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| 2/13/2007 9:00:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| Jim Ryan stands in front of the fuselage of the Strategic Air and Space Museum’s new Phantom aircraft when it was delivered last Thursday. |
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| Carl Lorenzen holds an ink drawing of a Phantom. Ryan and Lorenzen were both key players in getting the new acquisition to the museum in honor of the Nebraska Air National Guardsmen who flew air reconaisance missions in the aircraft for nearly 30 years. |
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Blairites help air museum land plane
Jim Brazda
Reporter
Soon, former members of the Nebraska Air National Guard will be able to show their grandchildren exactly what type of plane they used to fly in the service of our country.
The Strategic Air & Space Museum near Ashland received its first new exhibit since 2003 last week thanks to the efforts of former crewmen and the dedication of two local, former guardsmen.
On Thursday, Feb. 8, the main fuselage of an RF-4C Phantom jet operated by the Nebraska Air National Guard arrived at the museum where former air guardsmen and Blair residents, Carl Lorenzen and Jim Ryan eagerly watched its reassembly.
The moment was sweet for Lorenzen and Ryan, who both served in the air guard for more than 30 years, as they witnessed the plane's homecoming to Nebraska that they helped make possible.
Nebraska air guardsmen flew the Phantom jets on photo reconnaissance missions from 1964 until the 1990s, when the guard's mission changed to aerial refueling.
In the early years of 2000, Ryan said he began trying to acquire a Phantom for the museum. The museum, however, had an unofficial rule to only allow planes that served the Strategic Air Command, and was uninterested in displaying the air guard plane until the museum changed names from the Strategic Air Command Museum to the Strategic Air & Space Museum, Ryan said.
Ryan and Lorenzen, along with Col. Rick Evans, the commander of the air national guard attachment at Offutt Air Force Base, and others, set up a non-profit organization and a website at nebraskaphantoms.com to raise funds and inform former crew members of their mission to acquire a Phantom for the Museum.
Then, in August 2006, Ryan was informed one of Nebraska's Phantoms was sitting at an Air Force base in Ohio.
"When we learned this airplane was available, we had to get it back to Nebraska," Lorenzen said.
The group pitched the idea to former crew members at the Air Guard's 60th annual open house in Lincoln in September and asked for a show of hands of support to raise the $50,000 it would take to get the plane to the museum.
"It was unanimous," Ryan said.
Using the website, the group reached its fundraising goal in around 100 days, mainly from donations from former crew members.
"It was a pretty easy thing," Ryan said. "There were an awful lot of generous, retired crew members out of the F-4."
The group hired Worldwide Aircraft Recovery to move the plane in pieces and reassemble it in the museum. When it arrived last week, a handful of former air guardsmen were there to witness the planes' homecoming to Nebraska.
"It was really neat to see the thing pull around the corner," Ryan said.
It took crews only around two hours to re-attach the fuselage to the wings and landing gear. The final step before the plane can be displayed, restoration, should last into the summer, Ryan said. When it is finished, it will look exactly as it did while it was sitting on the runway in Lincoln.
"It's going to be fun for anyone involved in it to take their grandchildren down there and say 'this is what I used to do,'" Ryan said.
"It's not just for the air crews and mechanics, but for everybody who's ever been in the guard to be able to go down to the museum and see this piece of Nebraska history," Lorenzen said. "It's going to mean a lot for everybody who's been in the guard and hopefully for all Nebraskans in general."
Now that the Phantom is getting a make-over in the hangar at the museum, Ryan said the non-profit group they set up, Nebraska Air National Guard Phantom Inc., will look for other projects to help preserve the military history of Nebraska. The Nebraska Air Guard is the second oldest in the nation, established one day after the Colorado Air National Guard.
Fun facts about the Phantom
• In 48 seconds, the Phantom can climb four miles.
•With both engines at full speed, the Phantom consumes enough fuel in 60 seconds to drive an average American car more than 3,000 miles, and it carries enough fuel to drive that car about 35,000 miles.
•Flight time from St. Louis to Chicago is 12 minutes.
•Its generators can push enough power through its 14 miles of electrical wiring to supply a subdivision of 30-40 homes.
•Its engines at full throttle draw in enough air to collapse a typical six-room house in two seconds.
•Its cruise speed was 587 miles per hour and max speed was Mach 2+, or more than 1,600 miles per hour.
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