Here's a Stunner...

[ThinkingManNeil]

Jerry Yagen's selling off his prized warbird collection and shutting down his museum.

His recently acquired and ultra-rare De Havilland Mosquito FB.26 has apparently already been sold. Would've loved to have seen her go to the CWH collection as it is an original Canadian-built Mossie and would've been a jewel in the museum's crown (not to mention that three different Mosquitoes have shown up at Mt. Hope over the past 30 or so years and like good little Canadians we did nothing to commandeer any of them when we had the chance! Damn!)

It'll be interesting to see where the rest of the aircraft end up. Now where did I leave that LottoMax ticket...

N.

 

[Bomber_12th]

Neil, the story seems to be continuing to develop, and the information in that brief article is actually a bit old now (for instance, there is no basis to the rumors of the Mosquito being sold, and remains, at this time, still in the ownership of Jerry Yagen/Military Aviation Museum (one rumor said that it was being sold to Rod Lewis, while another rumor said that it was being sold to a well known warbird museum in Canada)).

The current facts from those who have recently visited the museum in the last few days:

- The B-17 "Chuckie" and the Flugwerk Fw 190A-8 are the only two aircraft that have actually been sold thus-far. Both are going to the Tillamook Air Museum in Oregon (the B-17 already flew out this past Saturday). All others are still owned by the museum at this time.

- Effective July 1 (today), the museum will become a static-only facility, which will save about $250,000 in insurance bi-annually.

- At this time, the museum has no intentions of closing.

- Despite the fact that each aircraft (and the museum facilities) seem to remain listed for sale, the expectation is to only sell 5 or 6 more airplanes ("everything is for sale, but not everything is being sold").

My impression is that they have just had to critically re-evaluate their operations and put everything on hold so as to sort things out for the future. I was thinking that if you sell a few high-price warbirds from the collection, you can foot the insurance bill for the whole flying collection for more years to come. Some have speculated that the Mosquito, if sold, would fetch "Glacier Girl" type money (although never confirmed, it is aknowledged that when "Glacier Girl" was sold to Rod Lewis several years back, he purchased it for around $7-million).

 

[Bomber_12th]

Here is a new article on the topic that was published yesterday: http://hamptonroads.com/2013/06/va-beach-aviation-museum-owner-were-fine-now

Some of the things expressed in other forums by those in the warbird community seem to make it sound like the Museum may just remain 'standing down' over the next six months (the remainder of the year), and will perhaps resume more normal operations in 2014 after some things are taken care of between then and now.

 

[Gdavis101]

Neil, the story seems to be continuing to develop, and the information in that brief article is actually a bit old now (for instance, there is no basis to the rumors of the Mosquito being sold, and remains, at this time, still in the ownership of Jerry Yagen/Military Aviation Museum (one rumor said that it was being sold to Rod Lewis, while another rumor said that it was being sold to a well known warbird museum in Canada)).

The current facts from those who have recently visited the museum in the last few days:

- The B-17 "Chuckie" and the Flugwerk Fw 190A-8 are the only two aircraft that have actually been sold thus-far. Both are going to the Tillamook Air Museum in Oregon (the B-17 already flew out this past Saturday). All others are still owned by the museum at this time.

- Effective July 1 (today), the museum will become a static-only facility, which will save about $250,000 in insurance bi-annually.

- At this time, the museum has no intentions of closing.

- Despite the fact that each aircraft (and the museum facilities) seem to remain listed for sale, the expectation is to only sell 5 or 6 more airplanes ("everything is for sale, but not everything is being sold").

My impression is that they have just had to critically re-evaluate their operations and put everything on hold so as to sort things out for the future. I was thinking that if you sell a few high-price warbirds from the collection, you can foot the insurance bill for the whole flying collection for more years to come. Some have speculated that the Mosquito, if sold, would fetch "Glacier Girl" type money (although never confirmed, it is aknowledged that when "Glacier Girl" was sold to Rod Lewis several years back, he purchased it for around $7-million).

Tillamook Air Museum is getting the B-17! Awesome, I know where I am going soon.

 

[Bomber_12th]

There have been some photos posted on the Tillamook Air Museum Facebook page from its trek accross the U.S. over this past weekend. It was shown that the B-17 is currently at Hillsboro airport and is said to be arriving at Tillamook in about a week. Nothing has been said yet as to when the FW-190 will be also leaving MAM (will be curious to see if they fly it all that distance, or just dismantle and truck it out).