Editorial: New site will let Spokane’s aviation story be told

The Honor Point Military and Aerospace Museum has found a home. At last.

Officials say they hope the Felts Field site will secure a future for the airfield and the neighborhood near Millwood based on Felts’ historic past, evident now in the Art Deco terminal and nearby hangars.

Theirs is a vision cleared for takeoff.

Once the Fairchild Heritage Museum, the organization was ousted from the Air Force base in 2002, but a corps of military and aviation enthusiasts never stopped looking for a new space where thousands of items recounting Spokane’s distinguished history of flight could be uncrated and exhibited.

Hopes were once high for a West Plains site within view of Interstate 90. But the museum never secured ownership or a lease before the recession clipped the wings of ambitions for an eye-catching structure with a retired B-52 out front. The $10 million-plus for construction did not materialize, and Larry Krauter, relatively new as director of Spokane International Airport, suggested Felts Field was a better fit for the museum’s mission and means.

Meanwhile, the airport board undertook a $16 million upgrade to Felts’ runway and ramp areas, paving the way for Thursday’s announcement that partners Tim Gump, Fred Lopez and Ed Lansberg will build a $2.8 million building for Western Aviation, the fixed base operator (FBO) that provides fuel and other flight services. A hangar for corporate planes will occupy the middle, and the museum 10,000 square feet at the western end.

The space will be far less grand than once envisioned, but it will be real space. It will be the job of former KHQ reporter turned independent businessman Tobby Hatley to fill it as project director. (Cowles Co. Director of Government Affairs Catherine Brazil chairs the museum board.)

Hatley’s already circling back to potential donors who wanted to see more than a vision before they invested.

He says museum board members want an event-oriented organization with fresh exhibits that keep visitors coming back. Operators of other aviation exhibitions, including the Museum of Flight in Seattle, have indicated willingness to share resources.

That museum, among the most impressive in the world, started modestly too, he notes.

Krauter says an attractive building for the FBO should induce more use of Felts. He has other plans he hopes will liven up the neighborhood, including a trail skirting the airfield perimeter.

Activity at Felts plateaued after the recession. The public and private investment in new facilities that embrace Felts’ history should be the extra thrust that revives the field’s fortunes. That has certainly been true at Spokane International Airport.

Those like retired Air Force Col. Arne Weinman, who kept the faith while progress stalled, deserve a fly-by of appreciation. They will get to see, and tell, Spokane’s aviation history as it should be told.