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View Full Version : Wendell-Williams Aviation & Cypress Sawmill Museum



jhefner
August 29th, 2011, 08:34
The boys and I visited this museum last week in Paterson, Louisiana; a good mixture of aviation and steam in one small museum, and a good look into the "Golden Age of Aviation."

I uploaded my pictures into my facebook account and I am posting the link here. But I don't think you need a facebook account to see them; if you do, let me know and I will repost them in my webshots account:

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.air-racing-history.com%2Faircraft%2FWedell%2520Williams%2520N o.44.htm&h=5AQCdHgIs

At the end of the album, I included some screenshots from FS9 of the Monsted-Vincent Starflight from rarewings.com. This plane was part of the collection when it was at the Harry P. Williams Memorial Airport in Paterson. But Hurricane Andrew flipped it on it's back and damaged it along with the rest of the museum; the remains were moved to a storage hanger only to have both destroyed by Hurricane Rita. Rarewings.com gives us all that appears to be left of it now; the museum itself was moved to it's current, more accessible location on Hwy 90.

I looked around online for the Wendell-Williams racers, and could not find one. The Thompson Trophey racers in general are sparcely represented; I found a Travel Air "Mystery Ship" from way back in FS98, a Laird Super Solution, and of course the GeeBee Model Z. I did find a good three-view that covered the differences in all three aircraft, and good detail photographs of the one actual surviving example (the ones in the Paterson museum are replicas built by an individual in NC); so I filed them away as a possible future project.

-James

jmig
August 29th, 2011, 14:52
I need to stop by there. I often pass through. I visited the museum years ago when it was still at the airport.

Thanks for the heads up.