A Museum More Than Planes: Constructing a Time Capsule at Mustang Field

If I go back to the beginning of all of this, I just wanted to be able to put one airplane with big wheels on grass...

Richard Bach's second book, "Biplane," tells the story of his odyssey across the country to buy and fly home in his newly acquired Parks biplane. Against the advice of more experienced biplane aviators, he departs with no training and wrecks the plane on his first landing, breaking a 30x5-inch wheel. The entire story is a learning experience and I have learned from it: stay off concrete if you can with skinny old airplane wheels.

Photo by EAA Connor Madison

I had another idea, too. A desire really. That was to allow more people to see the airplanes I have collected. I receive enormous pleasure every time I open a hangar and get to look at these things, and I want to share that with as many people as possible. But I never had the idea of a museum. My thought was I just wanted to be somewhere with low barriers to entry - no guards, access cards, or unfriendly attitudes to keep people away, where people would feel comfortable sticking their heads in when the doors were open.

El Reno has grass in abundance. And, most of the time, you can just drive in and wander around. That all seemed ideal. So when the idea of an old hangar, with an actual bow truss structure, instead of the imitation versions I'd drafted repeatedly, became available, it seemed more than ideal. Then lawyers and accountants kicked my ideas sideways as I could have what I wanted, and save some money in the bargain if I did it a certain way.

That led to the idea of a museum. And filling out the paperwork, which is substantial, and paying the associated legal fees, which are staggering, got me thinking about what a museum means. That's led to some features you'll see if you come for a visit:

 

Step Back in Time

The building was built in 1943, and I wanted it to look like that today. But at the same time, I have found on other restoration projects that being a slave to the past is foolish if it means giving up the practicalities of the present. So, the roof is better, as are the windows. And there are insulation, heating tubes, and huge ceiling fans to make it comfortable. But, overall, I hope that there is a feeling of being transported to a different time.

• I decided to make the obligatory break room into something more than that. I thought a café would be nice. So, there's a small lunch counter and a table, and chairs that match the period. I've searched high and low and found a fan from 1935 and a jukebox from 1939. The fridge and dishwasher are new but styled like the 1930s. Well, they didn't have dishwashers in the 1930s...The malt mixer can be found in abundance post-war. The one we have is, as it should be, prewar. Now, if I can just find a prewar coffee urn...

• I thought they'd likely have a pop machine around somewhere for refreshment. You can't imagine, if you haven't walked through antique malls until your feet are sore, or searched online until your eyes are bleary, how hard it is to find a prewar pop machine. I wanted one of those chest types that I remember from the local mom-and-pop grocery down the street from my grandmother's. We'd walk there on a hot summer afternoon, and entering the big screen door that slammed, you could feel the welcome relief of the cold "refrigerated" air as you smelled that exotic odor of mold, old wood, stale cigarette smoke, and foodstuffs. Right next to the candy counter where you could buy a 2-inch Sweet Tart was the Coke machine. In those days, it was a dime. During the war, and at the museum, it's only a nickel...

• Next to the pop machine will be the pay phone. If you were here in El Reno in 1943, chances are you weren't just busy but maybe a little lonely or homesick. Long distance was expensive, but I'll bet there would have been a line on payday. Finding an old pay phone isn't hard, but finding one made before 1946 isn't easy. We have one.

• There would have been some military transport around, so I found a Ford GPW. That was easy. Since we'll have a mail plane eventually, I looked for a mail truck. That was a little more difficult. I figured that they'd for sure have a fire truck. Finding a military version has proved impossible. But, just as the military commandeered airplanes, they also drafted fire engines, so ours will be red, not green, but it will be period correct.

• We've got an office because there is always a need for that. And the furniture and furnishings need to be correct. The military version would have been Spartan. So, I decided to go backward in time to just before the war and recreate an executive office with Art Deco furniture. If you come for a visit, we can crack open the prohibition-era radio bar, designed to hide the booze from the government. Or maybe we'll just get something off the 1937 trolley cart from a DC-3 airplane. We can sit on the Donald Deskey furniture and enjoy a breeze from the 1918 brass fan. The office, like everything else, is an exhibit.

The City of El Reno has been inspired by all of this, and they are currently repainting the water tower and restoring the old beacon tower, which are both located next to the museum, to look as they did in 1943.

Learn More About What You're Seeing

 

• We have a lot of neat aviation artifacts to display and hope more will come over time. They will be displayed on the walls and in the display cases in the small library.

• We plan to have a half dozen video displays running. What you will be able to see are custom videos we've produced and are producing about the museum and its aircraft. But we'll also be showing a lot of other videos from as much as 90 years ago. It's all user-selectable, of course.

• Each vehicle and airplane will have a sign sharing salient information and a QR code you can use to access a lot more information. WIFI will be there, of course, to make all of that possible.

• If you enjoy seeing what lies beneath the covers, there will be a lot to see in the museum's workshop.

Space Designed to Honor, Educate, & Reflect

• The airside patio is a place to relax and enjoy the occasional airplane flying in or out or to watch the airshow during fly-ins. It will be a great place to see the museum's planes as we bring them out regularly to fly.

• Sink down into an overstuffed chair, just the way a student pilot might have three generations ago, in the library to contemplate the planes through the windows. Or perhaps read a book from the collection - there is a wide variety of novels, biographies, technical manuals, and reference works to choose from. Or, if you prefer something shorter, choose a magazine from the interwar period.

As we keep working to put this place together, we are starting to add layers to what was, just a few months ago, a fairly straightforward vision. A place to put some airplanes, and fly them off of grass, is becoming much more than that. By the time we open, in just three short months from now, it will be more than just an old hangar full of even older airplanes...

 

Come Join Us if You Can

I've been encouraging the City to build more hangars, saying I think other antique owners, not to mention vintage aviation fans, will want to be here. They've just announced a new hangar row of individual hangars in response to go along with a new bulk hangar that was already on the boards. All of this goes with a terminal building, which they are busily constructing. This is going to be a neat place to be. It'll be even neater with you here!