Visiting Paul Allen's Flying Heritage Museum - Part 1

okay so here I am trying to find the flying heritage Paul Allen Museum [Music] I'm gonna park right here there we go all sorts of cool airplanes painted on the wall flying heritage okay so here's the deal I am picking up an airplane project beginning a very long trip home and a u-haul trailer that makes noise when I turn it on and turn it off anyway so I called yesterday got my spat 7 project loaded and basically the museum opens at 10:00 but they're gonna let me in and do a little bit of ackerman cam for you figure out what happened what's going all the the museum says Paul Allen passed away it's a deal last year Paul collected a lot of tanks and guns and cannons and all that kind of stuff so anyway they're gonna meet me here at the door open early and that must be Jill you got to be dill well you're worth a hug anyway yeah good good Oh Scott you know are you guys sorry man good to see did I not see you here the last time I was here okay I'm so sorry to hear about Paul and you know they I think he got a mansion at the living legends thing that I was at recently so no NBC and you know the living legends of aviation Beverly Hills I think he was then that wasn't me I think [Music] get a gift shop this this here hasn't changed much since I was here it's been a long time since I was here cool oh my god I am this is my first stop on a 3,000 mile journey back to Florida in that u-haul you know and I'm like you know I would not ask my employees to do anything I would not do so now I met ya you were here the last time I was here I've been here forever you have been here forever okay see ya well I appreciate you spending the time allowing me to come in for everybody else does you know although there might have been a reason they didn't want to have me here when the normal public was so so you know I'm kind of you know doing a little thing here for my Facebook YouTube fans or whatever and so you know I was started here about Paul and you know and there's probably a lot of speculation as to what's going on so you know maybe you could fill us in a little bit about you know what's happening and where there where the collections going yeah I had heard rumors they weren't gonna fly anything and we're working on anything anymore but it sounds to me like maybe that there is oh no don't believe what you hear okay good we're we're continuing as normal um so before poll passed away and that was a tragic thing for all of us he was 65 was oh my god I'm 65 that's scary thank you so we transition into a public charity okay and so that was a big administrative thing that's good so that was kind of in his his will yeah I was in the state planning and there's a yeah so we became a public charity we have exactly the same funding as I stand here today as we would have all still with us haha right we're flying as many planes as we will plan to fly always some restorations going on that I can't talk about all around the world I'm sure I'm canoeing yeah yeah I guess so yeah wait we can uh we're here to Paul was very proud of this place he's very passionate about this place it's a wing in it continue his legacy good well like I said I have been here in a while as anything really changed or oh what an insult it changes everyday to me everyday okay good so let me tell you the short story is that we added a third big hangar as part of that we did additions to the other two hangars and we added a lot of new artifacts hmm so I think since you were here last I remember one hand were the p-47 and there was a few tanks I was probably this next one oh yeah so the scene hangar 1 you hang we have a wonderful educational interactive exhibit on the causes of war the only one the whole wide world which is in the back that is first hanger so we have amazing new things that you have not seen oh we should look that's part of the reason I'm here is to promote the place because you can see it on video but you know you really got to come and see them first as well so one of our kind of goals is to you know have new things but we'd like people when they come in to say oh that's changed so sure and just shorten even beyond just moving the furniture yeah so we're starting this is the hanger that was obviously our first one open in 2008 and so what's changed in here well in the very short term what we did last year is we we've added military vehicles over the last few years and we did one of the one of the things that our visitors said is they wanted to get closer to the planes of attacks mm-hmm and what we've been kind of sniffy and didn't want people touching right so but having talked to and looked at other tank museums out around the world you can't do much damage to attack there's no pitot tube to go chewingum yeah that's right yeah so we we took the step that basically tanks that don't have lots of sticky out bits on them bro you can come up close to so that's great he freed the tanks of this good and we added the thing right in front of you is a t54 the most part of Sherman no it's a it's a Soviet in okay oh yeah 50 40 55 were the most produced tanks in history they are all is all the Eastern Bloc countries had been so we added that so you just want to talk about yeah yeah yeah yeah just do a quick walk around oh my god well I'm looking at the po2 here which is awesome I've got one I think there's only three in the United States that I have not okay although shame shame shame you got a tailwheel on it don't tell