Tillamook Air Museum soars again
By Jordan Wolfe
For the TODAY
Tillamook Air Museum lives!
Ten months after storm damage closed the museum indefinitely, it is set to hold a public grand reopening event on Thursday, Oct. 29 at its home in the historic World War II-era Hangar B — one of the largest wooden structures in the world.
Hangar B was seemingly doomed after a December storm ripped a 6,000-square-foot hole in the tin roof, leaving the Port of Tillamook Bay with few options in the face of repair costs that reached into the millions.
“It was devastating at first,” said Tillamook Air Museum Executive Director and Curator Christian Gurling. “I've been here 18 years and this, in a way, is like one of my children.”
Utah-based nonprofit Vintage Aviation Museum swooped in to rescue the hangar. On August 20, the port commissioners approved the land lease and future sale of Hangar B to them for $1, along with an agreement to repair the structure.
“We want this to be more than simply reopening the doors,” said Vintage Aviation Museum President and CEO Sean O’Brien. “We want it to be a celebration of the museum's future and the community that has supported this historic landmark for so many years.”
O’Brien said the first step in welcoming guests back to the Air Museum was removing the 200-foot-long piece of tin roof dangling off the side of the hangar and shoring up the damage. That work has been completed and the leadership team worked to not only get the museum reopened as soon as possible, but to also allow just enough time to promote the event and invite local dignitaries and others closely tied to Hangar B to a private ceremony one-hour prior to the ribbon cutting.
“We wanted to get the museum reopened to the public as soon as reasonably possible rather than keeping this incredible facility closed any longer than necessary,” O’Brien said, adding staff have been cleaning and organizing the facility, repositioning aircraft and restoring and preparing exhibits.
Reopening carries further significance because Hangar B is one of five surviving hangars out of the 17 built during World War II — and is the only one accessible to the public.
“We're like caretakers of this history,” Gurling said. “And part and parcel of that is that the building itself is one of the key attractions. It's literally why most people stop.”
While Hangar B is truly magnificent due to its dizzying size — a floor large enough to play six NFL games simultaneously under a dome comprised of 3.3 million board feet of lumber — what is on display underneath its 12-acre roof is also worth visiting.
Aircraft from World War II all the way through Desert Storm are on exhibition, along with several cockpits — and some dual naval and film history in the form of an F-14 Tomcat, a supersonic fighter aircraft that made appearances in the original 1986 film “Top Gun.”
“What people see on opening day is only the beginning,” O’Brien said. “Our vision is to continually introduce new aircraft, exhibits, displays, special events, educational opportunities and activities that give people reasons to return again and again.”
A press release from the port stated said Vintage Aviation Museum plans to relocate most of its aircraft collection to Tillamook, bringing additional historic aircraft to Hangar B and expanding the museum’s aviation collection. O’Brien and his team are already working on future plans for the museum and Hangar B.
“Our organization is a nonprofit dedicated to preserving aviation history, restoring historic aircraft and educating future generations about the important role aviation has played in our nation's history,” he said.
With the looming threat that the hangar would be shuttered forever — or worse, demolished — over for now, O’Brien said one of the most important things people can do to support the museum and the ongoing restoration and rehabilitation of Hangar B is to simply visit, as every admission helps support the museum's operations, preservation efforts and continued improvements to this historic facility.
“Hangar B is much more than a building,” he said. “It's an irreplaceable piece of American history, a tribute to those who served our country and an important part of Tillamook's identity.”
Thursday’s grand reopening is from 10 am to 7 pm and the museum’s winter hours will be 10 am to 4 pm Tuesdays through Sundays. For more information, go to tillamookair.com.