Page 24 - Volume 16 Number 2

MAINTENANCE
• All scheduled and non-scheduled maintenance by our friendly, experienced technicians
• Qualified to work on Citation, KingAir, Twin Commander, and Pilatus
deregulation, corporate raiders and cattle-car accommodations. The National Airline History Museum is tucked away in a stately one- time airline maintenance hangar at Kansas City, Missouri’s historic Downtown airport, where it seeks to preserve some of our vanishing past. Largely begun as a project of retired Trans World Airlines employees, whose airplanes once spanned the globe from this very field, the NAHM is more than a dusty collection of travel posters. Its centerpiece is the originating aircraft, the “Star of America”, a curvaceous Lockheed Constellation, saved from the smelter by generous benefactors and lot of sweat equity to make it flyable. Accompanied by a DC-3, a Martin 404 and a recently-acquired Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, the old Connie presides over the cavernous museum building with queenly grace.
The airplanes, with the exception of the widebody Lockheed, are intended to be kept in airworthy condition, although their status varies with the capability and priorities of the Museum. Their interiors are restored to period appointments, giving visitors the feel of travel when it was an event. However, there’s much more to be seen than cabins full of seats.
A tour of the NAHM begins by wandering at will through several display-filled rooms, the contents of which trace the origins of U.S. airline development. Timetables, brochures, early ground-support equipment and uniforms are exhibited, beginning with the transcontinental plane-train route pioneered by Transcontinental Air Transport, TWA’s predecessor, a 1929 effort combining Ford Trimotors with sleeper railcars to span the country in 48 hours. Early tragedies, like the Knute Rockne crash of a wood-and-fabric Fokker trimotor, are recognized as the price of progress, and vintage radio and lighting equipment is shown.
Avionics
• Legacy: partial and full glass cockpit completions
• Garmin GTN650 and GTN750 installations
• XM Weather, traffic and mode S upgrades
info@northeastair.com
www.northeastair.com Portland Jetport (KPWM) Maine
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22 • TWIN & TURBINE
FEBRUARY 2012