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02/23/2008: "Port of FH Aviation Museum Dedicated"

The San Juan Aviation Museum was officially opened on Sunday. February 24. 2008, in the Roy Franklin Terminal at Friday Harbor Airport, and was attended by what FH Port Director Marilyn O’Connor called the “largest crowd to ever be in the building”

The Museum consists of wall displays and a glassed fronted cabinet that will be used to house various aviation displays that will be changed and added to through out the year. The Museum has ostensibly been established to portray the history of aviation in the San Juan Islands since the 1940s, and in so doing it becomes clear the aviation history in the county is in large part the history of one man, Roy Franklin.



Roy Franklin looks (photo right) at a Wally Weaver replica of a Stinson Gullwing airplane, of a plane similar to the one Franklin flew for 26 years. The propeller below the model is one from Franklin’s actual Stinson, and shows the damage it received when it struck a bird during take off from Orcas. The resulting lack of balance in the blade resulted in an injury free forced landing.

The history of the airport began in the spring of 1948, when Roy (23), wife Margaret Ann (19) and son Steve, move to Friday Harbor to begin flying with Island Sky Ferries, the new name for Orcas Island Air Service, an Eastsound-based flying service established by Bob Schoen shortly after the end of World War II.

Through the efforts and leadership of Roy Franklin, scheduled air service between the Islands and the mainland was started in the late 1940s, flying at first from a grass strip on Lyle King’s farm in San Juan Valley, and then about 10 years later, what is now Friday Harbor Airport was carved out of 64 acres of woods Roy had purchased to build an airport.

Roy maintained a continuous air service with a perfect safety record until turning the Airport over to the Port of Friday Harbor in 1980.

SJ Pilot Dr. John Geyman has written “Roy's airplanes became the air connection for the San Juan Islands, including countless missions for expectant mothers and critically ill patients, in the worst of weather and darkest of nights, often landing on beaches, whose residents summoned him with flags. Sixty years later, as we routinely arrive and depart in comfort, we recognize the pioneering flights of Roy Franklin, and others, who served our islands without improved airports or navigation aids.

Speaking of flags, in Roy's new book, Island Bush Pilot, he recounts the joys and the hazards of “bush flying” in those early days, and one can read that when returning to the islands after substituting as a stork, Ray would trail a banner flag, either blue or pink, to inform all of the outcome of the “delivery.”

The museum project came into being as a result of the combined efforts of the San Juan Pilots Association and the Port of Friday Harbor. For the Pilots Association, Dr. John Geyman and Ray Bigler spearheaded the project ( past stories), while Port Commissioner Barbara Marrett served as the Port lead during development of the Museum.