Wings and Wheels

January

Business Aviation Day (1-19-2013)

Join us as we celebrate the role that aviation has played in business over the past century.

Business aviation day will feature aircraft that were or are used for corporate travel, such as the museum's own Lockheed Lodestar.

February

Chopper Day (2-16-2013)

Chopper day means helicopters & motorcycles!

We will be welcoming helicopters and motorcycles to the museum for a day of fun for the whole family! Past guests have included the LifeFlight air ambulance, the SkyFox News Helicopter, a Vietnam-Era UH-1 Huey, a US Coast Guard Dauphine, and many more!

March

Red Tails Exhibit (3-16-2013)

The Commemorative Air Force (CAF) Red Tail Squadron will welcome visitors at its RISE ABOVE Traveling Exhibit at the 1940 Air Terminal Museum located at the William P. Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas. Also joining the exhibit on Saturday will be CAF Gulf Coast Wing's B-17 "Texas Raiders". There will be rides available for purchase during this time.

April

Piper Day (4-20-2013)

Piper Aircraft started out in 1927 as the Taylor Brothers Aircraft Manufacturing Company, the same Taylor would give its name to the Taylorcraft, or T-Craft. These were pioneering days for aviation and for businessmen, and when the company, now called Taylor Brothers Aircraft Corporation, filed for bankruptcy in 1930, key investor William T. Piper bought it. A Harvard graduate, veteran of the Spanish-American War, veteran of WWI, and oil industry engineer, he would become known as the "Henry Ford of Aviation". His first role at the new Taylor Aircraft Company was secretary-treasurer, and Piper kept Clarence Gilbert Taylor in the role of President. The two shared a dream to open up aviation to the average American. In 1930 they produced an aircraft intended to encourage the growth of private aviation: the E-2 Cub.

You read that correctly. It wasn't until after Piper and Taylor parted ways in 1935, after a spat over modifications that produced a J-2 model, that the venerable J-3 Cub was produced. Taylorcraft Aircraft Company formed that year as well and would produce an aircraft that served with the J-3s in WWII, and under various reorganizations, continue to produce affordable small aircraft into the 2000s in exotic places such as LaGrange and Brownsville, TX. The J-3 however was a landmark aircraft that has been so loved that new variants are continuing to be produced as LSAs with modern touches.

Piper's company was not without its own reorganizations, with its founder replaced in 1946 with Chrysler ex-exec William Shriver. William Piper would regain control of his namesake company in 1950 and re-energize it, helped by a new contract for Cubs for the Korean War.

By this time Piper Aircraft had acquired Stinson Aircraft and developed one of their designs as the PA-23 Apache. The Apache would start a trend that Piper is known for, honoring the great native peoples of the Americas by giving their names to craft that would cross the sky: Apache. Pawnee. Commanche. Cherokee. Aztec. Navajo. Cheyenne. Seneca.

The Cub line continued as the Super Cub, with aircraft such as the Caribbean, Colt, Pacer and Tri-Pacer deriving from it.

Our own Raffle Plane, the Museum's sixth giveaway of a wonderful vintage airplane, is a beautifully maintained 1969 Piper Cherokee 140. N95244 may be our first to sell out tickets, thanks to the hard efforts of our volunteers to promote the event, the excellent quality of the plane inside and out, and healthy online sales that were not possible until this year. Find out more about N95244 on the website.

May

Learn to fly day (5-18-2013)

Many people from all walks of life learn to fly every day. It is a very fun and challenging hobby, or can be made into a career!

The EAA announced International Learn to Fly Day in 2009 with the aim of growing the pilot population and educating the public about the importance and value of the airports in their communities. Many people don't know what it takes to earn their wings. For many, flying is only something one daydreams about, because it is such an unknown, and it is up to pilots to invite others 'across the fence' and show them what it is all about. Airports as well are great unknowns, but they serve us and our communities - they are ours to visit too!

For Learn to Fly Day, we're inviting area flight schools and flying clubs to visit the original terminal building at Hobby Airport and help us remove the mystery about becoming a pilot. We've also invited our regional AOPA representative Yasmina Platt to join us.

June

Porsche 356 Day (6-15-2013)

Come on by the 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Houston Hobby Airport on Saturday, June 15 and join us for another Wings and Wheels! Every month we help make it possible to get up close to real planes and talk to real pilots at a busy commercial airport!

Spring is blooming all across central Texas, and beautiful flying days abound. Are you a pilot? Make the 1940 Air Terminal YOUR destination, and enjoy showing off your plane at the original terminal building for Houston Hobby Airport!

Any and all aircraft are welcome on our ramp, so in pure fly-in fashion, we are expecting a variety of privately-owned aircraft.

Or enjoy the warm sun (before it gets TOO warm) and drive on up. We will have the Lone Star 356 Club joining us with their beautiful 356-powered Porsches shining in the sun.

July

Raffle Day (7-20-2013)

Join us as we draw the winner of the raffle plane.

Buy a ticket today, and you could be the lucky winner!

August

Welcoming the CAF Houston Wing! (8-17-2013)

This month, we're welcoming the Commemorative Air Force, Houston Wing, from West Houston Airport (KIWS) to our ramp!

Look for their C-60A Lodestar "Goodtime Gal", joining our own Lockheed Model 18 Lodestar N31G on the ramp. "Goodtime Gal" is bringing a bunch of her friends too, so come on by and meet everyone!

Lockheed's beautiful Lodestar Model 18 was intended to compete with the DC-3, and while many were impressed into service for World War II, the C-60A models were purpose-built for the military.

The Museum's N31G started life as a C-60A in 1942, and flew for the advanced glider school in Long Beach before its stints at TACA Airlines and as an executive aircraft. The CAF Houston Wing's C-60A Lodestar was built in 1943 and served as a paratroop transport.

It will be great to have these siblings together once again on our own ramp.

September

TBD (9-21-2013)

October

TBD (10-19-2013)

November

TBD (11-16-2013)

December

HoustonSpotters & Museum Volunteer Appreciation Day (12-21-2013)

This month we turn our attention to those who turn their attention to airplanes and airports. If you love planes, we are right there with you! A plane spotter can be anyone from the families who enjoy Hobby's public viewing areas, to folks who like to jot down tail numbers, to those who improve their own craft photographing these flying craft. Why do you like to look at planes? Maybe you love refining your photgraphy techniques, and hope your shot is picked by a magazine or airline. Maybe you want to see how much of an airline's fleet you can see, and later compare notes with your fellow spotters. Maybe you just like watching these things take to the air, and share that enjoyment with your family.

HoustonSpotters.Net is a website dedicated to plane spotting in Houston.

HoustonSpotters day is all about plane spotting and photography. Ramp tours of Hobby will be arranged, and groups of people will be taken around the field to spot planes and take photos.

We also like to recognize the hard work our volunteers do all year for our museum, whether helping our monthly fly-ins come together, or staffing the museum the other 290-something days of the year.

Stop by the 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Houston Hobby Airport and let's see what flys in! We will have a few Ops tours scheduled so that you can see our great airport from a different angle. Be someone out standing in our field! Indoors, volunteer Michael Bludworth will entertain you with Houston aviation history and trivia! Brush up on those rare aircraft and fun facts, and he'll try to stump you!