COLUMBUS, Ind. — Atterbury-Bakalar Air Museum volunteers have finished installing the outer wings on a C-119 “Flying Boxcar” aircraft which has been moved to a display site near Columbus Municipal Airport.
The roughly 38,000-pound plane, which is not airworthy, was taken apart last year at an airport in Greybull, Wyoming, where the aircraft’s parts were loaded onto trucks and driven 1,460 miles to Columbus. At an airport restoration hangar, much of the aircraft was gradually reassembled and restored over the course of several months.
The volunteers have installed the 2,200-pound outer wings onto the plane’s iconic fuselage, offering the public a first glimpse of the aircraft’s full 110-foot wingspan, said Skip Taylor, a museum member who is co-leading the C-119 project.
Several days before installing the wings, the volunteers, along with the help along with the help of the Kentucky Air National Guard, Force Construction and others, used a crane to lift the 32,000-pound fuselage about 4 to 5 feet off the ground and carry it about 0.75 miles from a hangar off Warren Drive to its display site just south of the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II aircraft now on display near the museum.
“It’s there,” Taylor said. “The next thing we’re going to do is put the propellers on it, and then that will be all the major pieces on the plane.”
For the complete story and more more photos, see Tuesday’s Republic.
