The men and women on Norseman Road collect, restore and display, not destroy.
The BC Aviation Museum Society is dedicated to preserving aircrafts and artifacts, so it was with particular sadness the members scrapped a Super Dak recently.
“It was a very old aircraft that was kicking around the airport and it came to the museum some time ago,” said Steve Gordon, museum president. “It was a US aircraft and we determined that to make a display that was most useful we would use the nose section of it. That is in the restoration hangar being worked on.”
The rest of the aircraft was cut up and scrapped.
“We’ll get scrap value for it,” Gordon said. “It was quite something to watch and a bit sad but it’s one of those things.”
The aircraft, used only occasionally for storage, had become an eyesore, explained vice president Larry Leppard.
“It sat here for a lot of years with everybody debating what to do with it,” he said.
It took about two hours for a large piece of machinery to fold it up and stash the condemned aircraft away.
“The plane, the material was so brittle some of it broke much like plastic,” said Leppard.
“I get very attached to that stuff, but logically it needed to go,” Leppard said. “Here we represent BC and Canada aviation, and it’s primarily an American aircraft.”
He often spends his volunteer hours in the restoration wing, where the nose will be re-crafted to add flash, bang and hands-on excitement to the museum.
“We’ve taken the nose piece off and we’re rigging the inside so you can feel like you’re working the controls,” Leppard said. “It’s a lot of work and we’re a handful of volunteers.”
The BCAM changes to its winter hours, opening 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. starting Oct. 1.
Learn more about the museum, how to donate or to volunteer at www.bcam.net.