Early Aviation in Wisconsin

Hi all! We’re hoping that everybody is having a wonderful holiday season. This week, I have been scanning several albums of photos that were recently donated to the Kelch Aviation Museum showing early aviation in Wisconsin. Some of these are really fascinating and while I haven’t fully researched the photographer

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Brodhead Fire & Ice Festival Display

On December 4-5, the city of Brodhead will hold their annual Fire & Ice Festival on Exchange Square in downtown Brodhead. The Kelch Aviation Museum will be bringing our 1936 Russell Lightplane downtown for display on Friday, Dec 4th from 3:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., weather permitting. Also, we will

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Vintage Airplane Cover

The November/December, 2015 issue of EAA’s Vintage Airplane magazine features our Curtiss-Wright Travel Air 12W in a night shot taken at Oshkosh back in July. The aircraft is sitting in the new Bill and Myrt Rose display area in front of the Vintage Aircraft headquarters. Photo by Phil High.

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Doug Holt

We received word over the weekend that Douglas Holt of Mequon, Wis., “Flew West” on Wednesday morning, October 7th, 2015. Doug was a trustee of the Alfred & Lois Kelch Charitable Trust and a mentor and advisor to the Kelch Aviation Museum, Inc. Many people in the aviation community knew Doug

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Great Time at the MAAC Grassroots Open House

The 2015 Midwest Antique Airplane Club’s “Grassroots” fly-in was one of the best in recent memory. While an official count is not available, estimates of 250 airplanes in attendance were common, including six of the Kelch Aviation Museum aircraft and another five owned by museum directors. The display area in front

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Open House During MAAC “Grassroots”

The Midwest Antique Airplane Club’s annual “Grassroots” fly-in is September 10-12 at the Brodhead Airport and the Kelch Aviation Museum will be joining in the fun by having an Open House at our new property. Come out and see our new building plans up close, have a root beer float

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Get Your Kelch Museum T-Shirts

We now have some cool Kelch Aviation Museum swag, like T-Shirts and decals. Click the link above for the Museum Store and check it out. We can ship anywhere in the world. Help spread the word about our museum!

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12W Goes to Oshkosh

Since the Curtiss-Wright Travel Air 12W had been returned to flight and was operating beautifully, we decided to take her up to Oshkosh for the big annual EAA fly-in. (Sorry, it will never be Airventure to me!) Director Greg Heckman flew it up on Wednesday, July 15 and we got

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Open House July 17-18

Those of you familiar with Brodhead Airport will know that next weekend is the annual Pietenpol/Hatz Fly-in, July 17-19. We thought it would be a great opportunity to open up our new hangars right next to all the activity of the fly-in and show off some of our collection. So,

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Travel Air 12W Return to Flight

Since the Kelch Aviation Museum was formed as a non-profit corporation in 2012, a major goal of our ours has been to fly as many of the original collection of Al & Lois Kelch’s aircraft to the extent possible, both financially and practically. We chose to do this in order to keep

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