CAPE MAY – Through an ongoing partnership between museums, The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia recently donated several aviation artifacts to Naval Air Station Wildwood (NASW) Aviation Museum. Among the donated items were a Quickie aircraft, Ultra-lite Chassis and three helicopter rotary wings (blades) including one measuring 28’ long. The materials were recently de-accessioned from the Institute’s Airplane Hall and transferred to NASW. Quickie aircraft are single-seat homebuilt aircraft that are no longer on the market. Similarly, Ultra-lite aircraft are single-seat lightweight airplanes. Both models were marketed in the 1970s and 1980s.
Over the past five years, NASW Aviation Museum has accepted various items from the Franklin Institute including displays explaining the science of flight, eight foot solid wood exhibits showing optical illusions to demonstrate how the human brain works and many other educational/aviation pieces. Museum staff and volunteers will restore the artifacts and they will be used to enhance the science of flight interactive exhibit section of the aviation museum.
Naval Air Station Wildwood Aviation Museum is located in Historic Hangar No. 1 at the Cape May Airport, New Jersey. Cape May Airport was formerly Naval Air Station Wildwood, which served as a World War II dive-bomber training center. The museum is dedicated to the 42 airmen who perished while training at Naval Air Station Wildwood between 1943 and 1945.
