Page 5 - May2019

Packing up the RAMWC
The airplanes, artifacts, and archives of the Royal Aviation
Museum of Western Canada are all packed up and safely
in storage. It was a major undertaking (to say the least)
and could not have been completed without the
museum’s employees, volunteers, and many friends who
stepped in to offer space and services. We thought we’d
share a bit about the process and where everything will
be housed for the next 18 months.

The museum’s inventory was dispersed to aviation firms
Packing up some of the museum aircraft models
around the James Richardson International Airport’s
Library and archives:
campus and to six locations outside of Winnipeg. The
museum’s compound near the St. Andrew’s airport was a All of the books, magazines, artwork, blueprints,
major storage destination, and with the exception of the and historical personal papers are now in the care
aircraft in the Bush Gallery, the museum was packed up of Magellan Aerospace in an area that is
and out of Hangar T-2 by October 31, 2018. The Bush temperature-controlled and behind its security
Gallery was a bit more of a complicated process, and perimeter. The non-paper artifacts in the library
those planes were moved by January 2019. and archives collection (cockpit instruments, gyros,

With the largest item being the Vickers Viscount (a 48- blowpots, etc.) are in semi-trailers at the St.
Andrew’s compound.
passenger commercial aircraft) and the smallest, being
packages of tiny nuts and bolts in the restoration shop, Restoration shop:
the scope of storage needs facing the museum team was
Everything in the restoration shop was packed up
huge. Lorne Roder, the museum project manager who
and taken to the St. Andrew’s compound. The
directed the museum’s exit from Hangar T-2, said that compound is providing secure storage for items
the unique nature of items and the varying characteristics
that do not require a controlled environment, such
of each storage offer made it necessary to customize the
as displays from SkyWays (the youth educational
acceptance of these offers in an equally unique way. For display area), items from the gift shop, furniture,
example, the fabric-covered aircraft needed to be stored
shop equipment, and a wide range of other items
inside a hangar; the largest of the museum’s airplanes
from the museum’s nooks and crannies.
needed a safe outdoor parking space; and other archival
material, such as the library and archive holdings, needed Where did all the planes go?
dry and temperature-controlled facilities.
Museum management initially hoped to slowly move all
of the contents of the museum to a single location;
however, it soon became evident that this would not be
possible. Thus, the search for storage locations began.
Once word got out into the aviation community, the
museum’s appeals were matched by unsolicited incoming
offers to help. Here’s where the major components of the
museum found temporary homes: