This past weekend we held our 2nd Wings & Wheels event for Father’s Day and it was a fantastic day! We had beautiful weather for our car show in Aviation Plaza and King Cole Catering served up a delicious lunch.
Thank you to everyone who joined us and brought their dads/granddads/father figures/families. Check out some of the highlights in the gallery below.
The first year in our new museum was a wonderful one thanks to YOU, our visitors, as well as our volunteers, staff, and donors.
Since last May, we’ve welcomed more than 80,000 visitors, including thousands of students. We’ve hosted weddings, conferences, bar mitzvahs, holiday parties, trade shows, and many of our own events. And we’ve made a lot of new friends.
Thank you to everyone who’s supported us along the way. Here’s a look back at the past year!
Anyone visiting the Royal Aviation Museum will quickly recognize the Froebe Helicopter as a unique piece of engineering. The fact it was designed and built from scrap parts by three farm boys, without formal engineering training, makes the story that much more inspiring.
The Froebe family moved to Homewood, Manitoba from Chatsworth, Illinois in 1921. The three brothers, Doug, Nick, and Theodore, had a keen interest in aviation from an early age. They educated themselves by reading flight manuals and aviation magazines such as Mechanics Illustrated. The construction of a Heath Parasol airplane from a home-built kit also aided their training. This background gave them the confidence to build the first helicopter to fly in Canada out of scrap and a broken-down truck.
Before the brothers began work on their helicopter, Doug Froebe travelled through the United States to meet with designers. Some experts were helpful, but many were not. Most of these designers were aware of a helicopter project that was going on at the Curtis plant in which $100,000 had been spent without results. This gave helicopters a bad reputation.
Doug Froebe hitchhiked to Dearborn Michigan to meet William Stout who was thought to be an “outside of the box” sort of thinker. When Doug asked Stout about his plans to build a helicopter, Stout gave him a dollar and told him to hitchhike back to Homewood.
This did not stop Doug Froebe and his brothers from building what would later be considered the first helicopter created in Canada. The brothers purchased a 4-cylinder air-cooled Gypsy engine from a dealer in California for $100. The steel tubing for the frame was picked up from McDonald Aircraft Supply in Winnipeg. A Ford truck fly wheel with a clutch that coupled the engine to the pinion gear was used to attach the other components together. The gas tank, which had been taken from a tractor on their farm, was placed on the back of the helicopter half full for balance.
The first flights began in the latter half of 1937. The first flight made it three feet above the ground and the last recorded flight on March 2, 1939 had the same height.
The story of the Froebe helicopter remains an astonishing achievement for three young men who grew up isolated on their farm, far from the research and experimentation taking place in large cities. The Froebes’ success goes to show that a little confidence and determination can accomplish the impossible.
Read more about the Froebe brothers’ adventures and innovations here.
Photography is a wonderful medium for showing us familiar things in new ways. For Mohamed Suliman, it also “allows us to see the beauty in front of our eyes.”
Mohamed is a grade 12 student in Winnipeg who moved here from Qatar in late 2020. Growing up fascinated by the work of professional photographers, his own journey into photography began after a visit to Eastern Africa in 2019. Being an accomplished photographer was a dream of his, so he practiced and practiced and slowly saw himself evolving into the photographer he dreamed of becoming.
When he’s behind the lens, the little things are important to him—textures, nature, light, expressions, and surroundings. All these details bring an experience together.
He recently visited our museum and called it “a stunning place.” The exhibits, interactive walls, and storytelling helped him to understand the role of aviation in space and war.
Mohamed loves using photography as a way to share the memories and moments life is filled with such as birthdays, weddings, graduations, anniversaries, and family vacations.
And what were his favourite parts of our museum? The suspended aircraft and all the natural light that enters the building thanks to its large windows.
Mohamed was gracious enough to share some of the photos he took during his time at the Royal Aviation Museum. Check them out in the gallery below!
See more of Mohamed’s work on Instagram: @f1.m1
After a long, three-year closure, we finally opened the doors of our new museum on May 21, 2022. It was wonderful to welcome visitors into our new facility and to see the joy and awe on their faces.
Thank you to our amazing team of volunteers and staff who made the weekend a success, and to all the museum-lovers who made time to visit. Over the course of three days, roughly 2,500 people toured the museum!
Please enjoy these highlights from our grand opening weekend. Photos by Joey Senft.
