Jetrader - March/April 2008 - 18

History Shawn Rafferty (left, of Troutman Sanders), his wife, Vicki, and NWA’s Dan Pietrzak at the grand opening of the America by Air exhibit. on Display for a nose-section d display. Thus began a series of negotiations and sporadic activity involving NWA, sp the NASM and a num number of third-party contractors culminating in the current breathtaking display at the NASM—eight years after Pietrzak’s initial call y to the Smithsonian Smithsonian. On November 17, 2007, the nose section of N601US was p prominently unveiled in the National Air & Space Museum, making up the Sp centerpiece of the new America by Air exhibit. Northwest Airlines’ B-747 finds a home in the Smithsonian I n early 1999, the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum (NASM) began a major upgrade to its existing Hall of Air Transportation located on the National Mall in Washington, DC. As a centerpiece of the exhibit, the NASM representatives were eager to acquire a nose section of a B-747 to demonstrate to its 10 million annual visitors the story of the wide-body jet era and were searching for a suitable aircraft with historical value. Coincidentally, at the same time Northwest Airlines was preparing to retire some B-747-100 airframes— including N601US. Charged with selling these retiring aircraft, Dan Matthews, Northwest Airlines’ senior vice president and treasurer, recognized N601US as the ﬁrst NWA 747. Matthews observed “given the scrap alternative, I thought that this landmark aircraft should be preserved and displayed in a prominent museum as a testimony to the legacy of the Boeing 747 and of Northwest operating this aircraft over 30 years.” He immediately thought of the NASM as an appropriate home for this aircraft. The museum was very excited about the possibility of getting the ﬁrst Northwest Boeing 747 after Dan Pietrzak, Northwest’s managing director of aircraft transactions, called to determine NASM’s level of interest. Since N601US was the oldest surviving 747 used in revenue service, the NASM agreed that the aircraft would perfectly ﬁt its need Let It Be Northwest agreed in principle with the agr Smithsonian, and approval of the donation 1999, but the ﬁ nal legal docuoccurred in April 1 signed until 2006. During this mentation wasn’t s the period, NWA and t NASM needed to address a number of intricate logistical requirements. intricat This was in addition to a separate agreement add negotiated on the ﬁ ner details of the donation Smithsonian, which was an important with the Smithson process. part of the process Following the retirement of the aircraft in late 2000 from Northwest’s ﬂeet, N601US was ﬂown to and stored at Charlotte Aircraft’s Maxton, NC, facility prior to its ﬁ nal journey to the NASM. NAS Getting the nose, cockpit and forward fuselage nose building—even one as mammoth of a B-747 into a bu as the NASM, with more than 160,000 square wit feet of exhibition space—has its challenges. The s NASM had signiﬁcant engineering hurdles to clear ca to make the display a reality. The enormity of the nose section—standing roughly four stories to the section—stan hump—led top of the hump—l to unique logistical issues. museum ﬂoor had to be perFor example, the m manently reinforced to accommodate the 26,500 18 The ofﬁcial publication of the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading

Jetrader - March/April 2008

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