Scope and Contents

This collection consists of Westburg's original drawings. The material consists of 105 ink-on-mylar detail drawings of 37 aircraft from the 1920s and 1930s. Westburg executed all these drawings between April 1970 and February 1981.

Biographical / Historical

Peter W. Westburg (1914-1984) was raised in Michigan City, Indiana, and relocated to Santa Monica, California, just before World War II to work for Douglas Aircraft Company. As a lifelong aeronautical engineer for Douglas he held several patents, including a flap mechanism for the DC-8. Westburg is perhaps best known for his superbly accurate and detailed scale view drawings of many military and civil aircraft from the 1930s. Working closely with Westburg, MODEL BUILDER magazine published all of his drawings, each accompanied by photographs and brief histories of the aircraft. After Westburg's death in 1984 the National Air and Space Museum authorized Paul L. Smith, an associate of Westburg's, to undertake a fundraising effort to purchase the Westburg drawings for the archives.