Some of you may have already seen this. Here’s the backstory. There is a museum in Bowling Green KY (Aviation Heritage Park and Museum) that is dedicated to aviators that came from the state. Some of the more notable ones, are BG Dan Cherry, F-4 pilot with a MiG shoot down. Also Team leader of the Thunderbirds (T-38’s) Col. Arnie Franklin, mission commander of the Libya Raid in 1986. Col. Terry Wilcutt, NASA astronaut. He made four trips to space.
The museum is made up of two levels. The lower level recognizes aviators mentioned above, and several others. There are several large cabinets that display donated items from the aviators or their family members, telling their stories.
The upper level is dedicated to River Rats Fighter Pilots Association. The River Rats originally consisted of fighter pilots from the Vietnam war. Flying F-4’s, F-105’s, F-100’s. Some of them were BG Robin Olds, Col. Howard “Scrappy” Johnson, Ltc. Billy R. Sparks, and Ltc. Bob Pardo of “Pardo’s Push”.
The River Rats museum director, Craig “Pontiff” Pope, approached me at a Model contest and asked me if I would be interested in building some models for them. The River Rats opened their portion of the museum up during the River Rats 50th reunion
Fast forward a few months. NASA had a 1/15th scale fiberglass model of the Shuttle that they were looking to donate to a museum. The model was made by Rockwell International, the builders of the actual space shuttle. The Smithsonian air and space Museum sent out a letter to several museums about this donation.
Aviation Heritage Park was awarded the model. Arnie Franklin asked me if I would be interested in restoring it. The Museum made the necessary arrangements to have the model shipped to my home. It needed some work when I got it.
The restoration itself was a group effort. Three other Model’s assisted me in the process. One individual was the project engineer, one individual was charged with making the simulated heatshield tiles, and the last modeler was in charge of graphics design, and designing a base that the model would be attached to for public display.
The project engineer, Modeler Chris Vandegrift, travel to my house, a few weekends to help me. Holes were cut in the model to simulate windows, and thrusters. The outside skin of the Shuttle was covered with either simulated heatshield tiles made from polystyrene sheeting, or athletic tape simulating the thermal blanket.
The display was unveiled on Memorial Day with Astronaut Terry Wilcutt on hand for the unveiling. Here’s a few photos of the process
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Folks…this thing blew a LOT of us away that watched as Christopher built this starting around 2 years ago. Outstanding efforts by both you and Chris along the way and it’s REALLY cool to see it all again. Your efforts on this are to be commended.
This was so fun to follow along. Great work and what a nice honor to be asked to work on the restoration.
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