska, an independent airline that was acquired by Alaska Air in the 1950s.


	Tucked away rather high up (and hard to photograph because of the lights) is this 1946 Taylorcraft BC12-D on skis that was operated by Jack Carr Service.


	This 1934 Waco YKC arrived in Alaska in 1939 when 'Red' Flensburg established Dillingham Air Service, this time it’s a float plane.


	This Stearman C2B was manufactured in 1928 and passed through numerous owners including many pioneers of aviation in Alaska. In 1932 this plane was one of the first to land on Mt. McKinley. Given the conditions it was operated in it is not surprising that this aircraft had quite a history of accidents with three damage reports in 1938 alone.


	Under restoration when I visited was this 1931 Fairchild American Pilgrim 100B. It was used by Alaska Air Express to deliver mail in the 1930s. It was later purchased by Star Airlines in 1940 for passenger service and continued doing so until purchased by the Ball Brothers for fish hauling. It was finally retired in 1985 to corrosion.


	A front view of the aircraft in the restoration hangar. The engine seems too small for such a big aircraft but the “driver” had a superb view.


	Another view of the restoration showing the rather odd (to me) method of construction. The front and back of the fuselage seems to be made of metal tubes but the centre part appears to be made of wood.

On display are the remains of the 1924 Douglas World Cruiser "Seattle". This aircraft was one of four biplanes of the US Army Air Service that attempted the first flight in history to circumnavigate the globe. The "Chicago" and the "New Orleans" completed the trip. The "Seattle" crashed near Port Moller on the Alaska Peninsula on April 30, 1924. The "Boston" crashed in the Atlantic between the Faroe Islands and Iceland and while the crew was rescued the plane was lost. The wreckage was retrieved in 1967 and were put on display in the Centennial Aviation Museum that unfortunately burned down in 1973. Amazingly the "Seattle" survived the fire and is now displayed here at the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum. The two surviving World Cruisers are on public display, "Chicago" is at the National Air and Space Museum and "New Orleans" is at the Museum of Flying, Santa Monica, California.


	There are a variety of artefacts hanging from the roof of the building including these wings and fuselages.


	The museum has a covered storage area that holds aircraft and components awaiting restoration. These next two photographs show some of the items held there.


	Above is a Grumman Flying Boat and to the left is a Beech C-45 Twin on floats.


	Walking outside from the museum the weather had changed again with clouds rolling it. Below is a view of Lake Hood with the snow covered mountains as a backdrop.


	A few minutes later the weather had improved and one person decided to take advantage of this to fly away in a float plane. In this photograph it had just got airborne.

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