Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada facts for kids

The Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada (formerly the Western Canada Aviation Museum) is a museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The museum is temporarily closed for relocation, and is scheduled to reopen in 2021.

History

The Western Canada Aviation Museum was incorporated in 1974. In November of that year it put forward an application to the Federal government for a grant to set up a 19-acre (7.7 ha) site at St. Andrews Airport. However, the museum ended up in downtown Winnipeg near the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature. By the next year, the Museum had 25 military and civilian aircraft in its collection. In the mid-1980s, the museum moved to a former Transair hangar, T-2, at Winnipeg International Airport.

The museum developed a master plan in 2013 with the design firm Reich&Petch.

The museum received the Royal designation on December 19, 2014 to become the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada.

The museum closed its Ferry Road site in October 2018 after the lease on the hangar expired. However, following a grant from the federal government in July 2019, construction of a new 86,000-square-foot museum building began in May 2020. By November 2020, construction was more than half complete.

Exhibits

A fully enclosed flight deck to watch the landings and takeoffs at Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport is one of the other attractions. The collection is housed in an original Trans-Canada Air Lines aircraft hangar and includes a recreated terminal departure centre and several one-of-a-kind aircraft, historic military jets, bush planes, and commercial aircraft.

The Museum also houses an exhibit about Canadian Women in Aviation, flight simulators, a Black Brant Rocket (built in Manitoba by Bristol Aerospace), and other aviation memorabilia, such as a collection of first airmail covers (i.e. envelopes, including one signed by Charles Lindbergh and Orville Wright). In 2012, an exhibit displaying Canada's role in coastal patrol was opened.

Aircraft on display

Avrocar model

Lockheed Electra 10A "CF-TCC" in Trans-Canada Air Lines livery.

A Vickers Vedette replica

Exterior of the Vickers Viscount

Archives and library

The comprehensive aviation reference library housed at the Museum is one of the largest in the country, with holdings of books, magazines, technical manuals, and drawings, as well as some 40,000 photographs, films, and audiotapes, many of which cannot be found anywhere else.

One item in the archives is a rare, five-minute film of Amelia Earhart embarking on her solo trans-Atlantic flight from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, on May 21, 1932.

The library is open to the public on an appointment basis and photos, films, and audiotapes are loaned or copied on request.

Recovery and restoration

The Museum has an active Restoration Department and has returned many damaged aircraft to full display condition. A team of volunteers completed a full-scale replica of a Canadian Vickers Vedette Mark V (CF-MAG) aircraft in May 2002.

The Museum has facilitated the recovery of several aircraft, including the "Ghost of Charron Lake" - a Fokker Standard Universal that has taken more than 30 years to locate. It is currently in a recovery and retrieval phase, after which it will begin its restoration.

Affiliations

The Museum is affiliated with the Canadian Museums Association, Canadian Heritage Information Network, and the Virtual Museum of Canada.