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Posted by Dick Williams
on 9/19/2008, 19:41:23
24.166.179.X
I live in Kansas City and Chillicothe MO is about 90 miles northeast of Kansas City - in north central Missouri. It's on US 36 about halfway between Hannibal and St. Joseph.
The Chillicothe municipal airport a few mile east of the town and for over 20 years has had an F-105B on display - tail number 57-5819. The aircraft was mounted on pylons at the airport entrance. The Thud was in red,white and blue Thunderbird markings and over the years the paint had faded and frankly the the fuselage was roosting place for pigeons with their accumulated damage metal.
Recently members of 139th Airlift Wing of the Missouri Air National Guard, a C-130 outfit, from St. Joseph along with volunteers from the city of Chillicothe have undertaken a restoration, repaint and re-mounting of the F-105 which is on loan to the city from the Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson AFB.
I stopped by the field two weeks ago and spoke with Airport Manager Bill Kieffer who's working on the project along the the Guardsmen.
The aircraft has been lowered to the ground, it's being repainted in authentic camo scheme, damaged metal panels have been refabricated and a high quality restoration to Viet Nam era markings is underway.
Bill said he hopes to mount the Thud in a new flight attitude once the restoration is done - formerly it was displayed in straight and level flight - he envisions a more aggressive attitude which will require work on the pylons and mounting system. Bill traveled to the Air Force Museum and spend a day with the staff there obtaining paint diagrams and discussing the restoration and the best ways to preserve and protect the fuselage into the future.
Bill said we can help - any Takhli vets or anyone interested in preserving and displaying the Thuds we all knew so well from our Takhli service are welcome to give him an assist.
Help in this case doesn't mean contributions or time but it does mean a letter of support addressed to him in order that he can demonstrate to the city that the expenditure of city funds is a worthwhile endeavor to preserve and display a proud symbol of the US Air Force and in particular a warbird of the F-105 series.
An album of the restoration work as of September 2008 is online at:
http://www.takhli.org/gallery/chmo/album/chmo.html
If you cross US 36 in your travels this fall you can see the progress - Bill said it will likely be next spring before the aircraft is remounted but he wants everything done right and from what I saw and heard it's a pro job start to finish.
The Guardsmen and Bill himself have the skills to do the job right. For its part the City of Chillicothe is going full tilt - the paint alone is MILSPEC PPG to the tune of approx $200 per gallon.
Your letters of support for the project can help.
They can be long or short but any personal link with the Thud is a good hook and I hope many of you can view the plane now or later when it's back on display.
The address is:
Bill Kieffer
Airport Manager
Chillicothe Municipal Airport
13844 LIV 253
Chillicothe, MO 64601
This aircraft was a B model - never used in Southeast Asia.
Couple of additional web links:
News article on the project:
http://www.chillicothenews.com/news
List of Survivors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-105_Survivors
A short letter and 42 cents can help Bill show the city and the Guardsmen working on the project that the F-105 still occupies an important place in our hearts and in USAF history.
Dick Williams
Kansas City MO
www.takhli.org
282
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