The biggest champion of Quebec’s only aviation museum has died, leaving volunteers concerned about its future. One of the West Island's best-kept secrets, the Montreal Aviation Museum (formerly the Canadian Aviation Heritage Centre) lives in an old stone barn on McGill's Macdonald Campus in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue. The museum was founded in 2009 by Godfrey Stewart Pasmore as a tribute to his father, a World War I pilot and executive at Fairchild Industries in Longueuil. “Godfrey was a very special guy. In the 90s he realized they were over 33 aviation museums in Canada and absolutely nothing in Quebec,” said Eric Campbell,chief of operations for the museum. The museum doesn't just have airplanes, there is also an impressive art gallery – Pasmore commissioned 35 of the paintings himself. The museum is run by 30 volunteers who restore aircrafts for the museum. “We don't have all the parts from the original, there's a lot of stuff we need to make ourselves,” said project lead Michel Frechette. There are seven full-size planes at the museum that was once William Mcdonald's show barn. “Well the building was abandoned for 13 years. It wasn't fit for cattle or beast,” said Campbell. “We are the best and the biggest aviation museum between the cows in the cornfield, I guarantee it.” The Bristol Bolingbroke planes were built mostly by women. One cockpit restoration took 5 years to complete. “We try to be creative by making our own tools with some of the drawings that we have to try to build it to what it was before,” said Frechette. On March 12, Pasmore passed away at the age of 83. The main fundraiser for his passion project, the museum relies on donations and membership. Now that Pasmore is gone, volunteers said they’ll have to worker harder to stay afloat. “We're trying actively to find a white knight, someone who understands what we're trying to do,” said Campbell, who also wants broaden the museum's appeal to the general public. The museum will host a public celebration of Godfrey Pasmore's life next Saturday from 2 to 5 p.m.
