The San Martin Wings of History Air Museum in San Martin will
hold their 11th annual Open House and Fly-in from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Saturday. As a preview, here is a story from the Dispatch’s Pride
2011 special section. Full article
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Imagine if you were a child, and a pilot flew his antique plane into a nearby field and asked if you wanted to go flying. The late pilot Ted Homan did just that during the 1960s in Morgan Hill.
“Barnstorming” was once a popular form of entertainment. Pilots would fly around the country performing tricks while giving rides to spectators.
On a chance visit, one of those lucky children as an adult recognized Homan’s sky blue 1928 American Eagle from his childhood. It was sitting larger than life in an airplane hangar at the San Martin Wings of History Air Museum.
Museum volunteer docent Vernon Hayashida said when the man visited the museum, he communicated a conversation he had with his mother the day he got to fly. When his mother asked the boy what he did that day, he answered that he went flying. Thinking her son had merely been playing in the front yard with his friend, she replied, ‘What else did you do?’ ”
“That was before lawyers and lawsuits,” Hayashida said.
The open cockpit, two-seat propeller plane is just one of many in the museum’s eclectic assortment of antique planes. The museum, run by volunteers, focuses on collecting planes from the 1920s to the 1940s. Longtime office manager Susan Talbot said keeping with the museum’s original theme is hard because the collection is stocked with individual donations or planes on loan from owners.
As Talbot puts it, turning down a cool plane is impossible.
Though the 1928 American Eagle is the museum’s centerpiece, Hayashida’s favorite at the museum is a one-of-a-kind homemade Simcopter – a car welded to make a helicopter. According to the Wings of History website, the car was built, designed and flown by David Dobbins in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Asked if the aircraft flew, Hayashida said, “It flew once.”
The hybrid chopper flew an upward height of 5 feet off the ground as reported in the Mexican newspaper, “El Occidental” in August 1957.
Preserving history
The museum’s mission is twofold: It repairs old planes with the goal of making them functional flying machines, while serving to educate the public about the history of aviation.
Hanging from the ceiling, the museum houses multiple model airplanes donated from Morgan Hill’s eclectic Flying Lady Restaurant before it was demolished in 2006. The model planes hung from a converted dry-cleaning track that circled along the perimeter of the restaurant.
Part of the museum includes a wall-to-wall collection of flying magazines and books, with some of them dated before World War I. Museum librarian Norman Zimmerman, a retired NASA engineer who tested heat simulation on space shuttle tiles, has been with the museum for about 20 years. He said people visit the museum just to see the collection.
In the 1960s, a group who had ties to the Watsonville Fly-in and Air Show formed the Northern California Antique Aircraft Association. The association purchased land for the museum site in the late ’70s, and the nonprofit museum opened its doors in the late ’80s.
Hayashida enjoys a hands-on approach to preservation. A retired Lockheed aerospace engineer, he first came to the museum as a visitor.
“They said they’d let me build airplanes. The second time I visited, they gave me a hammer and glue and I was working on wing ribs.”
Hayashida is part of a team currently restoring a 1934 Pietenpol Air Camper, one of the early “kit” planes where the idea was for buyers to assemble their own planes. They were built to be simple, light and more affordable.
“It had an unscheduled landing in 2007,” Hayashida explained.
Currently the Pietenpol Air Camper is being refitted with a Ford Model B car engine modified for flight.
The museum is one of the few places in the country where old wooden propellers are still made and refurbished.
“You’ll never see this again in your life,” said Ken Mort, museum public relations coordinator, showing carved wooden propellers in various stages of production.
That’s because today’s propellers are made out of metal, Hayashida added.
“We get orders from all over the world – Australia, Japan, Europe,” Hayashida, said.
Volunteer run
The museum is more than antique airplanes. Its volunteers represent a living history of aviation.
The museum has members and volunteers from surrounding communities such as Gilroy, Morgan Hill and Hollister. Some affiliates of the museum participate in the Hollister and Watsonville fly-ins events.
Jack Bowlus, museum director and Hollister resident, has another connection to the aviation history museum.
Hawley Bowlus was a pioneer in building gliders. He won numerous contests for his designs, and worked on “The Spirit of St. Louis” in the 1920s.
Charles Lindbergh made the sturdy vessel famous when he became the first pilot to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927.
Hawley was also Jack’s father.
Talbot is connected to the museum through the appreciation of flight.
She has a pilot’s license, an accomplishment Talbot says she is more proud of than anything else she’s done. Susan and her husband Peter flew their 1939 Funk Model B plane around the country to destinations such as Wisconsin, Arizona, Oregon and Washington until it was damaged in 2002.
“I have a much better idea of our country in the air. When I’m on the ground, I don’t know north from south and east from west, but I can picture it from the air. The landscape is very nice, it fits together.”
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Mark the date
The San Martin Wings of History Air Museum at 12777 Murphy Ave. in San Martin, will hold their 11th annual Open House and Fly-in from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 14. Weather permitting, there will be hot air balloon rides. Free airplane rides will be offered to children ages 8 to 17 by the Experimental Aircraft Association Young Eagles Program. Details: Peggy Jones at (831) 261-7816 or Michelle Jones at (831) 261-7257.
