Nighthawk1931

Save the Nighthawk

A great piece of soaring history lies rotting away in an unknown location! We need to rescue it and get it displayed at the National Soaring Museum, fast!!

The William Cocke, flying was he claimed was his homebuilt Nighthawk glider in December 1931, set the World and US Duration Record at 23 hours and 34 minutes, flying along Oahu's Nuunau Pali. Although the World mark was subsequently broken, the Nighthawk still holds the official US Duration Record.

In 1932, Cocke donated the glider to the Los Angeles Country Museum of Natural History, where it was on display until some time in the 1940s. It was then put into storage, where it remained for the next 50 years.

Overhearing a conversation about a dusty glider in the basement of the LA museum, John Ludowitz, a glider pilot and volunteer at the Santa Monica Museum of Flight, convinced the Santa Monica museum to borrow the glider for National Soaring Week, in June 1990. Here it remained on display for six months until it was put back in storage, where it was damaged in the 1994 Northridge Earthquake.

Over the suceeding 15 years, a group of us have tried five times to obtain the Nighthawk on loan to the NSM, unsuccessfully. The 2000 efforts had an unexpected consequence--the Santa Monica museum was forced to place the glider back on display. Here it remained until the Museum of Flight folded in 2002. At the moment, the location of the Nighthawk is unknown except to its warehousemen.

Currently, I am leading yet another effort to obtain the loan of the Nighthawk. The NSM has a place all picked out for its display. Volunteers have offered to drive it back to Elmira. All we need is the glider.

Unfortunately, the Museum of Natural History has only offered a 6 month to one year loan, which is unacceptable. I am trying to put together a presentation to convince the LA museum that the best place for the Nighthawk is on LONG TERM loan (decades not months) at the NSM, and I need your help.

When I make my presentation, I want to lay a very large stack of letters on their desk what were written by every day glider pilots from around the United States, supporting the long term loan of the Nighthawk to the NSM. I see this as being very important.

Would you please help? Unfortunately, time is of the essence and I need your letters as soon as possible.

You can send them to me at either:
Raul Blacksten
PO Box 307
Maywood, CA 90270
or
< >

If you email your letters to me, PLEASE put "Nighthawk" in the subject line. I get a lot of spam (50-100 a day) and often I delete legitimate correspondence without reading or downloading it based entirely upon what is in the subject line.

Thank you for your assistance in this matter. With your help, the school bus yellow Nighthawk will once again be on display, but this time in a place that appreciates it.

Oh, and if by some chance you would like to make an offering (not required) for the maintenence of the Nighthawk once it is at the NSM, you may enclose a check or money order payable to "National Soaring Museum" with "Nighthawk" in the note line.

For more information on the Nighthawk, please see my article in Soaring magazine, November and December 1991

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