Help Us Save Our Rich Aviation Heritage While We Can!
Achieving our full goal of $5,000 will secure our off-site collection, help digitize our media collection, and provide resources to restore display models and replicas. (At $3,000 we will receive up to $2,000 in a matching gift.)
In the midst of uncertainty, amazing aviation treasures are coming to us, and we need your help to protect these priceless artifacts.
One example of this windfall is a collection of flight suits (pictured above). This flight equipment belonged to a local test pilot and represented his career. The pilot wore them on General Dynamics F-111 and Lockheed Martin F-16 test flights from the 1960s to the 1980s.
These flight suits are iconic symbols of the vast aviation achievements accomplished by not only this pilot but by a community of engineers, technicians, their families, and our community at large.
Our current facility cannot protect these and other recently acquired items properly, so we had to find an off-site location for their storage or other archive solutions.
For these reasons, this year's giving requests revolve around protecting our growing collection of meaningful artifacts.
Goal One: We have new, exciting opportunities to expand our collection in our continuing journey to strive for best practices and standards. Storage for our most at-risk and delicate collection items requires climate-controlled storage. We currently have very little of this type of storage. As a short term solution, we have secure off-site space. The new location will be shared with another museum, so we want to segregate and secure our collection with a security cage.
Our fundraising goal for this collection storage is $2,000 for the security cage. We have a matching funds challenge of $1,000 for this goal.
Goal Two: Our museum has a very impressive and growing collection of vintage media, often original and often the only surviving copy. All film types can be subject to various damage categories, like physical damage over time and chemical damage from decay, often expedited by the environment. The severity of the injury can also mean the complete loss of an artifact. Our goal is to digitize or protect our collection of outdated media types. When applicable, we will post digitized videos on our YouTube channel for education and entertainment purposes. We can share more of our collection with the public through digitization and keep these artifacts available to the public in perpetuity. We need to acquire equipment that will allow us to digitize film items in-house economically.
Our goal for this project is $2,000. We have a matching funds challenge of $500 for this project.
Our master modeler, Jack Ballard, puts finishing touches on a large scale Convair B-58 Hustler model.
Goal Three: One of the museum’s programs is providing care and a home for aircraft models. Many of these models have become a valuable piece of history in their own right. In some cases, these replicas become the only three-dimensional representation of an entire program and are extremely valuable as educational resources. We are fortunate to have experienced model builders who restore the museum’s historic models. In donating towards this cause, our modelers will have the supplies and tooling they need to continue their meticulous work restoring and preserving replicas for display.
Our model fundraising goal is $1,000, with matching funds challenge of $500.
Would you prefer to donate by check? No problem. Fort Worth Aviation Museum PO Box 161966 Fort Worth, TX 76161
