Walter Boyne, former director of the National Air and Space Museum, explains the business from the inside out.
By Barrett Tillman
Humans are collectors. We keep items that are important to us and preserve them for future memory—our own and memories of those yet unborn. Therefore, museums represent the institutional memory of nations and cultures, a habit dating at least from the Renaissance.
Aviation, of course, is much newer than nearly all recorded history—a mere 110 years downwind from Kitty Hawk. But Flight Journal enjoys a long relationship with one of the world’s leading aero museologists so we rang up Colonel Walt Boyne for his thoughts on the subject.
Walt says, “When I made colonel in 1971, I ran out of flying assignments, which took some of the luster off being in the Air Force.” Anticipating retirement, he wrote General Mike Collins, first director of the nascent National Air and Space Museum, offering to help. But the response, he says, was, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” However, a year later, he heard back with an offer to join as curator of air transportation.
In 1974, Walt joined NASM to write the script for the air transport hall. The museum opened two years later, and Walt was appointed acting NASM director in 1981. During his full term from 1983-1986 he founded Air & Space Magazine and signed the agreement with the FAA for the land at Dulles that became the Udvar-Hazy facility.
Walt approached aviation museums with the perspective of an Airplane Guy and a Museum Guy. He recalled the long-ago origins of the Air Force Museum near Dayton: “A bunch of interesting airplanes on the lot beside the road,” and knew that acquisition was Job One, for the finest exhibit plans will go nowhere without items to display.
When he became NASM director, Walt inherited a going concern, but he realized that new exhibits should be rotated through the downtown D.C. venue. Consequently, he was instrumental in upgrading the dilapidated Silver Hill, Maryland, storage facility, where most NASM restorations are accomplished.