Gerry Yagen’s 44 warbirds were just too much of a financial burden, he said. So the entire collection is up for sale. Long financed by Yagen’s string of vocational tech schools, the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach, Virginia, includes a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, a Focke Wulf Fw-190 and a de Havilland Dragon Rapide painted in the colors of the King’s Guard, recalling the example owned and flown by England’s Prince Edward in the 1930s.
Four of Yagen’s schools have been sold, and the museum may close next. To date, several of Yagen’s aircraft have reportedly already found new homes, including the Tillamook Air Museum in Oregon (the B-17 and Fw-190).
Recently completed by a warbird restoration shop in New Zealand, the de Havilland Mosquito fighter-bomber, powered by a pair of Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, was slated to appear in a number of airshows this summer. It remains to be seen if the new owner will be able to fulfill the schedule as planned.
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