me you have brakes too okay yeah there you go okay that's cool yeah so I need to restore mine at some point with us anymore we did some oral histories okay if you want to see the video you have to come and see I'm gonna go offline here for that's pretty cool video somebody who just pays $18 but for a distinguished guest okay are you gonna let me work on the plane oh yeah no we're gonna go in the bomb bay okay be 25 yeah and the two things I like to point out in here are just the ridiculous attention to original detail it's awesome color coding numbering you know in something in the plane that nobody ever gets to see yeah that is awesome that you allowed to ruin our when you come here it was a very easy person to work for he just absolutely turn to the correct okay it's interesting because I actually bought a wire marking machine specifically to do it because these days they read the text this way on the wire and in the old days they used to read it this way it cost me 30 grand for the wire marker Mission Valley yeah see I don't have all the little stamps and stuff so I feel you got me beat okay this is this is the best in the world yeah and of course like yours it works so so Paul wanted absolute originality and for it to work as it used to and of course yeah anyway so all our planes are that good that is good and how often do you fly this we've been playing with how many public performances to do uh-huh and so this year we're gonna do three medium sized ones of course they haven't maintenance flights another right other flights going on so we have we do lots of little ones and turned out people stopped coming because we didn't have many planes it wasn't much for show yeah we found out some bang for the buck you got yeah so now I know the happy medium world yeah and so at the moment were at three see how it goes what kind of a turnout you get our biggest events like 4,500 5,000 I hate to tell an aviation person do you know what our biggest event is o tankfest Northwest which is on Memorial weekend tell me about the i-16 here so this was one of the New Zealand ones correct and I just I got one and actually you know people don't have the appreciation for these things because these things were built in Russia from original fricken grex and stuff you know correct and you know I was very fortunate to get one from the CAF Fair recently and I'm looking forward to picking it up towards the end of the year you know he's long gone when I first started there was a veteran who lived here who had been in the Spanish Civil War know where it's where they first started from yeah and he came here I remember him saying in his broken English that plane is very very dangerous come down three times unintentionally in one of them and you know that was an honor unfortunately he it's long gone I think anyway so if you haven't been here before you know we know I have been here blower oh yeah yeah okay yeah I mean we so we're not going to talk about them now that looks like something from World War one yeah so what we based fighters and then we have and we 60% of what we go 70 percent is World War two but we we we have intent and we've already started we have we have Korea Vietnam the first Gulf War that's kind of good for you I cut the end off propellers at the end of World War two I collect a few early airliners helicopters and some Korean Jets and after that I have zero interest because I know you guys are more into you know telling the history and the stories that guy said what I'm trying to do is use the history of flight to teach people about themselves bringing the past into the present instead of just bringing the past you know just regurgitating information and stuff so so I've got a little anyway at some point when I I'll put you on the list on my grand opening okay you know we have many unique to private collections pieces we have many pieces.we so in general what what's what's the color what's the kind of philosophy you know we kind of find interesting things but in general we're after the the most iconic planes and historically important and technologically significant so there's three solely to criteria so with Paul gone do you still have assets to acquire things well that one's in oh no he's not oh yeah I mean we're still looking at acquiring things okay okay great but the good thing is we've been doing this a long time and so we have most of what Paul would want to work most logical we have a much smaller place than you it's fantastic it's high classes definitely resist export it's beautiful but it's it is in all seriousness much smaller than your place and so we have limits really it seems like yeah yeah I'm going to build a lot bigger so anyway so I mean like what this is the only two in private hands or we're a public charity now yeah the non-governmental v2 in the World Bank knows where did that come out of that came out of England it was a strange story it was they cut the front off a Lancaster shoved it on a link and used it for testing engines so very early pieces I've got a whole airplane so people get to peek inside and that's pretty cool I better take a quick peek yeah this is great radio operator pretty cool single pilot airplane I don't know if you all knew that yeah that's a thin fuselage you know but it's really all you need b-17 but it's in many pieces so we just have two pieces off to your right that is a bull tar oh yeah is that still up at the Arlington Airport yeah y'all still have a lot of stuff in storage