Museum volunteer John Love sealing more openings, inside and out, and doing some pest control which will include poison, traps, and fumigation on the Museums’s Quonset Hut. (Photo by John Hughes)
Even though the Museum was closed for much of 2020, the year ended with many new members joining us.
A warm welcome to new members Sally Mulcahy, Richard Tolley, Claudia and Steven Talmadge, Mary I. Ruiz, David P. Ruiz, Daniel Theriault, Susan and Mike Waller, T. Tveil, and John A. Rooke from Oak Harbor, and Cherie Willie Smith and John Thompson from Coupeville. Dolores Meisch has been gifting all her children with Life memberships and she concluded with memberships for Roberta and Craig Phillips and for Jill-ann and Geoff Painter.
Thank you to all of […]
Museum volunteer Clayton Hively catches up on some off-season maintenance on the Museum’s Nimitz-Class parade aircraft carrier. This is quite an undertaking and anyone with wood building skills is invited to join us as a volunteer to help complete the project. Photo by George Love
Our most sincere appreciation to Matson Navigation for their generous donation of $1,000 to the PBY Memorial Foundation. They are our newest business partner.
Longtime Museum volunteer and Navy veteran Richard Rezabek represented the Museum in the Oak Harbor drive-by Christmas parade.
We mourn the passing of Fred Owen, another victim of the COVID-19 virus. Owen was the premier PBY pilot in the United States and one of only a few qualified to certify PBY pilots for the FAA. He was a friend and supporter of the PBY Memorial Foundation since its inception.
Owen was deeply involved in plans to develop collaborative efforts among Pacific Flying Boats, the “Soaring by the Sea Foundation” and John Sterling, a museum collaborater with a goal of bringing multiple PBYs to airshows on the West Coast and maybe farther afield. […]
WOW! What a response from you, our supporters. In just over a week, you delivered nearly $12,000 and propelled the donation plane through $55,000. Most important, we blew by the $15,000 match by nearly $5000.
With the $15,000 match, the total for the appeal will be just over $70,000 – right in the middle of our target range. If your check is in the mail or you did not want to overload the Post Office, your donation will help push the museum toward the top range of our goal; $80,000. Reaching the top will almost restore the hole in our […]
A group of volunteers gathered recently to help clean up the Museum’s Aircraft Display Area. Wayne Hastriter hoses down the 1946 Ford 4-door sedan to remove debris built up over the summer months. Other volunteers included Scott Hornung, John Hughes, John Love, Bryan Powell, Sonny Starks and Bill Young.
Quoting the title of an old Bee Gees song, your Pacific Northwest Naval Air Museum has been “Stayin’ Alive!” Many of you have stepped up to support the museum through the Mid-year Appeal fundraiser. Our quest to obtain land continues with unexpected twists and turns.
After just over two months, the museum re-opened on 24 June with a “new normal” in place. Volunteers worked diligently to ensure compliance with COVID 19 safety restrictions including floor marking, protective shielding at the cashier’s counter, systematic sanitizing of high touch areas, mask wearing, etc. etc. Visitors come in every day but in smaller […]
Editor,
I recently read the Cat Chat Newsletter and enjoyed it as usual, especially the “Quarter in History” concerning VP-62. As a former member of VP-62, I am offering a bit of supplemental information, some of which may be of interest to some members.
I came to NAS Whidbey 2 weeks after the Japanese surrender in September, 1945 and was attached to VP-62 and assigned as second radioman in the crew of the new C.O.,Lt.Cmdr. Withrow. He had been the XO, and had taken command after the previous C.O. crashed into a mountain at Kodiak […]
