Tag: Museum

HELP WANTED: seeking to double the size of our Board of Directors

We are facing two urgent volunteer staffing needs to ensure our museum can continue operating and being open to the public:

  1. A treasurer / bookkeeper: our current director and his wife are sailing the Intracoastal Waterway for a year + at the end of February. We use Quickbooks for accounting, and manage about $150,000 of assets at present. As our fundraising goals and expertise grow, careful investment and accurate tax reporting for our nonprofit is vital. 
  2. A museum manager / volunteer coordinator for scheduling, training, and recruiting docents, being a contact for group visits, and interacting with the Crowne Plaza for maintenance and events. Being on-site is not necessary, but one should be able to swing by the museum to check in with staff or handle issues and projects on occasion.

Additionally, both to spread out responsibilities and also to tap into broader skill sets and personal networks, growing our Board from its current 7 to ultimately 15 members in 2025-2026 is a necessity. 

Beyond the two functions listed above, key areas of know-how and enthusiasm our organization needs include:

  • Collaborating with Twin Cities K-12 school districts and nearby colleges to use our archives and history to develop curriculum & materials for STEM and social studies subjects.
  • Organizing community-building and fundraising events such as panel discussions, themed parties, movie nights, seasonal surplus sales, and behind-the-scenes tours.
  • Building relationships with Minnesota aerospace companies to better communicate their future workforce needs, educational objectives, obtain their technical assistance & material donations, and advocate for our growth.
  • Meet with local governments, the Metropolitan Airports Commission, state agencies, community groups, and other nonprofits to build interest and support (both moral and financial) for our mission.
  • Find and apply for grants for specific projects and staffing.

We invite you to contact northwestairlines @ comcast. net if you are interested in joining our Board in any of these or other capacities that match your talents and experience.

Navigating the Crowne Plaza AiRE Hotel to reach our museum

The NWAHC Museum is located on the hotel’s third floor, above the pool area. For patrons able to climb stairs, there are two straightforward ways to access our facility:

From the Parking Ramp:

Park on the top level of the ramp and access the building through the marked entrance. Doors are open and unlocked during normal business hours.

Proceed past the pool overlook, and note a staircase going up on your right.

This staircase gives access to the third floor. Take either the ramp or the short flight of stairs through the double-doors toward the exercise area and our museum. This area also includes some large airliner-themed artwork.

From the Front Desk:

If dropped off at the hotel’s ground floor entrance, proceed left past the check-in desk to the main staircase and head up to the second floor.

There are display cases set up by our Museum as well as other large-format artworks on this floor celebrating commercial aviation and the history of MSP Airport – worth taking a moment to appreciate!

Proceed to the right along this promenade into the Second Floor main hallway, and walk until you come upon the pool area.

On your left you’ll see that upward staircase to take you to the third floor.

For Patrons with Mobility Concerns:

For patrons with mobility concerns, access to the elevators to reach the 3rd floor so as to avoid stairs is controlled by the hotel’s front desk for guests’ and residents’ security. Museum staff are not able to operate the elevators. The hotel’s front desk telephone is (952) 854-9000 if staff are not on hand to assist.

The elevator bank is located to the right of the check-in desk on the main floor. Hotel staff must need to accompany you to the elevator and use their keycard to give access to the third floor.

From the third floor elevator bay, turn left into the main hallway and travel to its end. The security door there opens onto a ramp going up to the foyer where our museum and the exercise room are located.

When departing, museum staff can key fob you back into the third floor where you can access the elevator back down to the check-in desk area on the ground floor. Access to any other floor is not allowed.

There are no elevators from the second-floor pool area up to the third floor where our museum is located.

NWAHC Museum appears on KSTP-TV “So Minnesota”

Joe Mazan and his cameraman paid our Museum location a visit on Thursday, March 31 to interview Bruce Kitt and gather footage of our exhibits for the station’s “So Minnesota” weekly series. They edited the segment and it broadcast on Monday, April 18.

The segment is available through the link: https://kstp.com/special-coverage/so-minnesota/so-minnesota-northwest-airlines-history-center/

Since the airing, we’ve been getting comments every day, and visits to the museum are up noticeably!

A Work in Progress

The newest exhibit at our museum – dedicated to the evolution of cabin seating – is starting to take shape! We’ve had the World Business Class seats professionally moved from our Eden Prairie archive over to Bloomington, lifted up to the third floor and through the fire doors. We also moved over original wicker chairs from the Ford Tri-Motor that we’ve had in storage. Our Finance Director, Jeff Schwalen, constructed plywood boxes to set our seats upon, and several volunteers came in last month to rearrange display cases and our famous gong to make room.

These seats were original equipment on the Ford Tri-Motor aircraft flown by Northwest Airways from 1928 to 1935. The wicker seats looked more like patio furniture to promote a calming effect. Later seats used aluminum frames. Please note the actual seat assignment numbers on an aluminum tag affixed to the lower leg next to the aisle. See if you can spot it! Each seat weighed 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms). There were two seats in each row and seven rows in the aircraft. Each seat had its own window and reading light. The Tri-Motor typically seated 11 to 14 passengers. Northwest’s aircraft used three Wright J-6 engines, rated at 300 horsepower each, with a normal cruising speed of 105 mph (170 kph) and a typical range of 575 miles (925 km.)
These First Class seats were original when the 727 was introduced in 1966. The fleet type remained in NWA’s fleet through 2003. Amenities included padded cushions, reclining backs, fold-out tray tables, a center arm rest, foot rest, and cigarette ash tray. They weigh 100 lbs. (49 kg) for the pair, which is 5 times the weight of the Ford Tri-Motor seats. First Class seating was a 2 x 2 configuration with 4 to 6 rows, while coach seating was 3 x 3 across with 14 – 25 rows, depending on the original 727-100 or stretched 727-200 used, respectively. Powered by three Pratt & Whitney JT8 engines, the 727 flew with 7 or 8 crewmembers: pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, and 3-4 flight attendants. It cruised at 540 mph (870 kph) with a range of 2,500 miles (4,000 km.)
Notice how large and complex these seats are, in comparison to the Ford Tri-Motor and Boeing 727 seats. They weigh 400 lbs. (181 kg) for the pair, which is 18 times the weight of the chairs in the Tri-Motor. For its A330 fleet, Northwest placed 6 rows of these seats in a 2 x 2 x 2 configuration, for 18 WBC seats total. The shorter A330-200 held 228 coach seats, while the A330-333 held 382 coach seats, both in a 2 x 4 x 2 arrangement. NWA’s A330s were flown from 2003 onward and continued service with Delta after the 2009 merger. Note the back shell which provided privacy in its lie-flat mode, the 10-inch (25 cm) video screen for inflight entertainment, and leg rests. The A330-300 typically had a crew of 10: pilot, co-pilot, and 8 flight attendants. Powered by two Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines, it cruised at 530 mph (850 kph) with a range of 6,500 miles (10,400 km.)

Above each seat pair we are also hanging a model of the corresponding aircraft in the colors it was flying while these seats were in use.

Professional museum exhibit designers are being contacted to request quotes for a fully-realized backdrop with signage, flooring, and lighting, but while that process plays out you can see our volunteer-led, week-by-week tweaks and enhancements to the display.

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