June 2011, My Aviation and Aeronca Friends,   It is with the greatest preparation and pleasure that I make the following announcement and invitation.  This has been years in the making.    The Aeronca Aircraft History Museum is inviting you to become a Charter Member to help fund the startup and launch of the Museum in August.   This invitation to be an Original Supporter is only offered until August when the Museum officially goes live.  Please consider accepting this invitation by going to www.aeronca.com or by contacting me directly.   As a Charter Member, you will have the distinct honor of helping launch the Aeronca Museum with your membership of support.   You will receive a low-digit membership number, a membership ID card, a limited Charter Member T-shirt with the Aeronca Museum logo, quarterly newsletters, and discounts on Museum Store purchases. Charter Membership is $100, with an annual $35 renewal.   Lifetime Charter Memberships are available for $500, with no renewal, ever.   Please forward this invitation on to anybody or any group that may be interested in this effort to preserve American aviation history.   For those of you that have known me and my late father, you will understand my passion for the Aeronca.  I credit my father for that.  I’d like to give you a little background about me and the Museum.  Please continue to read.   I hope you decide to become a Charter Member, or provide a contribution to the Museum of any kind.   The stated purpose of Aeronca Museum is to preserve the Aeronca heritage, legacy and technical documents for the benefit of present and future generations.  And to eventually collect, restore and publically display one of each Aeronca built.   The location of the Museum building has yet to be determined, but I am hoping it can be located at the Hyne Airport in Brighton, MI.  In the meantime, most of the Museum assets will be displayed at the Museum website and artifacts will be stored in my hangar and house.   For the past 14 years I have been actively supporting the Aeronca community with the Aeronca.com website.   It started back when the Internet was new and I created a webpage for my dad’s Aeronca K efforts.  It quickly expanded to include all Aeroncas.  Aeronca.com grew to 1855 scanned factory drawings, 700 photos, all the pre-War memos, service letters, helps & hints, aircraft manuals, and other documents for the Continental & Lycoming engines.   There are 3500 registered users.  On any one day, roughly 30 documents and drawings are downloaded from the website by Aeronca owners and enthusiasts.    The Aeronca.com website has become a major resource for Aeronca owners. The new Aeronca Museum website will be a total rewrite of the old and tired Aeronca.com website.  It will use modern website technology and a robust database backend.   A major feature of the Museum website will be the Research Library that will contain the existing Aeronca.com documents, plus many new artifacts including: historical photos, magazine advertisements, parts photographs, CAD files, 337 archive, Aeronca sales literature, news stories, and any other historical or support document that can be found.  I estimate that I currently have over 10,000 document-type artifacts that need to be scanned, digitally cleaned, categorized, and posted into the Library.  While membership grants you free access to many of the standard documents, premium documents will require a small fee.     Aeroncapedia will be the powerful search tool for the Museum’s Research Library.   Aeroncapedia will allow you to issue a single search across all document types.  For example, if you enter the search word “McDowell” it will search key database fields for every document for that word.   The power of the Aeroncapedia search engine and the breadth & depth of the Library contents will be impressive and valuable to Aeronca owners, history buffs, and American aviation enthusiasts.   The history of Aeronca has been a great interest to me.  For the past 3 years at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh I have presented “The History of Aeronca” to convention participants.  I own three complete Aeronca Ks projects (including one seaplane), one flyable Aeronca TAC, a C-3 basket case, and a KCA basket case.    This winter I completed another goal by starting the Aeronca Museum.   The Museum is a natural extension of the Aeronca.com.  The Board of Trustees met to adopt the bylaws, submit organizational documents and appoint officers.  I was appointed as President and Director.  We have filed all the paperwork, including the 501c3 application.   We are currently operating as a public charity and expect the tax-exempt determination letter from the IRS this summer or fall.   The goal was to secure the assets of the Aeronca.com website into a trust so it will continue to serve the public, indefinitely, even after I am no longer the driving force behind it.   If you have read this far into my story, I hope you can agree that I have a passion for the Aeronca brand airplanes.    Please consider supporting the new Aeronca Museum with your support as a Charter Member.  If becoming a Charter Member is not for you, then please consider the standard $35 membership when it becomes available in August.  If you have any historical documents, Aeronca parts, or other financial support you’d like to contribute to the Museum, I would be delighted to accept them at any time.   If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me by any means.   Regards,       Todd Trainor, Director Aeronca Museum 2285 Ore Creek Lane Brighton, MI 48114