Thursday, July 05, 2012

Volunteers help rebuild Yankee Air Museum

Rebuilding the Yankee Air Museum has been a labor of love for the members of the Yankee Air Force. With only four paid employees, including Executive Director Kevin Walsh, much of the work is done by the volunteers who painstakingly restore aircraft, create a resource library and organize fundraisers to benefit the museum.

Volunteers have been busy rebuilding the museum after its collection of artifacts, memorabilia and several planes were destroyed in a 2004 fire that leveled the hangar it had called home. The historic wooden building had been used by Henry Ford to build B-24s during World War II.

Luckily, the heart of the museum's collection — the B-17, C-47 and B-25 aircraft — were moved out of the building by volunteers before the fire reached them. Those three planes are the only flyable aircraft in the museum collection and are going somewhere every weekend. Museum volunteers serve as their flight crews.

“I don't get paid, but I get to fly, it's one of the perks,” said volunteer Bob Catalano, who serves as the assistant manager of collections.

The fire was a setback for the museum, which didn't re-open until October 2010. Volunteers have been steadily adding displays and restoring aircraft. Many of its planes are leased from the U.S. Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. However, one industrious group of volunteers is building a French SPAD XII World War I fighter from scratch. The plane will look as it did as part of 103d Aero Squadron in 1918, complete with the recognizable Hat in the Ring emblem.

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