If you are interested in learning how historic aircraft get restored, David Parker Brown has written a detailed article about his visit to the Museum of Flight Restoration Center housed at Paine Field (KPAE) in the Seattle area. David first noted that much of the restoration work is actually done by dedicated volunteers who will utilize their own time, skills and sometimes even their own money in order to restore old aircraft. In fact, the facility only employs two staff but they keep a roster of 75 volunteer restorers who are broken up into teams and assigned to work on a specific aircraft. David also noted that many of the parts needed to restore an aircraft are no longer available or would be to costly to buy – forcing volunteers to use their own knowledge and skills to make replacement parts.
David then wrote extensively about three restoration stories involving a De Havilland Comet 4C, an FM-2 Wildcat and the first Boeing 727 (N7001U). He also included plenty of great pictures of each aircraft plus links to additional information and resources about each.
Hence and if you live in the Seattle area, the restoration center is always looking for volunteers. On the other hand and you will just be traveling in the Seattle area, it costs US$5 to watch the restoration process for yourself. Otherwise (and if you have no travel plans to the Seattle area) you can see more great pictures from David’s trip to the restoration center posted on Flickr.
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