New addition to our museum

[Hair Trigger]

Our local aviation museum got a new addition this past week. Two USMC AV-8B Harrier VTOL jets flew in from Cherry Point MCAS, and we got one of them. The second one is a TAV-8B, a two-seat trainer that was giving the pilot of our plane a ride home. The plane will keep its full cockpit and engine, but be demilitarized and non-flyable. As our plane taxied to the ramp, the fire department had two trucks spraying a welcome across the plane.

Our museum is currently building a completely new facility to allow our growing collection to be indoors. The hangar section will be almost 60,000 square feet, large enough for our P-3 Orion to fit, and will be engineered to hang many of the smaller planes from the "rafters". It's being billed as the largest air museum between Washington DC and Pensacola Florida. All but a couple of our planes are on permanent loan from the Pensacola Naval Air Museum. One of our collection is the #5 solo F/A-18C of the Blue Angels, which we received after the Angels upgraded to the Super Hornet. It, the Harrier, the P-3 Orion and an AH-1W Super Cobra were flown to the museum over the last several years. We also have the last F-14D Tomcat to be retired, and the second operational F-105 Thunderchief.
Hickory Aviation Museum | Where Hickory Takes Flight

 

[Retired W4]

Great museum Trigger. The Jump Jet makes a nice addition as well as all the other A/C. I did not know that the Navy had Otters once upon a time.

 

[llowry61]

Sounds like your museum is growing nicely, glad you are getting the the additional aircraft. Those Harriers are really something to see when the do the vertical take off. We had one show up at Rickenbacker AFB when I was getting my pilots license. I worked for Lockheed Air Terminal which managed the civilian (the refueling group of ANG flew KC 135's off the military base side) side of the airport when Flying Tigers started their cargo operations there. One of my responsibilities was runway checks and investigating / cleaning up any reported FOD. A Herrier made a heck of a mess of some aging asphalt on the approach end of the runway doing a Vertical takeoff. I had to clean it up, but it was cool to see.

 

[Hair Trigger]

Great museum Trigger. The Jump Jet makes a nice addition as well as all the other A/C. I did not know that the Navy had Otters once upon a time.

Otters? You mean this one?

We don't have one at our museum.

 

[Greyman50]

Very Interesting, had no idea this museum was in Hickory. Been through Hickory 100s of times and will plan a trip to check it out.

 

[Rudi]

A great plane, cool you got one.

 

[Hair Trigger]

Very Interesting, had no idea this museum was in Hickory. Been through Hickory 100s of times and will plan a trip to check it out.

Current museum is located in the old terminal building at the end nearest the large P-3 Orion parked on the ramp with the rest of our current collection. We've got a lot of WWII items like uniforms and militaria, plus more recent items and lots of static models. The aircraft are all parked outside for now and it's difficult to keep them clean from wasp nests and bird dookey, one of the biggest reasons for the new facility. A couple of the nicest planes stay in a corporate hangar across the runway, as we have run out of display space until the new building is completed, projected late next year. The steel framework is mostly up and work is steadily progressing. Admission is and always will be free, come when you can.