July 10, 2015 - Flying Heritage Collection
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One aviation museum that has long been on my list to see is the Flying Heritage Collection at Paine Field, north of Seattle. I landed the Citabria here back in 2006 but I don't think the museum was open then.
Lynnette and I picked up my old high school buddy Dave at the ferry terminal and we headed to the museum.
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The Flying Heritage Collection is Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Paul Allen's private collection of World War II aircraft. These airplanes have been restored to mint condition. They are airworthy and get flown. Although not by Paul Allen himself, according to a docent.
Here is a Focke-Wolf 190 A5. There are quite a few FW-190s in museums but airworthy ones like this are very rare.
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| A Messerschmidt Bf-109 E (Emil)with engine cowling off. |
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Spitfire Mark V.
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| Now here is a plane I've never seen before: the famous Soviet Iluyshin IL-2 Sturmovik. A heavily armoured ground attack aircraft, over 42,000 were built, making it the single most produced military aircraft design in aviation history. This is the only flying Sturmovik in the world. |
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| The Fiesler Storch short takeoff land landing (STOL) aircraft. |
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| Another Soviet aircraft built in large numbers, the Polikarpov PO-2. Anywhere between 20 to 40 thousand of the biplanes were built between 1928 and 1953. It was used for training, plus light ground attack, surveillance, supply, and liaison. It's most famous role was as a night nuisance bomber against the Germans on the Eastern Front. It was also used in the same role against U.S. forces in Korea. |
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The famous Curtiss Jenny.
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| Hawker Hurricane. |
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Focke-Wulf FW-190D or Dora.
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| A good look at the Me-109E. |
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| Close up. |
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| The Sturmovik frontal shot. |
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The Flying Heritage Collection was housed in two hangars. We have now moved to the second hangar. Notice the full-scale replica of Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne hanging from the ceiling in the foreground. The actual aircraft that carried SpaceShipOne -- White Knight -- is hanging from the celing in the background.
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| A Zero that needs a little work. |
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Another Zero. This one looks OK from greater than ten feet away, but is not airworthy.
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| Yet another Zero. This one is in a great condition and is airworthy. |
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| P-40 Warhawk. |
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| Immaculate F6F Hellcat. |
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Head on view of the big U.S. Navy carrier fighter.
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P-47 Thunderbolt.
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I enjoyed checking out the FHC aircraft. They are as good as the ones in the National Air and Space Museums. Better yet, they get flown. As good as the collection is, there are still plenty more WWII aircraft for Paul Allen to acquire:
F4U Corsair, P-38 Lightning, F4F Wildcat, SBD Dauntless, TBM Avenger, DeHavilland Mosquito, JU-87 Stuka, JU-88, Val, Kate, Betty, Mig-3, Yak-3, ...
All in all, FHC is an outstanding airplane museum; well worth any WWII airplane aficionado's time.
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