Northwest Airlines History Center

11/25/2021

Stay healthy and travel safely this holiday! Our museum will be closed today, but we'll be open on Black Friday and Saturday - come on down to Bloomington and the Crowne Plaza AiRE Hotel to take a break from the crowds - and perhaps pick up a little something for the aviation lover in your life!

Stay healthy and travel safely this holiday! Our museum will be closed today, but we'll be open on Black Friday and Saturday - come on down to Bloomington and the Crowne Plaza AiRE Hotel to take a break from the crowds - and perhaps pick up a little something for the aviation lover in your life!

11/25/2021

And to round out our #DBCooper coverage, as the hour of the event rolls around, recently we had the pleasure of providing information and context to researcher and author Dr. Robert Edwards for his book, "D.B. Cooper and Flight 305: Re-examining the Hijacking and Disappearance," out today from Schiffer Publishing.

Edwards also sat down earlier this month for a podcast recording on the "Cooper Vortex" where he gave us a nice shout-out.

Links to both are in our blog post: http://northwestairlineshistory.org/2021/11/22/reflections-extra-a-new-d-b-cooper-book-we-contributed-to/

And to round out our #DBCooper coverage, as the hour of the event rolls around, recently we had the pleasure of providing information and context to researcher and author Dr. Robert Edwards for his book, "D.B. Cooper and Flight 305: Re-examining the Hijacking and Disappearance," out today from Schiffer Publishing.

Edwards also sat down earlier this month for a podcast recording on the "Cooper Vortex" where he gave us a nice shout-out.

Links to both are in our blog post: http://northwestairlineshistory.org/2021/11/22/reflections-extra-a-new-d-b-cooper-book-we-contributed-to/

11/24/2021

Next up on our #DBCooper anniversary coverage, I scanned the full issue of Passages that would have been in the seat pockets of Flight 305. As Passages was a bimonthly publication then, I scanned the previous issue as well :)

Digitizing these two issues led me to start scanning other inflight magazines as well; in time I'll have enough issues compiled to open yet another wing to our Digital Archive.

For now, though, please enjoy the trip back in time:
http://northwestairlineshistory.org/2021/11/02/reflections-extra-the-inflight-magazines-d-b-cooper-might-have-read/

Next up on our #DBCooper anniversary coverage, I scanned the full issue of Passages that would have been in the seat pockets of Flight 305. As Passages was a bimonthly publication then, I scanned the previous issue as well :)

Digitizing these two issues led me to start scanning other inflight magazines as well; in time I'll have enough issues compiled to open yet another wing to our Digital Archive.

For now, though, please enjoy the trip back in time:
http://northwestairlineshistory.org/2021/11/02/reflections-extra-the-inflight-magazines-d-b-cooper-might-have-read/

11/24/2021

It's the 50th anniversary of the #DBCooper hijacking of Flight 305, and we've collected some content to share with you on this day:

First up, a callback to our Fall 2012 issue of REFLECTIONS, featuring an interview with Bill Rataczak, the co-pilot on Flight 305, during a "Coffee & Conversation" event at the NWAHC's original museum site, as well as photos of the get-together.

http://northwestairlineshistory.org/2021/11/15/reflections-replay-our-d-b-cooper-review-issue/(opens in a new tab)

It's the 50th anniversary of the #DBCooper hijacking of Flight 305, and we've collected some content to share with you on this day:

First up, a callback to our Fall 2012 issue of REFLECTIONS, featuring an interview with Bill Rataczak, the co-pilot on Flight 305, during a "Coffee & Conversation" event at the NWAHC's original museum site, as well as photos of the get-together.

http://northwestairlineshistory.org/2021/11/15/reflections-replay-our-d-b-cooper-review-issue/(opens in a new tab)

11/18/2021

Today is the big #GiveToTheMax event, and we're wrapping up our appeal with one more "practical" and quick-to-implement project.

On our website, by far the most popular sections for the past couple years have been our Digital Archives of Timetables and Aircraft Photo Galleries. This is exciting and gratifying - and almost completely done piece by piece on my home's Epson all-in-one printer. Convenient - but slow. And impractical for anything sized larger than a sheet of paper - or for thicker bound books.

What our Archive at the Flying Cloud Airport lacks are wide-format bed scanners and specialized book scanners that can read the curvature of a bound text and 'flatten' the image. Our hand-me-down laptops there aren't likely up to speed on the OS requirements either. As my grandmother said, "many hands make light work," and with the right tools, organizing Scanning Saturdays at the Archive could become a fun volunteer event - at the very least, would save us expensive trips to Kinko's.

I've attached some snips from Amazon to illustrate the gear we're in the need of. One of each of these, plus a current all-in-one printer-scanner, a couple current-era laptops, and a hearty wi-fi router, is less than a $3,000 project.

