The dry ice blasting to remove the remaining foam is nearing completion on the rest of the areas in the cockpit and under the floorboards. The dry-ice blasting is doing a fantastic job of removing the foam remnants! Thank you Ryan Thimesch of BEPC for his time and talent! The dry ice blasting turns the foam, remaining after manual scraping, into a fine dust that requires continuous cleanup! After the completion of the foam removal in the cockpit, we have decided to proceed with another novel use of dry ice blasting; to clean the grime and crud from other areas around the airplane. Trial areas show great promise to reduce the amount of manual labor required! The nose landing gear doors have been removed and the nose avionics bay and nose landing gear bay are now ready to be cleaned by dry-ice blasting. We now have large prints of the wiring schematics to help us identify wires and components. This will assist us in developing the new wire harnesses. A completely new wiring harness will be built to replace the 61 year old brittle harness that was recently removed. Some components are not planned to be reinstalled, such as the thrust reversers, so all of the wiring and components associated with these will not be a part of the new harness. We just received the shelving to get our parts room sorted. We will need some volunteers to help assemble the shelves and move some things around inside the storage cage.  Will you volunteer?

23-003 has been officially assigned the registration number “N200Y” by the FAA! Bill Kinkaid, President of the Classic Lear Jet Foundation, made the announcement at the Polar Mission Hangar Party on the evening of April 26 th . We then witnessed Bart Gray, Vice-President of the CLJF, sign the AC Form 8050-64 to formally complete the official assignment process. We owe a big ‘Thank You’ to Joel Weber for tracking down the chief pilot and owner of the airplane that had N200Y and explaining the significance of this number to our historic Lear Jet and asking them to let us have it. He then worked tirelessly with them to help them find another suitable number for their airplane. Joel started this quest on October 28, 2022, a little over a month after CLJF received our Articles of Incorporation, and on April 26, 2025 we own it! This is the same registration number that she wore at her delivery on October 13, 1964! “The Polar Mission” – Huge Success! The Polar Mission events started the evening that 36A-022 N31GJ and crew arrived at Jim Lee’s hangar at Stearman Field on April 24, 2025. The airplane was all decked out with the colorful logos of each of the mission sponsors. A special decal, placed on each side of the fuselage, just aft of the cabin door, was a note dedicating the mission to William Powell Lear, Jr. by his wife Brenda. Also, special windshield sunshades were made to honor Bill, Jr. and Brenda Lear.