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Important particulars
• A-10C 79-0087 last flight and homecoming: Monday, September 22, deliberate arrival 12:00 p.m.; museum opens 10:00 a.m.; admission by donation.
• Fairchild Plane one centesimal Anniversary Homecoming: September 12–14 at Hagerstown Aviation Museum with A-10 excursions, classic plane, rides, hangar dance, and extra.
If airplane metallic might really feel nostalgia, you’d hear it within the low grumble of an A-10 rolling again onto the identical runway the place its story started. On September 22 at midday, a combat-veteran Fairchild-Republic A-10C, tail quantity 79-0087, will make its last touchdown at Hagerstown Regional Airport in Maryland, the birthplace of the Thunderbolt II.
The jet has served for many years with the one hundred and seventy fifth Wing of the Maryland Air Nationwide Guard. Now its final mission is a homecoming. The general public is invited, the museum doorways open at 10 a.m., and admission is by donation.
Hagerstown didn’t simply assemble the “Warthog.” It lived with the airplane. Greater than 700 A-10s rolled out of the Fairchild-Republic manufacturing unit right here between 1976 and 1984, and for locals, the sight and sound of dual turbofans banking over the valley is a part of the area’s muscle reminiscence.
“That is an emotional and historic second, not only for the museum, however for our complete neighborhood,” mentioned John Seburn, president of the Hagerstown Aviation Museum. “Now, after a long time of trustworthy service defending American troops, 087 is coming house.”
The date carries further weight. Museum leaders say this may probably be the final time an A-10 lands at Hagerstown. The one hundred and seventy fifth Wing is transferring off the platform because the Air Pressure retires the sort, and 79-0087 is reported to be the Wing’s final A-10 to fly. For another noon, although, the airplane that floor troops nicknamed a “flying tank” will contact the runway it is aware of greatest. After the arrival, the jet will grow to be a everlasting exhibit on the Hagerstown Aviation Museum by way of the Nationwide Museum of america Air Pressure’s civilian museum mortgage program.
Should you want a fast refresher on why the A-10 is liked far past aviation circles, it’s easy: it reveals up and it stays. Constructed for shut air help, the Thunderbolt II is legendary for its toughness and loiter time, qualities that earned belief from troopers on the bottom. This specific jet served in Afghanistan and Iraq, in addition to many different abroad missions, on an prolonged tour that explains the reverence within the museum’s language and the neighborhood’s pleasure about welcoming it again. “This tribute honors Fairchild’s legacy, the veterans who served with it, and the 1000’s of employees who designed and constructed the A-10,” mentioned Kurtis Meyers, the museum’s vice chairman and curator.
There’s additionally a complete month of context. Earlier than the homecoming flight, Hagerstown will mark the Fairchild Plane one centesimal Anniversary Homecoming on September 12–14 on the museum. Anticipate fly-ins, classic plane on the ramp, a Nineteen Forties hangar dance, a Wings & Wheels present, rides within the museum’s PT-19, meals vehicles, music, and, sure, a visiting A-10 for excursions and pictures. It’s a pageant aimed on the entire household, with daylong exercise blocks and particular applications that join the model’s previous to the town’s current.
Stand on that ramp and the timeline snaps into focus. Fairchild’s Hagerstown plant was nonetheless delivering brand-new A-10s in early 1984. 4 a long time later, a type of jets is coming again as an envoy, not a weapon, and it’ll sit among the many most intensive assortment of Fairchild plane on earth. That arc is the story Hagerstown has at all times advised effectively: this can be a place the place airplanes are constructed, flown, saved, and remembered.
Should you go, go early. The museum opens at 10 a.m., with arrival deliberate for midday, and crowds are anticipated. Convey a digicam, endurance, and somebody who wants to listen to why a workhorse assault jet can deliver a crowd to its toes. When the A-10 turns last and the touchdown gear drops, you’ll be watching greater than a fly-in. You’ll be watching a metropolis welcome considered one of its own residence.