in there we had this is kind of a German tank or something top or whatever oh it's silly this is a we want to do up through the first Gulf War modern American and British royal and our stirrings have secret armor they you know they have composite armor uh-huh and so you can't own one and we like to own things not borrow things but this is a Abram it's not an Abrams tank is it because we can't own one but it's a train car built for April taxes and it's a wonderful educational thing we have fun we have tankers come in and kids can climb up inside they tell you how everything worked unreal now I saw a Japanese insignia on this so and was I right world war wine I mean looks like they had smaller tank they built bigger tanks at the end of the war getting towards the end of the war but most of the bigger tanks were kept in the home islands for the innovation and most of the tanks that were out on the you know on the islands this was on Guam yeah a big tank would have been yeah worthless on the thing cuz of you know you weren't dealing with other big tanks because we certainly didn't have them you know they were looking for protection from infantry and being able to go up around the hills and through the gullies and stuff but then you know when they woke the sleeping dragon and the US came it brought Sherman tanks to the islands hmm with thick armor and 75 millimeter guns and it was no contest it's interesting to have a compare and country absolutely and so here is a natural and you know what I found is when we used to have absolutely pristine restoration projects that were sitting there blah blah blah like the po2 over there okay and people basically you know they walk by and they're looking at him but if you had an airplane that was uncovered there was a project that was far more interest so it's so it's kind of rigorous things but it's like oh you got to buzz bombs oh the feasts are one the we or the woman version cuz Hanna Reich did the testing with him oh my god that would have been a frickin wild ride especially the lunch oh my god and so what was the difference between the two other than the cocktail and these are wood wings as I remember correct yeah we actually found this young man is not young anymore was 16 in 1945 and he was on the program they started you out and gliders that's as far as he got but he had done the training and it was amazing because he was 16 back then and now he's much older but he remembers we got a lot of tape on him going through the the exit sequence you know and he did it in German in income I know why she could do your two times table you could remember from prior tender garden well he remembered this like he'd being drilled into his oh my god it was really on the I've gotta just the kind of little replica reproduction mat or you know the vertical on steel and that thing they actually what they would do is they would unlatch something and they would somehow like I can't remember they kick the engine that no no they would unlatch the front and then they would pull a drag chute and the back end would go off and it would come down and they would save the engine and the guy would go sailing out the front and he would pull his parachute I mean oh I oh yeah cool you got all the engines I've just got a share I've got one cool I've got a I've got a post-war GE version of this that they built there was about probably 25 30 percent bigger and the guy that I had it before me said they got a run and so at some point I'd like to get it out on the ramp and oh my god and I just have to mention here you know people I tell people I don't there's nothing that I don't collect I don't intend to fly except this [Laughter] these are wonderful machines the technology and history but that's some level they're they're they're weapons and we don't provide any contact yes and the other thing was he was talking about was younger people these are just big objects and they walked by two or three and then they tend to go to their cell phone so how do we we need to address both of those and so after a lot of time we came up with exhibit behind us which is called the causes of war and we worked with all the major museums Imperial War Museum in England the The Dresden Museum the the Canadian Museum of War and talk to them all and they all said oh we haven't done it exhibit on the causes of war number one because it's very controversial and two it's just very complicated hmm but have at it so we've got a lot of help and encouragement and here in Everett Washington is the only exhibit on the planet on the causes of war all right well we will take a quick little peek here it's very interactive so the main attractor the main glorious Content area is here these are eight ninety eight inch touchscreens well I'll show you a little bit in a minute example but they can show one or and they feature eight wards from the Revolutionary War to the first Gulf War is World War one they all have some common elements and what they and we work with a professor who'd written books on the causes of war there's a section on the causes of war there's a section on the main events and each each there's a section on what the results of war including the bad things yeah more usually produces bad things Paul always believed in not focusing on the bad things but talking about we're putting them in context mm-hmm well that is cool and I like the way you know the any resize can actually operate the thing I mean here's how you pick your war but but