Hangar One celebrates 25 years at Museum of Aviation

What was once used to store paint at Robins now houses Vietnam-era aircraft.

Hangar One was acquired in 1991 from Robins and celebrated its 25th anniversary at the Museum of Aviation this month.

“We got lucky. There was an old warehouse at Robins and our volunteers disassembled it and brought it here,” said collections manager Bill Paul.

The move saved the base thousands of dollars and also saved the museum money from constructing its own building.

Museum volunteers disassembled the hangar, brought it over in truckloads and reassembled it on the spot where it currently sits.

Built in the 1960s for Robins, Hangar One is now nearly filled to the brim with the dozen or more aircraft, vehicles and engines, and more. Only one more aircraft will go into the building, Gen. Rick Goddard’s F-100, which is currently being renovated.

This was the first building for the museum to house aircraft and the second building on site. The first structure was what is called the Heritage building, which is where the museum offices were.

“A lot of our retirement ceremonies are done in there,” said Paul.

One of the lucky aircraft is the F-105D the museum saved. It was brought to the museum April 19, 2010.

“We saved it from the scrapper’s torch. We sort of rescued it,” Paul said.

After contacting the crew chief, the restoration department at the museum painted and returned the Thunderchief back exactly as it looked during the war.

The plane saw action multiple times and was also shot up in a few instances. The plane was almost destined for the junkyard after crashing with a reserve unit that tore the nose gear off and buried the wingtip three feet in the dirt. The unit rebuilt the aircraft for 18 months and then continued flying it, Paul said.

Some of the planes that were first stored in the hangar were the Cessna L-19A 0-1E Bird Dog, the PT-17 now in the Eagle Building and the F-4D Phantom II.

The building once housed an assortment of airplanes but became a dedicated Vietnam building in the past couple of years.

“We have some significant aircraft. Some with real Vietnam history,” Paul said.

This story was originally published April 19, 2016 at 6:00 PM with the headline "Hangar One celebrates 25 years at Museum of Aviation."