Flap At The Museum Of Flight -- Some Turbulence Over Plans To Acquire Classic Planes

CUTLINE: BENJAMIN BENSCHNEIDER / SEATTLE TIMES: THIS NAVY CRUSADER JET HAS BEEN LEFT OUTSIDE THE MUSEUM DESPITE A LOAN AGREEMENT PROMISING IT WOULD BE KEPT INDOORS.

CUTLINE: HOWARD LOVERING -- MUSEUM DIRECTOR

The acquisition of two historic planes key to the Museum of Flight's future as a ``world-class'' institution is now in doubt.

One is the long-awaited crown jewel of the whole collection, the oldest flying B-17 bomber. The other is a ``Pusher'' flown by Wright Brothers rival Glenn Curtiss in 1910, apparently the oldest authentic plane of any type that is not already locked up by another museum.

In both cases, potential financial backers were led to believe the museum had already lined up the purchases. But the plane owners - both Seattle businessmen who had problems with the museum - have made no firm commitments.

The Museum of Flight is a glass-and-steel showcase for more than 30 aircraft, from a combination car-plane to the aircraft that helped start United Airlines to an Apollo space-training module. The $27 million gallery and attached Red Barn, Boeing's first building, were visited by more than 400,000 people last year at the south end of Boeing Field.

While the museum relies primarily on private donors, it also has received help from taxpayers. King County donated a $1.3 million piece of land for the museum site, and the federal government has put in $200,000 for operating expenses.

Now museum officials are asking Snohomish County and the National Park Service to help build an annex at Paine Field near Everett to house an exhibit of the first Boeing 707, 727 and 747. They also plan to seek state and city money.

Seeking to build a collection of aircraft to rival the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Flight predicted in fund-raising brochures that it ``will achieve international acclaim.''

But without a big endowment or major federal financing, that ambition rests heavily on the museum's ability, as its former archivist Ria Willard put it, ``to make friends with these old men who own these beautiful old aircraft.''

The B-17 wasn't bequeathed to the Museum of Flight because its owner had differences with the museum director, according to Willard and another associate of the owner, who died last month.

For 10 years, the museum has been promising the public it would acquire a B-17, which gained its

fame in World War II. The gallery was designed with the bomber in mind as the centerpiece, according to museum director Howard Lovering.

``It would be the priority aircraft simply because it means so much to the exhibit and to the Northwest,'' Lovering said. ``You could tell 100 story lines with it.''

Five years ago, in Arizona, Seattle businessman and pilot Robert Richardson bought the ideal one - the oldest Boeing-built B-17 still flying.

The museum has already raised $290,000 from more than 400 donors to buy Richardson's plane. Many of them were small givers who paid $17 for ``B-17 bonds.''

Museum officials said they'd hoped Richardson would sell it to them at his cost, $350,000.

``I figured he'd eventually end up giving it to us,'' said Don Van Blaricom, vice president of the museum executive committee and a former Bellevue city councilman.

But attorney Dale Kremer said Richardson left no provision in his will to donate the ``flying fortress'' or to sell it for less than its market value today, estimated as high as $1 million.

As an alternative to Richardson's classic, the museum is considering a B-17 that was ditched in a New Guinea swamp.

``It's not the one we advertised, and we would have to explain it to the people who bought the bonds, but I think they'd understand,'' said Victor Seely, a consultant and former senior curator. ``There'd be years of work on the one in New Guinea, but at least it's the real McCoy.''

Richardson was not isolated from the Museum of Flight. He served on its executive committee for the past five years. But associates said he became alienated.

``He had a personality problem with Howard Lovering,'' said Ray Lipps, vice president of Richardson's airplane-parts company, University Swaging Corp. ``He felt he was kind of whitewashed when he started making inquiries about where museum money was going. He was shut out.''

Lipps and Willard - who worked once a week for Richardson over the past year - also said Richardson didn't want his B-17, now stored in New York, taken out of flying condition and hung in the gallery. Richardson loved to fly it, said Willard, who worked as museum bookkeeper and archivist before becoming Richardson's aide.

Richardson didn't want the plane to go to the museum unless Lovering were replaced, Willard said. ``He said, `Well, if it does go to the museum, I want them to pay the full market price for it.'''

She said Richardson felt Lovering sometimes showed a lack of respect for him at board meetings and embarrassed him.

The owner of the Curtiss Pusher was more concerned with the museum's design than with its director.

Ken Blais of Des Moines runs a business less than 10 miles from the Museum of Flight. But he said he's thinking of giving his artifact to the Smithsonian instead.

``It's a big glass building over there, and that bothers me no end,'' Blais said. ``It has advantages, the way they built it. But frankly, I'm very worried and cautious about my bird the way it would cook in the sun. . . . The fabric and bamboo would disintegrate.''

Described by former Museum of Flight curator Jay Spenser as ``incredible beyond belief,'' the Curtiss Pusher is part of a huge collection of planes, cars, engines, organs and thousands of antique items that Blais stores in a big metal shed near his business.

In a 1989 proposal for the museum to acquire the Blais collection, Spenser wrote that it ``would represent perhaps the single greatest boon this Museum ever received'' - a ``mini-Smithsonian . . . one of the finest private collections in existence.''

