OWLS HEAD — The Owls Head Transportation Museum’s 2016 Winter Education Series includes four monthly programs spanning multiple genres including aviation, motorcycle and automobile racing. All Owls Head Transportation Museum Winter Education Series programs are free to the public and begin at 1 p.m. on their respective dates.

Visitors wishing to view the Museum before or after attending a Winter Education Series Program will be charged standard museum admission of $14 for adults and $10 for visitors over 65. Museum admission is always free to youth under 18 as well as retired and active duty Military (Uniformed Services ID required).

The Winter Education Series will kickoff on Saturday, Jan. 30, with a presentation by author-curator emeritus Charles Jacobs titled "The Zeppelin Hindenburg." Jacobs has been fascinated with lighter-than-air flight since childhood. For almost half a century, Jacobs has studied and collected Dirigibilia and will discuss his new book, Ausfalls: LZ 129 "Hindenburg" May Day Flight 1937, share some of his Hindenburg heirlooms and address Maine's historic connection with this airship.

On Saturday, Feb. 27, former Group 44 driver John "Mac" McComb will present "The Greatest Race Car Driver You've Never Heard Of," detailing his diverse experiences in automobile racing. McComb has been a factory race car driver for MG, Ford, Triumph, Datsun and Ferrari to name but a few. McComb will share the tales of his impressive racing career, which involved such luminaries as Carroll Shelby and Paul Newman.

McComb is an internationally recognized sports car driver in the SCCA and IMSA. During his three-decade career, spanning the 1960s through the 1980s, McComb drove for six factories and numerous private owners. He won numerous SCCA divisional titles and two national championships. McComb is a member of the exclusive Road Racing Drivers Club, and he and his wife, Vici, are volunteers at the Owls Head Transportation Museum.

On Saturday, March 26, sidecar motorcycle racer and owner of DP Motorsport, David Percival will present "Sidecar Racing." Percival will discuss the history of this exciting sport as well as his own experiences as a sidecar racer. While sidecar racing was much more popular in Europe than the United States, the sport is seeing resurgence in this country with the growing popularity of Vintage Motorcycle Racing.

Percival was born and raised in the Western mountains of Maine and in the White mountains area of New Hampshire. A graduate of Paul Smith's College with a degree in forestry, Percival spent his lifetime as a logging contractor and in the biomass energy industry. A hot rod enthusiast in his youth, Percival discovered motorcycle racing while stationed with the U.S. Army, Corp of Engineers in Germany where he made liquid oxygen for missile fuel.

In the 1980s, Percival took up auto endurance racing and then vintage motorcycle racing. He and Ozzie Auer, a California BMW motorcycle dealer, formed a vintage team that has won more than fifty national championships with their BMW motorcycles and continues to support younger racers in the sport.

Commemorating the centennial of the Lafayette Escadrille, historian, writer and museum professional, Mark Wilkins will present a talk titled "The Lafayette Escadrille" on Saturday, April 30. A squadron of the French Air Service, the Escadrille was composed largely of American pilots who had volunteered their service a full year before the United States officially entered the War. Wilkins will explore the history of this fascinating group of pilots. The technology (aircraft) and tactics used will be explored as well as contextualizing the Lafayette Escadrille within the larger framework of the War, and the sociopolitical climate of the time.

Wilkins is an historian, writer, and museum professional. He has been director and curator of both the Cape Cod Maritime Museum and The Atwood House Museum (Chatham Historical Society), and has worked for the Smithsonian and Mystic Seaport. Wilkins is a published author of books and articles relating to maritime and aviation history. Wilkins has a master's degree in history from Harvard University, and is currently working on a series of novels relating to WWI aviation.

To find out more about any Winter Education Series program, contact Owls Head Transportation Museum Curator and Education Director Ethan Yankura or Public Relations Director Jenna Lookner at (207) 594-4418 or visit owlshead.org.