I’m a volunteer at The Wings Aviation Museum here in the UK. Our museum dedicates itself to telling the stories and educating other about the lives of those that served in the wars (mainly Second World War) but we would now like to build up a dedicated section for the Vietnam War and those that served in it. With that in mind, I am reaching out to you as we would like to find a ex-Vietnam Huey for our museum to display. It can be a non-working one but ideally with an engine . We can obviously pay for it but being a museum we have limited funds. We can also arrange for the importing of it. My uncle Don Wilson who was USAF and flew Huey’s in Vietnam suggested I reach out to you.
Here is a link to our museum’s website where you can see some of the exhibits we have on display:
https://www.wingsmuseum.co.uk/
The trustees of our museum have said they want to tell the stories of the pilots and crews from Vietnam so that us Brits can appreciate all the sacrifices and service of vets. They definitely want it to be a Vietnam veteran huey and that an engine in it would be good too. We have a good team of engineers so I guess a box of bits could also work.
If we could find a suitable Huey we can also obviously put a credit on our exhibit to the provider and/or UH1OPS. It would be fantastic to have the provenance and flight records of the helicopter as well.
Would you be able to reach out to you membership or even put my request as a sort of request item on your website? You are welcome to share my personal email - simon_orsborn@yahoo.com.uk
Actually I just got back from a tour of Vietnam myself with my daughter. I read up a lot on the history and we found out a lot whilst out there too. We went down the Cu Chi Tunnels, went to the war remnants museum in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).
Many thanks for you time,
Simon Orsborn
United Kingdom
Wings Aviation Museum Volunteer