Helping us get more material digitized faster, lets us post much more online - gives us more options for museum displays - and frees up time to help me and our other volunteers bring you the stories you enjoy.

Consider this project, as well as the others I've described this week, if you can contribute to today's giving event or in your end-of-year plans. And pop by https://www.givemn.org/organization/Nwa-History-Centre if you can.

Thank you so much for your time, attention, and comments. It is so much fun to keep NWA, Republic, and all the predecessors in the public's imagination - and we have so much more to bring you!

11/18/2021

Today is the big day for #GivetotheMax - your contributions today could multiply!

Today is the big day for #GivetotheMax - your contributions today could multiply!

11/17/2021

I spy a Stratocruiser!

11/17/2021

As you know, all of us here at the NWAHC are volunteers, and it is wonderful to share stories from all sorts of perspectives - above the wing, below the wing, and even folks like me who were only passengers! Likewise our diverse knowledge of tools and ways of getting the job done.

In my 'day job' I work in sales & marketing at an educational publishing company, and part of my duties include trade show management. After working our October airline-memorabilia show, I can see our museum could make good use of some 'pop-up' modular display walls - the style that collapse into a golf bag for easy hauling.

This would really help the NWAHC in its outreach at other venues, such as the MAC quarterly community meetings, the RNPA cruise, and a recent request from St. Paul's Holman Field. We could "take the show on the road" at libraries and community centers, cookouts and even planespotting events.

The photo shows my 'day job's' 10-foot booth backdrop we purchased this year from Trade Show Displays in Burnsville (great service and fast turnaround! - DoTradeshow.com) - the backdrop, lights, custom printing, and a TV stand all came in under $1700.

We may need to get some display tables and a hard-shell case, but this is another example of a "realistic" and quick-turnaround project for the museum that we'd need not even $2,500 to pull together.

As you think about your #GiveToTheMax donation plan, or end-of-year contributions, please consider projects like these. Visit https://www.givemn.org/organization/Nwa-History-Centre to help our bandwagon keep rolling!

Many thanks, and come back tomorrow for one more "realistic" project pitch!

As you know, all of us here at the NWAHC are volunteers, and it is wonderful to share stories from all sorts of perspectives - above the wing, below the wing, and even folks like me who were only passengers! Likewise our diverse knowledge of tools and ways of getting the job done.

In my 'day job' I work in sales & marketing at an educational publishing company, and part of my duties include trade show management. After working our October airline-memorabilia show, I can see our museum could make good use of some 'pop-up' modular display walls - the style that collapse into a golf bag for easy hauling.

This would really help the NWAHC in its outreach at other venues, such as the MAC quarterly community meetings, the RNPA cruise, and a recent request from St. Paul's Holman Field. We could "take the show on the road" at libraries and community centers, cookouts and even planespotting events.

The photo shows my 'day job's' 10-foot booth backdrop we purchased this year from Trade Show Displays in Burnsville (great service and fast turnaround! - DoTradeshow.com) - the backdrop, lights, custom printing, and a TV stand all came in under $1700.

We may need to get some display tables and a hard-shell case, but this is another example of a "realistic" and quick-turnaround project for the museum that we'd need not even $2,500 to pull together.

As you think about your #GiveToTheMax donation plan, or end-of-year contributions, please consider projects like these. Visit https://www.givemn.org/organization/Nwa-History-Centre to help our bandwagon keep rolling!

Many thanks, and come back tomorrow for one more "realistic" project pitch!

11/16/2021

Another "realistic" Give to the MAX funding project is to help us pull together a new exhibit at our Bloomington, MN museum location I am calling "Please Be Seated: How Cabin Comfort Evolved over Northwest's Lifetime." Thanks to contributions over the years, we have seating to illustrate three key eras in cabin evolution - actual Ford Tri-Motor wicker chairs (1930s), 747 First Class units (1970s), and the World Business Class pods (2000s). One of our board members has constructed risers to mount each of these chairs on, as well.

We intend to display this as part of a timeline along the middle wall in our museum (where the gong is now), but the funny 45-degree columns that make up that wall aren't the best for mounting explanatory text and complementary pieces to show what cabin service and safety looked like in each era. I'd like to acquire several 4' x 8' stretched canvases that we can paint, attach photos and other materials to, and hang from the ceiling to form a polished and professional-looking exhibit. This would also involve buying glossy plastic substrate, numbers, and lettering to make the backdrop look more like the wall in a gate room or behind a ticket counter. (Attaching an earlier concept sketch that also included some Stratocruiser seats - this would take up /too much/ room but it gives a good idea of the design directive.)

We'll contract professional movers to help us get the WBC seats over from Eden Prairie and up the stairs to the museum location, as well as to move cases around in the museum's central space to accommodate the new exhibit.

