aviation

Congrats to newly minted commercial pilot Eskil Skute

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Here’s a heartwarming story

In 2013, the Stuck at the Airport team attended Aviation Geek Fest in Seattle.

The annual event was put together by the Boeing Future of Flight aviation center in Everett, WA, Airline Reporter founder David Parker Brown and Seattle’s Museum of Flight.

Among the attendees that year were Per Skute and his 12-year-old son, Eskil. They had traveled to the event from Norway.

After meeting them and hearing about their adventures, which included losing their luggage on the way over, we told Eskil that if he wrote a report about his trip, we’d post it on this site.

He did write a report. And although he was not yet fluent in English, his enthusiasm was clear as a bell. So we posted it as written, with just a few edits for length.

Here’s an excerpt:

“My trip to Seattle was totally awesome!!!… We where a lot at the future of flight. We where a lot up on the roof and watched planes land and take off. We saw the Dreamlifter take off. That whas very cool:) next day we where going to the Boeing 737 factory. We where first at the Museum of Flight. I loved museum of flight. The sr-71blackbird and mig 21fishbed and more…

When we comed to the boeing factory we where taked up to a Big room with three Big tv’s. We where not allowed to take pictures inside. When i comed out to where They builded boeing 737 i where like woow. It was huge. I saw a lot of airplanes in Lines ahead. I saw sas, westjet, hainan airlines,northwest airlines and united. It was hot inside.

Becoming a commercial pilot

In 2022, we learned that Eskil had continued to follow his interest in aviation. His dad wrote to tell us Eskil was on his way to Texas to complete training to be a pilot.

And last week, a note arrived from Eskil’s dad letting us know that Eskil is now an official pilot. It said, in part:

“Wanted to let you know that we (my wife and myself) had the pleasure of joining Eskil on his first flight as a real pilot for BRA in Sweden on an ATR-72. We met you when Eskil was 12 years old and already quite determined to be a pilot. It wasn’t until 3 years ago that he couldn’t let his dreams just pass.

As a parent it is extremely satisfying to watch your kids fulfill their dreams. So this has been a great day.

Just wanted to give a little thank you for your article 12 years ago that was one of the many small things that pushed him in the right direction.

We’re delighted to have been a small part of this big story.

Congratulations, Eskil! We’re very proud of you!

Will the Bomber Gas Station’s B-17 fly?

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The Stuck at the Airport road trip team visited Oregon recently to check on the status of a World War II-era B-17 Flying Fortress that served for years as a roadside attraction along the highway in Milwaukie, OR, not far from Portland.

The non-profit B-17 Alliance is restoring the B-17 in Hangar “C” at Oregon’s historic McNary Field/Salem Municipal Airport and we were delighted to get a tour.

You can learn more about the project, and the history of this airplane on the B-17 Alliance Foundation’s site and in the piece we put together for The Points Guy site. But here’s a short version of the Gas Station Bomber story.

Milwaukie, Oregon gas station owner Art Lacey purchased a decommissioned B-17 bomber, one of the iconic four-engine “Flying Fortresses” used by the U.S. Army Air Force in World War II, in 1947 and used the “Lacy Lady” to turn his service station into a roadside attraction.

Into the late 1950s, motorists could climb up into the airplane for a look-around while their automobiles got filled up and serviced and then have a meal at the adjacent Bomber Restaurant.

The gas station closed in 1991 and in 2014 the B-17 Alliance moved the plane to a hangar at Salem Municipal Airport for restoration.

The group estimates that in addition to thousands of hours of volunteer time, it will take more than $6 million to get the airplane airworthy by, perhaps, 2037.

Art + Flight at Seattle’s Museum of Flight

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(Handpainted Mural by Joe Nix)

Seattle’s Museum of Flight is already well-known as the largest nonprofit air & space museum.

Now the sprawling aviation museum is making a bid for being well-known for commissioning and exhibiting art.

The Museum of Flight’s Art+Flight project, running through January 7, 2024, includes dozens of artworks in all mediums by over 30 artists.

Included are three newly commissioned murals and an installation drawn from the Museum’s own art collection.

Here are just a few pieces included in the show.

Aura (below), by RYAN! Feddersen depicts the scale of human-made space junk that orbits Earth.

Viewers are invited to try and spot 8 of the estimated 27,000-35,000 pieces of space junk currently being tracked. The list includes a camera, a glove, a pair of pliers, a spatula, a thermal blanket, a tool bag, a toothbrush, and a wrench.

Jeffrey Veregge mixes Native American traditions with contemporary techniques in his “Salish Geek” style. He has two pieces in the Juried Group Show: We Chose (Apollo Program), and Re-Entry (Space Shuttle Program).

These pieces, Valenci Four and Thorania, are by glass sculptor Rik Allen.

And Jhun Carpio’s Artemis SLS Rocket is made with wooden stirrers and toothpicks.

In addition to the works on display, the Museum of Flight’s Art + Flight project is hosting an artist-in-residence, and presenting arts programs, artist lectures, an interactive mural project, and plenty of other activities through January 7, 2024.

The Stuck at the Airport arts teams is heading to the exhibit this weekend, so stay tuned for more images from the show.

*All photos courtesy Museum of Flight

From the SFO Museum: Matchbooks & Air Sickness Bags

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The SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) has more than 150,000 objects related to the history of commercial aviation and to the airline industry.

As part of its 52 Objects series this year, they’ve pulled out this matchbook showing the route map for Continental Airlines.

Squeezing as much as possible onto a promotional item is nothing new. A while back we found this air sickness bag in the SFO Museum database which could be used for scoring a gin rummy game and/or turning in your film for processing.

First 787 Dreamliner test plane now an attraction in Japan

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The first Boeing 787 Dreamliner test plane, which first flew December 15, 2009, is now the main attraction at an aviation theme park called Flight of Dreams that opened this week in Japan at Chubu Centrair International, an airport built on an artificial island south of Nagoya.

I had a chance to visit the attraction shortly before it opened and learn about this unique project.

Courtesy Flight of Dreams

The four-story complex is built between the airport’s two terminals and welcomes visitors to a Flight Center with high-tech and hands-on aviation experiences, including a look inside the 787’s cockpit and a virtual tour of Boeing’s Everett, WA factory.

Many of Boeing’s Japanese aerospace partners are based in the Nagoya area and produce an estimated 35% of all the parts that go into the 787 aircraft.

That includes the main wing and fuselage sections, which are so big that they must travel from Centrair to Boeing’s U.S. assembly plants in Everett, WA and North Charleston, S.C. in Boeing’s 747-400 Large Cargo Freight Dreamlifters.

Boeing donated the first 787 built to Nagoya’s Centrair International Airport in 2015 to honor the role the airport and the people of the region played – and continue to play – in the Dreamliner’s development and production. And instead of just parking the aircraft on the airport grounds, Centrair decided to build a destination aviation theme-park around the plane.

The second and third floors of the facility, dubbed Seattle Terrace, overlook the 787 and include branches of some of some of Seattle’s iconic shops and restaurants, including Starbucks (of course), Pike Brewing, Fran’s Chocolates, Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, Pike Brewing, and several others.

 

As with all theme parks, visitors exit through the souvenir shop, which is itself quite the attraction.

The first Boeing Store outside the United States is here and is stocked with around 500 aviation-related items, including furniture and artwork made from re-purposed airplane parts and many Boeing-branded items that will only be sold in this store.

Learn more about the attraction – and see a slide show of 29 photos in my story about the Flight of Dreams attraction on USA TODAY.