Throwback Thursday: Matty Laird, founder of Laird Airplane Co, posing with our own Al Kelch, founder of the Kelch Aviation Museum! Al was a huge Laird fan, and was lucky enough to get to know Matty in the 1970s.

Look, we’re in the current issue of Group Tour Magazine! Schedule your group tour with us soon. Bring a bus load or a car load or fly-out with your local pilots group. We’re happy to accommodate any size group and can even arrange for meals on site. Call or e-mail

Ahh, nothing like a good old fashioned sectional! Navigation has changed so much since the early years of flight, but map-reading skills will never go out of style. A favorite book here at the museum is “Pilots Directions,” a handbook published in 1921 by the U.S. Post Office’s Air Mail

For Veteran’s Day, we chose to honor Lt. Douglas Holt, one of the key people who made the Kelch Aviation Museum a reality. An original trustee of the Alfred & Lois Kelch Charitable Trust and a mentor and advisor to the early Kelch Aviation Museum staff, Doug was a renown

Here’s an original 1929 ad from Aero Digest featuring the Laird Airplane Co., “The Thoroughbred of the Airways.” The vintage artwork of this era is so striking, part of what makes the Golden Age so iconic.

Five years ago this week, our 1928 Stearman C3B appeared on the cover of Vintage Airplane magazine. This rare aircraft was flown to the EAA “Airventure” convention in Oshkosh earlier that year and we brought home a nice plaque for “Antique Silver Age Open Cockpit Biplane.”

Charles Lindbergh visited Wisconsin during his victory tour in August 1927! Here’s a commemorative postcard, and a photo of mechanics doing a quick repair on the Spirit Of St Louis during Lucky Lindy’s stop in Milwaukee. Charles Lindbergh’s own Bird Biplane is on display here in Wisconsin at the Kelch

Happy Halloween, vintage aviation lovers! How many of you have airplane-themed halloween costumes, like this incredible 1930s outfit?

Pictured is the Kelch Aviation Museum’s 1929 Stearman C3B, NC8811 after a day’s work with Atwood Crop Dusters in 1954. Crop dusting was a dangerous business, and 8811 was involved in a forced landing on August 13, 1954. The pilot, Peter Grant (pictured) was applying a dust insecticide, Tetraethyl Pyrophosphate

Aviation writer Sparky Barnes has a new article about the “Grassroots” antique airplane fly-in at Brodhead Airport, and a nice plug for the Kelch Aviation Museum. https://generalaviationnews.com/2022/10/23/a-friendly-and-fun-grassroots-fly-in/