Lauridsen Aviation Museum, Buckeye, AZ

[Matt Ottosen]

Hans Lauridsen is relocating his aircraft collection to Buckeye Municipal Airport to open his Lauridsen Aviation Museum.  His website states:

"Looking at planes that are locked up with ropes around them is boring," says Hans Lauridsen, the museum founder. "I would rather people coming into the museum see planes that are being worked on, with engine cowlings open."

Soon all the aircraft will be at Buckeye Municipal airport. At this time aircraft are either moved or in the process of being moved from Casa Grande, Falcon Field, Glendale, Wickenburg and Chino CA airports where they have been stored while we were in the process of choosing a facility. Buckey Municipal Airport was selected because it offers room to display existing aircraft and also has space available for future growth. We look forward to having all our aircraft available to the surrounding valley communities in one facility in the near future.

Lauridsen Aviation Museum's Fairchild C-119G-3E Flying Boxcar (N15501) made its way to Namibia, Africa during December 2003 to participate in the remake of "Flight of the Phoenix."

[jslugman]

I would like to see one of those in the air. I know there's an abandoned one on the north freight ramp at Anchorage that is ex-SOG and always thought it would be something in the air not rusting in the weeds.

[cpasley]

This is amazing ,does anyone have any update on this?

[Chris Kennedy]

I'm not sure this guy is ever going to actually open a museum. First it was going to be at Glendale Municipal, then Buckeye. I think there was even a rumor about Gateway. I was at his hangar in Buckeye last March and talked with someone working there. He said everything was signed for a 30,000 square foot facility in, of all places, Gila Bend. He said they hoped to have it finished "before the hottest part of the summer." Soon after that, the city(?) of Gila Bend announced an agreement to host the museum at their airport. They even had some kind of fly-in at the airport in April to commemorate the coming museum.

John Meneely was at the airport there last week and he said there is no sign of any museum there, and he would have noticed.

I sent a message to them on their website and never got a response.

I know that Hans Laurdisen has a lot of airplanes, but the whole museum thing is getting kind of ridiculous.

[Joe Copalman]

Yeah, I sent him an email a while back and never heard anything either.

It's frustrating because he has a great collection of aircraft.  I've been wanting to see his C-1 airborne since I first learned of its existence.  Hopefully something will come of it, but Gila Bend seems a bit too out-of-the-way for it to yield much traffic, aside from giving Sabena and Mesa Air students something to look at while they're practicing their cross-country flights.

[Chris Kennedy]

Yeah, it seemed like a strange choice to me too.

When I saw the C-1 back in March in Buckeye it was all bare metal with a few faint remnants of old paint. No markings or identification numbers on it at all.

(Not the greatest photo. Part in the shade and part in the sun is kind of a challenge.)

[David Loera]

Pretty nice shot Chris.
I used to shoot with A Canon Powershot S5IS with a TC-DC58B Teleconverter Lens.

[Warbird Keith]

Speaking of C-1's Brazilian Navy just purchased 5  for COD & refuelling the Skyhawks, New turbine engines!

[Chris Kennedy]

Pretty nice shot Chris.
I used to shoot with A Canon Powershot S5IS with a TC-DC58B Teleconverter Lens.

Thanks.

I used to shoot with a Canon AE-1, but that was a few years ago. I still have it if anybody wants it. Of course, it uses that stuff that used to be called film. Can you still buy that?

[jslugman]

Pretty nice shot Chris.
I used to shoot with A Canon Powershot S5IS with a TC-DC58B Teleconverter Lens.

Thanks.

I used to shoot with a Canon AE-1, but that was a few years ago. I still have it if anybody wants it. Of course, it uses that stuff that used to be called film. Can you still buy that?

Buying film's n0t so tough, finding a competent lab is another matter.  

[Chris Kennedy]

Yes, I had heard that it's hard to find good labs these days. Since so few are still using film, I guess it's hard to maintain a business processing it.

I used to put my slide film in one of those yellow envelopes and send it off to Kodak.

[CJPalmer]

I take all of my film to either Photomark or Tempe Camera. Hopefully I will be able to do my own black and white processing in the near future.

[cpasley]

So I guess taking all those old rolls of 35mm to wal-mart are not a good idea ,but on a serious note I do have about 30 rolls of film I took back when I had my canon eos rebel-x so if anyone finds a good place that wont screw up my pictures or my wallet please let me know

[Matt Ottosen]

Lauridsen Aviation Museum's Fairchild C-119G-3E Flying Boxcar (N15501) made its way to Namibia, Africa during December 2003 to participate in the remake of "Flight of the Phoenix."



I actually spoke to Hans Lauridsen when we were there, the museum will be located at Gila Bend when the restoration is completed.

[cpasley]

When I was down there a few weeks ago I had the chance to shoot the breeze with Mr Lauridsen and I got to say he was a very cool guy to talk with, for the 4+ hours I was there we talked about everything from his collection of military vehicles and their movie careers, like one deuce and a half that was in the movie "Red Dawn" and more recently "Battle for L.A., we also talked about the hawkins and powers auction from which he got the A-26, he did also mention that they were gearing up to ferry their C-131 Samaritan from Cali I kinda hinted my willingness to go to Cali to "help" ,lol but all in all he is a great guy and if you ask will let you have access to everything as we were both leaving he goes "have you been inside the hangar yet" I didnt know the trasures he had tucked away, I got a breif glimps and he told me next time I come down that we would go through th hangar, what an amazing experience


DC-3 N243DC by Chris Pasley, on Flickr