The Van Kirk family has a long & distinguished aviation history. Their Aviation Museum has many interesting historical aviation artifacts The Van Kirk family has a long and very distinguished tradition of aviation history. Their uncle, Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk had a distinguished career including as a navigator on the USAF flight of the Enola Gay, when it dropped the first Atomic Bomb on Hiroshim
a. Their Aviation Museum has many interesting historical aviation artifacts. Malcolm and Steve Van Kirk have been involved in aviation almost all their lives. Along travels they established countless friendships with distinguished aviators who believed in their mission to preserve aviation heritage for generations to come and donated to the museum. Over the years the collection has grown to span across two airports. The majority of the collection is housed at Frederick Municipal Airport. The museum supports many programs and organizations such as: Wings for Val, DC Youth Aviation, Ninety-Nines, AOPA, EAA, Boyscouts of America, Civil Air Patrol, and so many more. Due to space constraints at the Frederick Municple Airport, it is not possible to house the entire collection all in Frederick. At the Washington County Regional Airport in Hagerstown, MD, we house additional planes former record holding piper cubs. One of the cubs set the initial record for flight endurance. We also have the piper that broke its record shortly thereafter. We have and are slowly working to restore the worlds oldest light twin still in existence. This is the 3rd piper apache sold to the general public after the prototype phase. We have the Van Kirk brothers moms 1930 pontiac sedan complete with wooden wheels and a handcrank engine. Finally tucked away in the back of Rider Jet Center in Hagerstown, is our Douglas DC-3. This is a Former Air North charter airliner that spent most of its life flying the remote areas of Northwestern Canada and Alaska. It was one of five DC-3’s Air North had in their fleet and it was affectionately named “Yukon Sourdough”. When the Van Kirk’s originally purchased Yukon Sourdough in 2001, their vision was to offer dinner flights around the capital. Unfortunately a few short months later, 9/11 happened and forever changed aviation. Yukon Sourdough was damaged in a wind storm which grounded it for 13 years. An extensive rebuild was finished up in 2022 and Yukon Sourdough is back to flying. Yukon Sourdough is maintained as a time capsule to show what air travel once was when the DC-3 revolutionized air travel beginning in the mid 1930’s. The for the past few years the members of the Van Kirk Aviation Museum have enjoyed moving Yukon Sourdough and putting the DC-3 on display at the Hagerstown Aviation Museum. We have tried to support every event there we can and we’ve done this so often that people think the plane is a part of their museum. When this confusion comes about we like to pat ourselves on the back because we know we made an good impression on someone along the way. Please make a reservation to visit or museum or come see us when we are supporting another museum’s event. Van Kirk Aviation Heritage Museum
or Van Kirk Aviation Museum for short, is located at
Frederick Municipal Airport, Hangar D1 in Frederick, MD . For Air North DC-3 Yukon Sourdough inquires please reach out to Derek 240-405-four-nine-seven-nine.
