Restoration work took a break at the Finnish Aviation Museum

Suomeksi

Restoration operations at the Finnish Aviation Museum were discontinued at the end of 2024. The break will last until the work can be restarted in the new Aviation Museum, which is rising near the present Aviation Museum. It may happen approximately at the end of 2027. The reader can wonder, why the break already now?

Moving the Finnish Aviation Museum to new premises is a herculean effort. In principle every artefact in the Museum will be dealt with, assessing whether it will need possible maintenance, repairing, conservation, or restoration measures. If beforementioned measures will be needed, they will be taken and after that it will be decided if the artefact will be placed in the new Museum, or will it be stored in the collection centre?

From the beginning of 2025 onwards the Museum’s restoration workshop will primarily become the maintenance, repair, and restoration space for the aircraft and their equipment from the Museum’s exhibition halls. First to be taken under scrutiny will be minor artefacts in the exhibition halls, for example the aero engines. Maintenance work could then advance from primary gliders and advanced sailplanes to small aircraft. They will be disassembled and brought part by part to the restoration workshop for the necessary repairs or restoration operations. For instance, the primary gliders and advanced sailplanes have been hanging from the ceiling for decades, so at least they should need maintenance.

But before the previously mentioned check-ups and maintenance work can be started, the restoration workshop must be organized and cleaned and the restoration projects, which have continued till the end of last year, have to be stored somewhere else. So the projects, such as the Valmet Tuuli III, OH-XEA Snoopy and Caudron C.50 restorations and building of the so-called Demo-Myrsky, must be packed with all parts and equipment and stored to wait for better times.

We have our work cut out for us in cleaning and organizing the restoration workshop for the new task. Restoration work of aircraft and other museal tasks have really been going on there from the end of the 1980s.

Straight after Epiphany members of the Tuesday Club started, with guidance from the Museum, to clean and organize the restoration workshop and packing restoration projects to be moved to storage. The work has progressed at a good pace. Unnecessary and unusable material for the future projects, such as all kinds of wood and metal debris, have been recycled in large amounts. Part of it has also been disposed of as non-recyclable waste. The premises have also been cleaned and tools and other articles put to their places.

The Tuuli III, Snoopy, Caudron and Demo-Myrsky parts that were in the restoration workshop, have now been wrapped in bubble plastic to be stored. Smaller parts were put in storage boxes. The Tuuli parts were put in a big spacious plywood box.
The Snoopy parts were stored in the container owned by the Museum at the Museum yard and the Demo-Myrsky parts in a container owned by the Aviation Museum Society.

Before storing the Tuuli III fuselage was protected with Tyvek polyethene fabric, which is breathing in such a way that it lets moisture out, but not inside. The fuselages of the Tuuli III and the Snoopy, Snoopy’s engine and the restored Walter Gemma radial engine in the workshop, used by the Finnish Film industry to create wind, were moved from the restoration workshop to the 45 feet long sea container at the Museum yard, owned by the Finnish Aviation Museum. The transportation went on deftly either by a forklift or in a car tow.

Perhaps we’re already getting the upper hand in organizing the restoration workshop. Still there is cleaning and organizing to be done before we can bring the first aero engines from the exhibition halls to the restoration workshop for inspection and maintenance.

Photos by Lassi Karivalo.

Translation to English by Matti Liuskallio.