PORT OF FRIDAY HARBOR

San Juan Aviation Museum celebration Sunday

posted 02/22/2008
It’s the spring of 1948. Roy, 23, wife Margaret Ann, 19, and son Steve move to Friday Harbor to begin flying with Island Sky Ferries. This was 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. In the next decades, Franklin’s airplanes will become 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.

On February 24, the San Juan Aviation Museum will be dedicated in the Roy Franklin Terminal at Friday Harbor Airport. The museum has been a joint project of the San Juan Pilots Association and the Port of Friday Harbor. For the Pilots Association, Dr.John Geyman and Ray Bigler have spearheaded the project, while Barbara Marrett has served as the lead Port Commissioner during development of the museum.

The museum has been established to portray the history of aviation in the San Juan Islands since the 1940s. 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 farm strip in San Juan Valley.

What is now Friday Harbor Airport was carved out of the wooded area in its present location about 10 years later. Franklin maintained a continuous air service with a perfect safety record until turning the airport over to the Port of Friday Harbor in 1980.

The museum illustrates the progress of aviation in the San Juans over the years and its many contributions to our island communities with many pictures and descriptions of the times and selected memorabilia on display. It is a living work in progress intended to be of interest to the community it serves.

The opening ceremony will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, February 24, 2008 at the airport’s Roy Franklin Terminal. Roy will attend, along with other aviators of the past and present, plus Port Commissioner Marrett and San Juan Pilots Association President Tom Schramm. The public is invited and refreshments will be served, compliments of the Port of Friday Harbor.

Welcome to the Roy Franklin Terminal

Roy Franklin arrived at the ceremony with an old friend: He taxied up to the terminal in the Stinson Gullwing that he flew when he opened the Friday Harbor Airport. "I’d love to take it out again but I don’t have a current license," Franklin said.

Friday Harbor Port Commissioners agreed to rename the airport passenger terminal after John Geyman and Ray Bigler brought up the idea. Roy and Margaret Franklin established the original San Juan Airlines and constructed the original airport on the site of the present airport. The Franklins started scheduled flying on San Juan Island in 1948 and continued serving the islands for more than thirty years.

The renaming was supported by a number of long time pilots and residents of San Juan Island. The Commission also approved a sign and appointed a committee to recommend an exhibit of the development of the airport and of aviation in the San Juans.

Bob Nichols, left, and Terry Holt, right, flew for Roy Franklin’s Island Sky Ferries.

Port of Friday Harbor Commissioner Brian Calvert congratulates Roy Franklin.

The Stinson Gullwing aircraft Franklin used for medevac and air tranportation.

Fred Sundstrom, left, helped Roy Franklin, and Roy’s father - "Pappy" - clear 1,600 stumps from the land that became Friday Harbor Airport.

Vicki Thalacker flies a Cessna 172, one of Franklin’s original planes.

Dodie Gann’s Cessna 172 was one of Franklin’s earliest planes.

John Volk presented Franklin with a humorous drawing from the local pilots association.

Dodie Gann congratulates Franklin.

SAN JUAN ISLANDER © 2008

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