We recently completed another Storage Facility across the street from Fantasy of Flight to compliment our first one and are excited for several reasons. First, it will give us some well-needed breathing room and give us the ability to make room in our Maintenance Hangar for the Douglas C-47, which we recently flew over from England and left on display at the EAA Oshkosh Museum. Second, we purchased two road-legal trolleys to be able to take Fantasy of Flight patrons over to tour them as part of our normal ticket price!
Orignal facility on the left and the new one on the right.
Each building is 20,000 square feet!
There will be an opportunity to not only shuffle some of the airplanes on display in the Fantasy of Flight hangars but also give the restoration shop some long-needed space. For the die-hard aviation enthusiasts, they will soon get to see a lot more of the collection!
For those of you that purchased the Wizard of Orlampa DVD we sell in the gift shop, you got to see a brief glimpse of how packed the current building is with airplane parts. You have to crawl over stuff to get around as there is very little floor space to walk.
Small glimpse of the current facility showing Lockheed 14, B-29, and B-17 fuselages!
Pallet Racking has been assembled around the perimeter of the inside and my guys have started moving airplanes over from Fantasy of Flight. The now disassembled AT-11, that had been stored in the Maintenance Hangar, became the first tenant. Soon we will begin thinning out the first building and filling the new building, and in a manner that will allow our patrons, and my guys, to actually get to everything!
New building with Pallet Racking around the perimeter, AT-11 in the distance, and our Gas Balloon Gondola hanging from ceiling!
Since most people in the aviation world are aware that the National Air & Space Museum has their off-site Silver Hill Storage Facility in Maryland, I’ve decided to call ours the Golden Hill Storage Facility! Now I’ll never admit to it, but there might be a subtle innuendo there!
Golden Hill Express!
I’m not going to make any predictions as to exactly when we’ll be open for business, as there is a LOT of work to do. Give us about three months and we’ll have a better idea. One thing is for sure . . . when we do open for business it will be posted on my blog!
Kermit