at some point what it'll do is also each person can have a panel but at some point if nobody uses it all goes back to us it defaults by my chronology right revolutionary the first Gulf War but you can pick any good for you yeah Fatboy and little more in fat man oh great also documents uh-huh and these are two ultra rare documents we don't have the originals on display because right this first is written by Albert Einstein to President Roosevelt and it basically says oh there could be a problem and it looks like the Germans might be doing something whoa and what year is this it's 1930 1939 Wow we're starting so this you know this by itself didn't start I might have a project whose one right one of the one of the things that did and then this is the essentially a diary kept by the copilot of the Enola Gay uh-huh written as they were flying along oh we've got some wit transcribed so you know basically you know turn left at the end you know certainly tie proof of this experience was more than anyone human had ever thought possible I live 100 years I never quite got these few minutes out of my mind sounds a little corny but no no we're really in the moment this is written in the moment yeah how's the feet over Hiroshima and watching something you just can't believe happening all to that's kind of lived in Orlando and I got a chance to go out to dinner with him once and he came over and I did Miami want to have the museum there of course I don't have any documents like this but I do have a real b-29 signed by Paul Tibbets wow that's that's pretty good yeah and what was the guy's thing who's the Bombardier anyways signatures on the side of my b-29 these possums was on these are these are ultra high fidelity replicas they're awesome those are awesome so this is the most popular thing in the whole exhibit this and several of the things you have multiple stations so this is basically that the the simple stories it sets the scenario for you and then here you go so what they do is they said it's got sound effects and whatever so that these are not real historical yeah because there's too much baggage it says yeah so they use historical elements in real situations and then essentially their advisors this is like a TV show right you can have a military political or diplomatic adviser something happens so this this is anyway that's what that is it goes on you're under time pressure there are multiple things that can happen you have to make decisions I'm get through it it's deliberately law because life is very complicated in there and you can see it goes on and now we're out of time I wish through it it we're done you can't go back everything made a mistake there's a panic button yeah this tells you how you did what all the consequences with you were how you did relative to other people and if you put in your email to share yourself it'll it'll it'll send you a little huh and Washington will offer you a job yeah so this is about nuclear proliferation so this is a nuclear real nuclear vietnam-era nuclear weapon and you see the cheap theatrical within their eyes they yeah no it's great no no yeah it's awesome yeah it's good I have a similar little deal of my place that does not current interactive on nuclear testing and is about so now is the museum and we're going to talk about the the people in war sorry I just week I'm just rebooting them hmm it's got an update it needs so basically in here you can find out people's stories so this is you know famous people key figures there's section on on soldiers there's also a section on women and a section on kids and you can pick any of these sections and then and find them lots of and so they cam it of things from a little drummer boy in you know the American Civil War up through a gay soldier in the first Gulf War a home range of and we have people our participants who were who you know and who were victims children you know stories famous stories and you can pick one and then you you know you find some of them have video and some don't some just have stories and this was an idea that the sort of taken from Dresden German Museum unusual artifacts to sort of get your attack like if you were a doctor in the Civil War that is cutting legs off genuine Civil War application that's pretty cool ours yeah it's called trench shot you know what if you're a Roman soldier you whittled your your spear if you're a woman you just I'll be darned the noisemaker that is freakin cool and and uh you know bells are so iconic and for a broken Bell wonderful and then these are espionage in World War two these are real artifacts so this is an exploding rat do you know where says it's a real SOE I think I dated one of those ones so what you do is so here's the brilliant plan okay we get some rats we euthanize them we stuff and full of explosives we've put them in a crate we drop them off to the French Resistance the French Resistance puts them in the basements of German occupied buildings the janitors find them they shovel them into the furnace the furnace blows up the building blows down and jomi great idea I can't believe I didn't figure d-day no and then this is much more serious well no that was total deadly serious but this much more successful pigeons were very important still in world totally so you got your pigeon in in in London and you want to get it to the French Resistance so you have a little baby this is a real artifacts to a pigeons are real that's a real pigeon parachute and a harness made out