There has been some discussion recently about Windy videos, those that have been digitized and uploaded to YouTube and then deleted, and then some feel that some may have been lost. Well, today that may be solved a bit.
We have a club member that some of you may know, Walt Brownell. Walt is a retired McDonnel-Douglas engineer who flew C/L stunt and scale for many years but has recently been in declining health including the onset of dementia, and has been moved to a care facility after experiencing a nasty fall at home. Last summer, Walt had members of the club come to his house and gave away his entire model collection and they have been scattered amongst the membership, and after not being flown for quite a long time, many have been brought back to life and are being flown. Walt was brought to our Fun Fly last summer and got to see some of his creations back in the air where they belong.
Walt was also a subscriber to Windy's video series and I think may have been from the very beginning. Yesterday, we started the final cleanout of his basement shop so his family can prepare the house for sale, and one of the duties that fell to me was gathering all the videos tapes from the four corners of the basement. I took a pad of paper and some pencils in hope of cataloging the collection, but quickly decided that wasn't going to be possible in the time frame we had, so i just started boxing them up so they can be moved. It took me the better part of a couple of hours just to do that, and I have pictures of the pile of boxes and crates for anyone that wants top see it. I have NO way of knowing how many or what tapes are there at this time, but like the title of this thread says, it has to be the mother load of Windy videos. I still have to go back today to pick them up and figure out where I am going to store them for at least the short term. I am posting this thread to spread the word to those that are still interested in digitizing these and preserving them and they can be the caretakers of the collection. Windy's stuff is quite historic I think and should be preserved, I just don't have the space nor the equipment and technology to do that.
So while I am working on getting the pile relocated, who would like to be the caretaker? It would not be too much of a guess to say that there may be every Windy video that he ever offered. Like I said, Walt was a subscriber and dealt with Windy a lot, so that would not be too far from a real possibility. There are Brodak tapes, NATS tapes, construction and finishing tapes. Many are numbered. There was just too many of them for me to even begin to try to make some note of what is there. So if there is a person or group that would like to take these, please let me know. You would just be responsible for picking them up or paying for any shipping costs and I'm sure it may take a while to figure all of that out. For now, I am just leaving them as I packed them and will put them in my storage locker while this all evolves. I am in the St. Louis, MO area near I-270 in North St. Louis County. For someone in the midwest region, it would make a lot of sense to just come pick them up rather than incur a lot of shipping costs and risk any damage.
I'm of to Walt's house again!
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee