The New England Air Museum (NEAM) has been active this fall making highly anticipated moves to bring additional aircraft and artifacts to the exhibit hangars. The most notable of these is the Burnelli CBY-3 Loadmaster — a one-of-a-kind aircraft that has recently been fully restored by our restoration team over the past 8 years, as seen in this before and after photo.
Built in 1945 by the Canadian Car and Foundry, the CBY-3 was the last of Vincent Burnelli's "lifting fuselage" aircraft — the fuselage is in the shape of an airfoil which allows it to assist the wings in providing lift. It could carry a ton more payload than a DC-3 and needed only 650 feet to takeoff. A prolific designer, Burnelli believed that his design was stronger, safer and more efficient than conventional designs at the time. The CBY-3 was acquired by the Museum in 1972 after having sat abandoned for more than ten years at Friendship Airport in Baltimore, MD.
NEAM’s popular Grumman F-14B Tomcat has also come out of storage for the first time in over 5 years. The Tomcat was a supersonic, variable-sweep wing fighter aircraft made famous by the 1986 film Top Gun. The Museum’s example served with fighter squadrons VF-142 and VF-143 and accumulated more than 4,600 flight hours before it was decommissioned and donated to NEAM in 2005.
Visitors this fall can also see two pristine WWII training aircraft back on display in the B-29 Hangar — a Stearman PT-17, finished in the same color scheme and markings as the aircraft used at Tuskegee Army Airfield, Alabama, and a Ryan PT-22A the first monoplane trainer used for primary pilot training by the United States Army Air Corps and its successor, the United States Army Air Force.
In addition to these new aircraft displays, NEAM’s largest and perhaps most interesting jet engine, the Pratt & Whitney J58, is also back on view. This afterburning turbojet engine was the force behind the SR-71 Blackbird, capable of speeds in excess of 2,000 mph.
“Museums very seldom exhibit all of their collection at one time — a deliberate rotation of pieces on and off the display floor is essential to ensuring collections are well cared for, and that audiences are given new and exciting experiences that keep them coming back to visit us time and time again," says NEAM Curator Nick Hurley. "I’m proud that despite the challenges we have faced this year, we’ve still been able to achieve this, and I’m confident that visitors will enjoy the new look and feel that these new additions bring to each of our exhibit hangars.”
The public is invited to see all of these exhibits, as well as over 50 additional aircraft currently on display, and learn about each of them from our docents.
