Autumn Fest at Vintage Wings & Wheels Museum offers variety of activities

By Anne Eickstadt

ANNE EICKSTADT PHOTO Belvidere Republican
Grampa Steve, Chuck Jansen, Ian Carter, Joey Howe, and Kyle Petges all had a part in rebuilding the pre-war 1941 Areonca Chief plane.

Editor

With the summer having drawn to a close, the Vintage Wings & Wheels Museum put together a mixed bag of activities for an autumn festival on Saturday, Oct. 20. They had a celebration for the Youth Exploring Aviation participants for completing a 12 year long project of rebuilding and restoring a pre-war 1941 Areonca Chief plane.

Chilidogs were the party food of choice for the day.

Manley’s Belvidere Ford Lincoln provided test-drives in a variety of Ford vehicles to raise funds for schools.

Karen Manley Kahler said, “We are having a Ford Drive 4 UR School event today. Any school or school organization can request us to come.

“Today, our test drives will benefit the Poplar Grove Aviation Education Association. For anybody who takes a test drive today, we will donate $20 to the organization.

Trudy Konopka, Events and Volunteer Coordinator of the Vintage Wings & Wheels Museum said, “The money today will fund field trips for Boone County schools. We have had several field trips with special education kids and they were amazing.”

Over by the Areonca Chief inside the museum, the Youth Exploring Aviation group was hanging out.

“The Aviation Explorer program is part of the Boy Scouts of America,” said Chuck Jansen, program advisor. “This is a career exploration post. We meet on Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. Our goal is to give kids experience working on aircraft. We also do field trips once a quarter. We do aviation trips to visit control towers, other museums, and more.

“We were gifted with this Areonca Chief 1941 pre-war aircraft as a bucket case. It was in bad shape. The kids worked with several mentors and the original blueprints and restored it from scratch.

“The ribs are all constructed of individual pieces of wood. One guy came in and said, ‘I have one of those.’ He asked us to make a wing for his plane so we made a third wing. He paid enough to cover the materials for all three wings.

“The late Dip Davis worked for Superflite. The Areonca Chief is a fabric plane. Davis provided the fabric and glue to re-cover the plane.

“Davis had a Cessna 120. When he got too old to fly it, he gifted it to a friend, Scott Ross. Ross replaced the engine and gave the original engine to our group. We rebuilt it and that is the engine that is now in the Chief.

“Another mentor for the group was Frank Herdzina. After the group each week, we would sit down and discuss what materials we would need the next week. When we got here the following Thursday, he would have all the parts ready.

“The secret to success with a kids program is to teach a skill, practice the skill until…

For complete article, pick up the Oct. 25 Belvidere Republican.