"Please Be Seated" would kickstart a progressive re-work of our museum displays - some sections would be permanent exhibits but it would give us the flex room for 2-4 rotating story areas. We'd like to see this project completed by summer.

The canvas, lettering/paneling, hardware, and paint would come in at about $1,000. Movers would come in around a grand. So let's call this a $2,500 project.

Come back again tomorrow for another practical, "realistic" project we'd love to see funded - and if you can, drop by our Give to the MAX site at https://www.givemn.org/organization/Nwa-History-Centre

Thanks again, and hope to hear some of your comments and suggestions!

11/16/2021

Ah, to be able to go back to this time with modern photo equipment...

METRO AIRPORT MONDAYS - DTW the way it was…

An old postcard c.1959*, showing the early configuration of DTW, annotated.

* 1959 Date guestimate of photo based on the light amount of oil stains on the concrete.

THis post is a repost due to popular demand (one request :-))

11/15/2021

While we've been fortunate & thankful to have made it through the pandemic with a strong balance sheet, as the world starts opening up we'd like to get more ambitious with projects and opportunities that unlock more of our archive's potential and engage with retirees, aviation enthusiasts & current staff, and the broader community. This week (as we're sure you've heard) is Minnesota's annual "Give to the MAX" nonprofit donation event, and we'd like to share some realistic projects this week for our museum that need a bit of a push.

Today's project is about digitizing our film and slide archives - we actually rent a small walk-in cooler at the Flying Cloud Airport to store movie films and videotape in cold and dry conditions. These materials go back to the 1940s and up to the 2000s - topics from NWA's participation in World War II efforts up to modern-era training curriculum.

Additionally, in our room-temperature archive at Flying Cloud, there are numerous binders and file cabinet drawers full of photo slides.

I've been digitizing some of these slides a handful at a time with my little home converter to add to our Aircraft Gallery - but 'moving at the speed of volunteers' with home-grade equipment is not fast enough.And of course, doing the scanning, editing, and color-correcting takes time away from writing and producing new stories and video.

So we'd like to contract with a local outfit here in the Twin Cities, such as Astound, to come through and get it all done in one big chunk. We haven't asked yet for a quote but based on similar projects I and others on the board have done personally, we'd estimate this to be a five-figure project. Certainly $25,000 would get a great deal of the work completed.

Much of the resulting files would go up on our website's free Digital Archive, as well as our YouTube channel. Other footage may be incorporated into bigger editorial projects for our museum exhibits, or as video-on-demand productions.

The early donation window is open at https://www.givemn.org/organization/Nwa-History-Centre - and watch for another post tomorrow for more "realistic" project descriptions. Thanks, as always, for your reliable support!

While we've been fortunate & thankful to have made it through the pandemic with a strong balance sheet, as the world starts opening up we'd like to get more ambitious with projects and opportunities that unlock more of our archive's potential and engage with retirees, aviation enthusiasts & current staff, and the broader community. This week (as we're sure you've heard) is Minnesota's annual "Give to the MAX" nonprofit donation event, and we'd like to share some realistic projects this week for our museum that need a bit of a push.

Today's project is about digitizing our film and slide archives - we actually rent a small walk-in cooler at the Flying Cloud Airport to store movie films and videotape in cold and dry conditions. These materials go back to the 1940s and up to the 2000s - topics from NWA's participation in World War II efforts up to modern-era training curriculum.

Additionally, in our room-temperature archive at Flying Cloud, there are numerous binders and file cabinet drawers full of photo slides.

I've been digitizing some of these slides a handful at a time with my little home converter to add to our Aircraft Gallery - but 'moving at the speed of volunteers' with home-grade equipment is not fast enough.And of course, doing the scanning, editing, and color-correcting takes time away from writing and producing new stories and video.

So we'd like to contract with a local outfit here in the Twin Cities, such as Astound, to come through and get it all done in one big chunk. We haven't asked yet for a quote but based on similar projects I and others on the board have done personally, we'd estimate this to be a five-figure project. Certainly $25,000 would get a great deal of the work completed.

Much of the resulting files would go up on our website's free Digital Archive, as well as our YouTube channel. Other footage may be incorporated into bigger editorial projects for our museum exhibits, or as video-on-demand productions.

The early donation window is open at https://www.givemn.org/organization/Nwa-History-Centre - and watch for another post tomorrow for more "realistic" project descriptions. Thanks, as always, for your reliable support!

11/14/2021

Hey all, with Give to the MAX day coming up, should we ask for... oh, say, $25 million to build something amazing like this?

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/retired-boeing-747-will-take-new-post-in-south-lake-union-high-rise/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=owned_echobox_tw_m&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1636818736-1

Hey all, with Give to the MAX day coming up, should we ask for... oh, say, $25 million to build something amazing like this?

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/retired-boeing-747-will-take-new-post-in-south-lake-union-high-rise/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=owned_echobox_tw_m&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1636818736-1