The museum, prematurely, went so far as to list the Curtiss Pusher in a recent fund-raising brochure as among those it had scheduled for restoration. Blais said he's never agreed to any such thing.

Blais said he made his feelings about a glass museum known to director Lovering and others years before it was built. But he said they were excited about erecting the gallery and wanted to win awards for its design, which they did.

``You've got this beautiful old bird like mine, you have to do everything you can to protect it,'' Blais said. ``As far as I'm concerned, with the millions of dollars that went into that place, they could have had a much better building without the glass.''

Blais also said the Smithsonian has better round-the-clock protection and surveillance, and it courts him almost monthly.

Though he could still change his mind, he said, ``that's really where the old bird should be, back there.''

Lovering, an urban planner hired 15 years ago to direct the foundation that eventually built the museum, said he was aware of Blais's concerns, but did not know Richardson was so displeased with him.

Lovering said he knew Richardson for 16 years as ``a generous, wonderful man,'' but never did really know what motivated him. Lovering considered himself a good friend, though, and thought Richardson was a big supporter of the museum because he spent so much time there.

He said he and Richardson did disagree over whether to decommission the B-17 and hang it up.

``Probably there's no more emotional issue in museums than whether you fly 'em or whether you afford 'em maximum protection,'' Lovering said.

Curator Seely said he sided with Richardson against the ``share of clipboard bureaucrats'' wanting to hang it up. ``I think if we're going to get the flying enthusiasts here, you can't have a 100 percent static exhibit.''

But Lovering insisted the hang-up wasn't the hang-up. He said Richardson was a great procrastinator who hated to sign documents, including any agreement to sell the plane to the museum at cost.

Lovering did agree they sometimes didn't get along in board meetings. He said Richardson constantly kibbitzed and he'd get angry sometimes over wasting time, while Richardson would get angry over not getting all his questions answered.

``I would prefer he not interrupt and tell stories about flying somewhere or something, but then again, he was Bob, and there was only one Bob,'' Lovering said.

Concerning Blais, Lovering said he assured him that the museum glass is treated to cut out 90 percent of harmful ultraviolet rays - making it at least as safe as the Smithsonian.

Lovering said he also offered to build a special hangar for Blais's bamboo-and-fabric plane to give it total protection while showing what the hangars of the period looked like.

Blais remains unconvinced.

Lovering, widely credited with bringing off the Grand Gallery project within budget, said he's done the best he could with limited money at the museum.

``I'm very proud of my record of preserving and protecting aircraft,'' he said.

But critics like Willard say the problems in nailing down the B-17 and Pusher deals show the museum is failing to deliver on important promises. There have been other examples.

The museum, for instance, borrowed a valuable Navy jet called a Crusader from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum three years ago and promised to store the jet indoors.

Instead, it has been left outdoors, rusting. The weather has reactivated once dormant corrosion.

The Smithsonian earlier this year threatened to demand the return of the jet, the prototype of a long line of Navy fighters in use after World War II.

Lovering grew sarcastic in response to questions about violating the Smithsonian loan agreement.

``Gee, that's a major scandal,'' he said. ``I hope you're losing sleep over that. That's just awful.''

He said no museum in the country can live up to a Smithsonian loan agreement.

``I would take exception to that,'' responded Bob Mikesh, senior curator at the national museum. ``The loan agreement clearly states that it'll be exhibited indoors and protected from the environment. We've never had this in the past where the purposes of the loan were misunderstood.''

But he said the Smithsonian recently agreed to let the Museum of Flight keep the jet under a plan to move it to a hangar at Paine Field for restoration.

``We're turning the other cheek in order to be cooperative,'' Mikesh said, terming the Smithsonian a friend and supporter of the Museum of Flight.

The Seattle museum counted on local supporters last summer for another project that former staff members say also suffered from a lack of follow-through.

Billed as ``the Trip of the Century,'' it was to be one of last year's major money-makers for the museum. The museum planned to sell flights on the supersonic Concorde from Seattle to London, along with seven days of activities, for $6,695.

But former staffers, including Willard, said the brochure advertising the package came out too late, in about May for the July event, and as a result, the charter didn't sell out.

About a third of the staff - 20 people - rode free to London to fill the empty seats.

Lovering said he was glad to be able to give the free flights to museum staff members, who paid their own way for the rest of the trip.

``I had the seats available, and I thought, `What a wonderful benefit,' '' he said.

Lovering said the Concorde visit broke even overall because a separate event - $1,250 excursion flights over the Pacific Ocean, called ``Flights to Nowhere'' - made money.

Preliminary figures reported in museum executive committee minutes said the Concorde trip ``realized substantial losses'' that were only partly offset by the excursion flights. But Lovering said the final figures, including attendance at a flight festival featuring the Concorde, show a profit of more than $100,000 for the museum.

``Concorde was probably our greatest success in 1989,'' he said.

As for the remaining challenges of the B-17 and the Curtiss Pusher, Lovering said he is still hopeful that the museum can acquire the planes, and it will continue to try.