Thursday (April 1st, 2010) Progress is Always Happening

With the first big break in the clouds for almost a week, Connecticut is finally in the 70 degree sun. It was a perfect day to be productive at the museum as well. A Thursday is typically the slowest day for us, but I was pleasantly surprised to see so many faces ready to work and talk.

-Stock Photo of Museum Backlot (Thursday was far more sunny and cheerful than shown here.)

The museum also had a few newspaper reporters from the Connecticut Post visit to document some of the new ideas and actions that will be taking place with the museum and our projects. Drew King, a new member with the museum, was right in the thick of it answering questions and highlighting what we hope to accomplish; especially with the Corsair.

Corsair Restoration Fund- Not too much was done today with the "The Spirit of Connecticut" due to the newspaper interview. But what is taking shape is a much needed organization of all the parts and pieces of this fighter. I myself ended up taking pictures of all the individual cowl flaps and associated pieces. I also documented them in a notepad for further reference. What I hope to do in the coming weeks is collect and organize all the written material we have for the Corsair and the parts we've taken off.

-Scanned Image of Corsair data plate in musuem archives

After talking with one of the long term members and WWII vet of the museum, Lou Esposito, we have come up with a plan to construct some heavy duty shelving units inside the Joe Lasardo Restoration Shop to shelve and categorise the parts taken off the Corsair.

Corsairs over Connecticut- After getting a call from the Stratford Aviation School, I now have a clear idea of what the CASC will be doing for the show. Originally I had planned for the museum's booth to be located inside the school's hangar for the show in May. People would walk into the hangar and see the partially disassembled Corsair, along with parts, pieces, unique displays, model aircraft, and other exhibits. My goal was to surround the Corsair with vintage items, furniture, parts, and reenactors dressed to match. Sadly the school won't be open for the whole weekend so the CASC will have to be on outside display for the weekend. With that I'm essentially moving to Plan B and figuring out all the logistics for us to be on outside display with the Corsair. Still I fear I'm going to have to lose my beloved reenactment display but you must move on and make due.

-Design by the author for eventual T-shirts

Reorganization of a Group- A long and in depth conversation took place "Hangar Talk" with many key members of the museum including Doc Gunther, Drew, Lou, Gene, Ben, myself, etc. Mostly we talked about what the goals were for the museum both near and far. We hope that by the Corsairs show in May, we will have planned out a Flea Market/Open House for the CASC that we will be able to tell people about 1 month in advance. Aside from this, we also hope to increase awareness of the museum in general and try to expand our membership from a few hundred to over a thousand.
While lofty, this goal must be attained for if the museum is ever to survive we need the help from anyone and everyone willing to do what they can to support the cause. Please do what you can to help our museum flourish into something for the state of Connecticut.

For now,
Christopher aka Warbird Kid out....