(Fokker T-2 model aircraft)

Here’s a great airport exibit for avgeeks, model builders or anyone who loves marvelous, hand-crafted items and get to the pre-security area of the International Terminal at San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

(Douglas World Cruiser Chicago model aircraft)

From now through March 2027 (so you have some time to make your plans…) the Aviation Museum & Library at SFO is exhibiting 8 model aicraft from its collection, all created by Edward Chavez, who was a recognized master of scratch building within the model-making community.

In 1961, the owners of the Nut Tree Restaurant, a sprawling roadside dining, shopping and amusement attraction in Vacaville, CA that operated from 1921 to 1996, commissioned Chavez to build display models of renowned aircraft.

The commissions continued for 27 years.

(Northrop Gamma 2A Texaco Sky Chief model aircraft)

Edwin I. Power, Jr., a pilot and one of the restaurant’s owners who helped develop the adjacent Nut Tree Airport (still there and sporting an Observation Deck), had seen Chavez’s work at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. And in 1997 the SFO Museum acquired the majority of the models that Chavez and his occasional collaborator, Robert Fogg, had created for the restuarant over the years.

Magnificence in Miniature: The Nut Tree Airport Models of Edward Chavez is a free SFO Museum exhibit at SFO’ Aviation Museumn & Library, located pre-security, Departures Level 3 in the International Terminal

(Lockheed Model 5B Vega Winnie Mae model aircraft)

All images courtesy of the SFO Museum