Major donor visits us at the museum.

This past month we had the pleasure of a visit by Jeanne Collin Wise. Jeanne's father was Captain Elmer Collin who's uniform is seen on the mannequin in the photos below. Elmer retired in 1980 after a long career starting with Wisconsin Central, which then became North Central, and then Republic Airlines. Captain Chuck Maire flew his retirement flight as a new First Officer on the DC9. Jeanne and her family have been kind enough to donate the large collection of memorabilia Elmer had collected over his career. Thank you to Jeanne and her family.

I guess there were no takers on guessing the plane. It is a Hawker Sidley Argosy. I was at the airport in Lancaster, California where the picture was taken. The photo below is courtesy of Virtual Aircraft Museum website.

Can you guess the plane in this picture...?

Can you figure out the plane that Chuck Maire is peering through the nose of? This was taken in California. Hint: The plane is a cargo plane.

Cessna Grand Caravan 208 passenger demonstrator, photos by Paul Cesiro of Las Vegas, Nevada

Below are pictures taken a few years ago at the North Las Vegas airport. My friend Doug Scroggins asked me to help him look at a new Grand Caravan for a frieght operation he was trying to set up. The aircraft is a Cessna demonstrator kindly flown to Las Vegas for us to fly and see how it performed. It was a very nice machine to fly and performance was pretty good on that hot summer day in the desert. You will see these planes in a variety of uses, from hauling freight in Alaska, to island hopping in Hawaii. Most notably you will see them all across the country at small airports supporting and feeding FedEx operations.
Submitted by Chuck Maire, Chairman NMCA