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19-551: The American Heritage Museum , a collection of military vehicles, is located on the grounds of the foundation. The organization also has a satellite operations base at Ellington Field in Houston , Texas , primarily housing its Korean War and Vietnam War jet aircraft and helicopter collection. The Collings Foundation operated two touring collections of historic military aircraft: The Wings of Freedom Tour and The Vietnam Memorial Flight. The Wings of Freedom tour ended in 2023 after

38-930: A World War II era M3 Scout Car . In 1998 he set up the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation to manage his collection of over 150 vehicles and restore more. He grew up in Burlingame and attended Norma Moore Grade School in Burlingame, the Carey School in San Mateo , and the Cate School in Carpinteria before studying at Stanford University , where he received his bachelor's degree in 1971 and an MBA two years later. He worked for Hewlett Packard for five years as

57-632: A failure to maintain a “a culture of safety” leading up to the crash. In 2023, it traded a Stearman PT-17 to the National Museum of the United States Air Force in exchange for a Republic P-47 Thunderbolt . The following month, an original Nieuport 28 owned by the foundation was damaged in an accident. Later that year, it announced it would be ending its Wings of Freedom tour and grounding its aircraft. Source: American Heritage Museum The American Heritage Museum

76-968: A manufacturing engineer before focusing solely on building his museum and restoration facility. Littlefield served on the boards of the General George Patton Museum , the Cate School, the Coyote Point Museum for Environmental Education , the Hoover Institution , the California Academy of Sciences , and the Filoli Center . He was a member of the Bohemian Club where he was a Captain of the Sempervirens camp. Following

95-472: A program of restoring many of them and giving educational tours to the public. By the time of Littlefield's premature death in 2009, his collection had expanded to over 240 vehicles. In accordance with his objective of preserving the collection for the future, donated its collection to the Collings Foundation , a non-profit educational institution founded in 1979 with a mission dedicated to

114-592: A section of the Berlin Wall , and a September 11 memorial featuring a twisted steel beam from one of the World Trade Center towers. The steel beam was dedicated in a ceremony at the museum on September 11, 2018. The museum opened an exhibit in 2023 about the Hanoi Hilton using materials salvaged from the original building, In January 2024 a restored WWII-era Deutsche Reichsbahn rail car

133-717: A settlement was eventually reached in July 2017 and construction of the museum was completed in 2018. The museum held a "preview" opening in October 2018 and fully opened in May 2019. The organization's B-17G Flying Fortress crashed in October, 2019 , killing seven of the thirteen people on board. In March 2020, the organization's permission to carry passengers was revoked by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), citing “notable maintenance discrepancies” and

152-541: Is a military history museum located on the grounds of the Collings Foundation in the town of Stow, Massachusetts , 21 miles (34 km) west of Boston . The collection consists of over 100 artifacts, most of which were formerly part of the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation collection in Portola Valley, California . Over half of the items on display are from the World War II era, with World War I ,

171-547: Is the CEO and chief pilot of the foundation. On July 4, 2013, the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation founded by Jacques Littlefield and located in Portola Valley, California , donated their entire collection of military vehicles to the Collings Foundation. A year later, the Collings Foundation auctioned off 120 of the vehicles to fund creation of a new museum at their headquarters. The remaining vehicles are now

190-680: The Battle of Saint-Mihiel , the first and only offensive launched solely by the United States Army in World War I . Visitors next enter the "War Clouds" room, which is a short movie which covers the Interwar period and the rise of Nazi Germany . Visitors then exit to the main display room of the museum, in which artifacts are arranged roughly chronologically and grouped under major campaigns and theaters of war. The museum also includes

209-552: The Korean War , Vietnam War , Gulf War , Iraq War , and the War on Terror also represented. Most of the items on display, including tanks and artifacts, are American, German, Russian, or British in origin. Beginning in the early 1980s and continuing for the next 20 years, Jacques Littlefield , a Stanford University graduate and former Hewlett Packard engineer, amassed a $ 30 million collection of military vehicles and engaged in

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228-465: The Foundation's application to build the museum, questioning the propriety of locating such a large facility on land that was zoned for residential use. In its defense, the Foundation cited Massachusetts' Dover Amendment , which the Foundation believed would exempt the museum from zoning restrictions, on the grounds that its purpose would be primarily educational in nature. Ultimately, an agreement

247-655: The centerpiece of the American Heritage Museum in Stow, Massachusetts . In 2015, the Stow Planning Board questioned the educational merit of the proposed museum. The educational purpose was needed in order to allow the planned 60,000-square-foot (5,600 m) museum to be built on land that was zoned for residential use. The Planning Board rejected the foundation's application in August 2015 but

266-488: The organization grounded their WWII aircraft. The Collings Foundation sold vintage warbird rides to the general public through a flight exemption until permission for such flights was revoked by the Federal Aviation Administration following the fatal 2019 crash of the foundation's B-17G . The organization was founded in 1979 by Robert F. Collings and Caroline Collings. As of April 2020, Caroline Collings continues to serve as financial director, while son Rob Collings

285-599: The preservation and public display of transportation-related history. The Collings Foundation then auctioned off 120 of the vehicles, netting $ 9.5 million to fund the creation of a new 69,000-square-foot (6,400 m ) museum to display the remaining 80 items in the collection at the Collings Foundation headquarters in the Boston area. Meanwhile, in August 2015, the Planning Board of the Town of Stow initially rejected

304-537: Was dedicated in a solemn ceremony at the Museum, to become part of a growing exhibit on the Holocaust. This cattle car is of the type used to transport millions of Jewish and other persecuted groups to concentration and extermination camps between 1933 and 1945. Some of the major artifacts currently on display are as follows: Jacques Littlefield Jacques Littlefield (November 21, 1949 – January 7, 2009)

323-424: Was reached between the two parties in July 2017, and construction of the museum was completed in 2018. The museum held a preview opening in October 2018 and had its grand opening in May 2019. Visitors are encouraged to begin their tour with the viewing of a brief introductory film, followed by the immersive walk-through of the "WWI Trench Experience" room, containing a recreation of Western Front trenches at

342-549: Was the founder of the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation (MVTF), also called the Littlefield collection. Jacques Littlefield collected many vintage military vehicles including a Panther tank , several M4 Sherman tanks , a SS-1 Scud launcher, and a propeller of the ship Lusitania . He had over 220 military vehicles to his name. Littlefield was born on November 21, 1949, in San Francisco , California . He

361-615: Was the son of Edmund Wattis Littlefield and Jeannik Méquet Littlefield. His father was CEO of Utah Construction Company , his mother is a strong supporter of the arts and a member of the Chairman's Council of the San Francisco Opera . Littlefield's fascination with military vehicles started as a child, when he started building plastic models of them. In college he built his first remote control scale model tank. He obtained his first full-size military vehicle in 1975,

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