Published: July 25, 2009 10:14 pm      

Bringing awareness to air museum

Finicky Mother Nature hurts Grissom fly-in

BUNKER HILL — Logansport pilot Bob Barr was determined to fly his plane Saturday morning, despite questionable weather.

He arrived at the Logansport Cass County Airport at 7 a.m. Saturday and fueled his 1955 yellow Beechcraft T-34. He made the decision he would up drive to Grissom Air Reserve Base if he wasn’t in the air by 8:30 a.m. By 7:50 a.m. he was in the air and on his way.

Barr, who is also on the board of directors for the Grissom Air Museum, decided to fly for the museum’s sake.

Grissom Air Museum and Montgomery Aviation sponsored the first Grissom Fly-In Saturday.

Jerry White, Montgomery Aviation manager, said the groups decided to use the first scheduled event as a model of what they did right and what went wrong. In the future, White noted a back-up rain date will probably be scheduled.

Grissom Air Museum invited those interested to visit not only the museum, but also its back hanger, located next door to Montgomery Aviation.

The hanger contains several aviation artifacts, which are not on display at the museum. Items included the Bufford Gross’s full-scale replica of the 1903 Wright Flyer, a D-21, a J-3 Piper Cub, which the museum is hoping to restore, and a modern aircraft camera pod used to take high-altitude pictures while attached to a F-14 Tomcat.

White said the purpose of the fly-in was to help raise money for the Grissom Air Museum. The museum is hoping to construct a new building.

“The goal is to get it restored to flying condition,” White said. “We’re looking for volunteers and donations.”

Grissom Air Museum director Andy Cougill explained the museum also needs additional space for items still in storage, which are not usually visible to the public.

Cougill added it was important to have the fly-in to make others aware that Grissom opened its landing to general aviation aircraft last year. He said organizers also wanted to draw in a more diverse group of people to visit the museum, especially those who had not visited it before.

Although Barr was the only pilot that landed his plane for the event, White said that was because the weather wasn’t in favor for the event this year.

“We had low visibility and the clouds were low,” he said. “Unless you’re certified to fly in those conditions, you can’t even leave the ground.”

As soon as Barr landed his plane, it started pouring down rain.

“It definitely hurt,” he said. “A lot of people wanted to fly in, especially on a military base.”

The drive-in option for the day brought in a decent crowd though, which pleased organizers. Several families brought their children out to see the different planes not only at the hangers, but at the museum as well.

“We hope to do this every year,” White said. “We would like to keep growing and make it an entire day event.”

• Denise Massie is a staff writer at the Pharos-Tribune. She can be reached at (574) 732-5151 or denise.massie@pharostribune.com