Valiant Air Command and their future museum plans

Dwhart24 · **Joined:** Wed Jan 19, 2011 8:29 pm **Posts:** 83

The Valiant Air Command has big plans for it's future museum. I am very excited to see this. Not sure when the plans are to get started, but man it looks nice. Here is the link to their website showing the plans. Click on one of the photos and it will open a pdf file for viewing. :drink3:

http://www.vacwarbirds.org/NewHangar/index.html

mustangdriver · **Posted:** Thu Feb 23, 2012 12:32 pm

That is a great museum! It would be a heck of a building!

Pat Carry · **Posted:** Thu Feb 23, 2012 1:02 pm

Now that looks like it will be one heck of an addition to the museum. It appears they have plans on getting a B-52 in the future! :supz:

Speaking of additions to museums in Florida, has the Hangar One addition at the NMNA been filled up yet?

Dwhart24 · **Joined:** Wed Jan 19, 2011 8:29 pm **Posts:** 83

Pat Carry wrote:

Now that looks like it will be one heck of an addition to the museum. It appears they have plans on getting a B-52 in the future! :supz:

There is a B-52 that sits in front of the Orlando Airport that you can't really see anymore because of the trees. Maybe that one will be moving to the VAC.

CH2Tdriver · **Posted:** Thu Feb 23, 2012 1:45 pm

The VAC is a terrific organization and I wish them well on all their endeavors, but pardon me if I don't get too excited looking at this plan. Why? I just think about the track record of some past great organizations with a fleet of flyable warbirds who toured airshows presenting them to a wide audience, only to be undone by grandiose plans and construction. The NWM, Kalamazoo and EVergreen come to mind. The latter two switched to a "aviation theme attraction" format grounding their fleets, and in the case of the NWM basically went out of business with the much loved Fuddy Duddy sent across the country to be rarely flown.

The VAC has an airworthy fleet in their C-47 and soon to be TBM. When the costs of the new building are tallied and the tourist dollars may or may not materialize as planned, will a decision be made to ground the fleet? I'd much rather see the $$$$ that will need to be poured into this IWM knock off instead used to build more conventional prefab hangarage and the rest invested in maintaining and growing an airworthy collection.

Then there is the question of the future of the airshow. The NWM Wings of Eagles was a staple of the warbird airshow calendar for years with an impressive line up. It's now a distant memory. The HAG show makes up for it but will never be up to the same standard without the funding. Is there even a Kalamazoo show anymore? I wonder what would happen to the excellent VAC show which lately has been getting better every year?

We'll see......

CrewDawg · **Posted:** Thu Feb 23, 2012 8:50 pm

Gee, I wonder where they got thier idea from? Duxford maybe?

If you're going to copy somebody, might as well copy one of the best!

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Valiant Air Command and their future museum plans

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