Warbird Information Exchange

RANTOUL — The Air Force has turned thumbs down to a village of Rantoul request to be allowed to retain three vintage aircraft currently housed at the Chanute Air Museum.

Two of the planes will be exhibited elsewhere, and a third will be decommissioned due to safety concerns.

The village had requested that the Air Force allow the continued use of a P-51 Mustang fighter, an AT-6 Texan trainer and an F-86 Sabre fighter.

Mayor Chuck Smith said the P-51 and the Texan are “destined for other locations.”

“The F-86 will be taken totally out of commission,” Smith said. “There were materials in the F-86 that were contaminated.

“It’s a huge surprise and a disappointment because I really wanted to keep the P-51 here. It’s just pristine, and it represented a period in time when the Tuskegee Airmen were at the base.”

The support staff for the Airmen were initially trained at Chanute during the World War II era. All operations were later moved to Tuskegee, Ala.

The Mustang is considered one of the jewels, if not the jewel, of all the former military aircraft exhibited at the Chanute museum, which will close at the end of the year due to financial concerns. Its restoration by Curt Arseneau and Norm Meyers was completed in 2013.

Corky Vericker, Rantoul National Aviation Center operations manager, said the P-51 will be transferred this fall to a location in Warner Robins, Ga.

The AT-6 Texas is on a short list to be transferred to one of three locations, leaving Rantoul.

Vericker said he was told by Chanute Air Museum Curator Mark Hanson that the F-86 has “significant radium contamination in the belly of the aircraft.”

It will not be made available to civilian organizations, Vericker said. Instead it is more likely to be sent to military organizations “with personnel trained in this situation.”

Village Administrator Jeff Fiegenschuh said the village is disappointed in the news that it would not be able to retain the three aircraft.

“It is Air Force property,” he said. “Obviously they found locations for two of the planes.”

He said before he left, Rune Duke, former airport manager, was “upfront” about the matter.

“He said just because we’re requesting them, it doesn’t mean we’ll get them,” Fiegenschuh said. “Even so, we were hopeful. We knew it wasn’t our decision to make.”

The AT-6 Texan is a vintage World War II-era trainer that was used for a variety of tasks, Hanson said earlier. Some were used overseas in an attack role.

Hanson called the F-86 Sabre “kind of the Korean War iconic fighter” and “the Air Force’s first really successful jet fighter.”

Hanson said he had heard nothing about the status of the Minuteman missile that stands on the former air base.

Sorry to hear about this; surprised the NMUSAF didn't get the Mustang trifecta (A-36, D, H). Seems a bit small of the Air Force not to even let them keep the T-6. Any word on the other airframes yet?

That's a shame, I'd have liked to have seen the B-58 go to Castle as it's one of the few significant bombers that is missing there

F-104 Starfighter (56-0732) is moved to the McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base at Knoxville, Tennessee. I was at the museum on July 28st 2015 when some ANG Personnel start to disassemble and prepare the F-104 for transportation. This F-104A will be repainted and go on display at Knoxville as a memorial to represent an aircraft flown by a crashed pilot of the 151st FIS.

According someone of the ANG Personnel, also the tail and some smaller parts of C-97G (52-0898) will go to McGhee Tyson ANG Base. The rest of the C-97 will be scrapped.

Considering some were at schools or parks, people were worried although you'd have be a bum living in the thing to have any health concerns.

Yes, it does sound like the MNUSAF (or whoever controls this airplane) is being too concerned over the possible risk.
But remember, we're dealing with a bureaucracy.
(Does anyone else get the idea that the AF would prefer that all statics go away ..."if people want to see old aeroplanes, have them go to the museum at Wright-Patt?"