of burlap and you see you drop all these little pigeons in the field that they put the little message on there yeah on the foot and we go and they was so cool it was deadly serious in in France in in the 40s having a pigeon that you got shocked they didn't assume you're gonna eat that plump little pigeon they assumed you were going to send messages to the wrong enemy I'll be doing well this is wonderful the alerts are something like it the world and you go that's a pretty cool Sun reflected back to that rat story you know and like I said I was dating that one and I tell you what at some point it got a little bit heated and the relationship exploded I'm just saying where did this 163 came from at one point I actually had kind of almost had a deal with the Australian War Memorial to get one that they had this is from Britain that was away a long time Wow good for them and that was the cannon yeah it's an MK 108 to sir not a machine gun it's a machine cannon yeah oh my gosh and took this is Paul's idea what he said once you compare it with a 50 cows it got a piece and and this had just what have two of those are I'm looking at the holes I'm so it had two of them yeah so this thing was basically designed to just launch off and only had like six or eight minutes of fuel and would basically you know they would wait till the b-17s and the V 24s were overhead and they would just launch him and go up there and just do the best they could and when the engine quit and they ran out of fuel they glided back to the landing gear drops off on the deal that they take off and they just drop the gear and then they land on a skid fascinating now the shortlist of planes that come in weeks does not want to fly is the anyone missing no no but actually believe it or not I swear to God when I first bought my b-29 which was actually the one that dropped Scott Crossfield on his Mach to run that's the fertile Myrtle I got the original airplane it was a NACA airplane and when I was working potentially to get that 163 out of the Australian War when we're out of Canberra I'm thinking how wouldn't it be cool not to fly it but at least a drop and glide it yeah have they flown yeah oh yeah that's pretty cool no pretends to jet to rocket awesome little pollen we'll look at the other ones over there on that yeah so the museum's open yeah tanks okay I'll just we'll do a quick pass here well what's the most you know you think of military vehicles in the first Gulf War scuds so he's a scud missile it these all drive they fire if you were to come to tankfest on Memorial Day weekend not to be missed every year so this is an American oh it's a Soviet okay oh my god that's good I think I used to date one of those too self-contained you to run around the desert stop by an oasis and lob that thing out and huh all the American and brief Special Forces running all over the desert trying to find this is a German heads-up late war vehicle that driving - hmm pikas a six out of five I've got a basket case New Guinea project that could be the as I got an original engine in it it does no oh it's got a 1833 that we always try and have the original engine right all of these but this does not yeah and the storm and I can't but I'm fascinated to to eventually see your home-built Gavilan mosquitos oh that's an early one that's cool now of course and we so another truth in advertising normally we paint the plane in the colours in which it was last in but this was in the soviet air force because it's the right model to be a flying tiger we have painted to honor the Flying Tigers yeah that's awesome so like you we have an interest in planes from around the world so this intellection we have of flying British American German Japanese and Russian / Soviet hmm that's awesome that's a great final little airplane - I've got some c15 early Alison's but at some point I would love to get one of the early long nosed p-40s that was built in there now is this a 2 or a 10 it's a - ok it's a 2 so it's got the wooden wing and so tons of armor plate up all around the engine so it bumps and holes yeah this is literally armed the cowling it's literally armor plate and you can see these planes yeah these were you know low-level attack airplanes and so they they beefed them up the best they could they so when did the tens come out because the tens were an aluminum wing and they flew him up through the Cold War early Cold War era yeah for sure yeah no that's great now I think I think there was probably a few airplanes that I had that Paul would have loved to have had - for I will lick like a 10 - 5 and a couple of things like that you know the mattress okay I've got I've got I got a great set of wings that came out of Russia and I've got kind of a project that somebody had done up in Canada I think at this point this is a very difficult labor and capital intensive airplane to rebuild because of all the different things it needs and it would probably believe me if I got to afford it just a buy one that somebody's already put together cool well oh let's go down the cool row here yeah we'll go down around you [Music] you

Channel: Kermit Weeks

Views: 117,983

Rating: 4.9331012 out of 5

Keywords: Kermit Weeks, Fantasy of Flight, Flying Heritage Museum, Paul Allen's Collection, Paul Allen, Paul Allen's Flying Heritage Collection, Adrian Hunt, Jill Taylor, Military Tanks, Armored Vehicles, Causes of War, Vintage Aircraft

Id: aJiSCbCHTgo

Length: 37min 27sec (2247 seconds)

Published: Wed May 15 2019