Tillamook Airport RV Park, Oregon
July 14, 2021
After a couple of days of R&R at the Comfort Suites ($150 per night including tax), I hit the road today. I couldn’t leave Portland without visiting the Portland blade at the Schnitzer Concert Hall. I am glad I made the effort. I actually wish I had driven into the city to see it last night all lit up. But my System 2 intervened and said 50 miles round trip was too far. Plus it doesn’t get dark here until past 930 pm. Still, it would have been cool to see it in its nighttime glory. But by going today I was able to get some blueberries at the farmers market a block from the concert hall.
I took photos from all kinds of angles!
I walked around the area a bit; it was nicer than the Paris Theater part of town!
After I left downtown I headed to Beaverton. Note the Nike Company Store in Beaverton is for Nike employees and their guests only. There’s another one in Memphis also for Nike employees only.
The only rational way to get back to Tillamook was to double back on US 26 and Oregon 6. A pretty drive.
“Landed” in Tillamook around 330 pm and came across the Tillamook Air Museum. An air museum here? Read on and see why. I would have paid $5 to enter but at $11 I decided to save my money for a greens fee.
About the Tillamook Air Museum:
Tillamook Air Museum is an aviationmuseum south of Tillamook, Oregon in the United States. The museum is housed in a former US Navy blimp hangar, called "Hangar B", which is the largest clear-span wooden structure in the world.
History
Constructed by the US Navy in 1942 during World War II for Naval Air Station Tillamook, the hangar building housing the aircraft is 1,072 feet (327 m) long and 296 feet (90 m) wide, giving it over 7 acres (2.8 ha) of area. It stands at 192 feet (59 m) tall. The doors weigh 30 short tons (27 t) each and are 120 feet (37 m) tall. Hangar "B" is one of two that were originally built on the site. Hangar "A" was destroyed by fire in August,1992.
In April 2013, the museum announced that the part of its collection owned by Jack Erickson would be moving from Tillamook to Madras, Oregon. All of the World War II aircraft had been removed by September 2014.
In November 2014, the owners of Hangar B, the Port of Tillamook Bay, announced that they would continue operation of the Tillamook Air Museum with the remaining collection.
In 2016, the Classic Aircraft Aviation Museum moved a number of their aircraft to the museum.
Collection
Aircraft on display
Aero Spacelines Mini Guppy
Alenia C-27A Spartan
BAC Jet Provost
Bell TH-57 Sea Ranger
Bellanca 14-13 Cruisair Senior
Brown Starlite
Cessna 180F Skywagon
Chris-Teena Mini Coupe
Convair 880 – Forward fuselage
Cvjetkovic CA-65 Skyfly
Douglas A-4B Skyhawk
Douglas A-26C Invader
ERCO Ercoupe 415C[
Fairchild GK-1
Fisher R-80 Tiger Moth
Grumman F-14A Tomcat (Featured in the Hollywood film “Top Gun.”)
Kaman HTK-1 Huskie
Learjet 24
LTV A-7 Corsair II
Nieuport 11 – Replica
Nord 1101 Noralpha
PZL-Mielec Lim-6bis
Rans S-4 Coyote
Rutan Model 61 Long-EZ
Rutan Quickie
WindRyder
Exhibits
The Museum also features an exhibit hall with a large collection of rare historical wartime and aviation themed artifacts including pieces of the great German airship, the Hindenburg, a World War II Luftwaffe flight jacket and a WWII Japanese Army Winter flight suit.
Anderson Air Raid Shelter walk-thru interactive exhibit
Curtiss SB2C Helldiver crash exhibit
From this morning:
Home for this evening: