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thedrifter
09-01-03, 07:34 AM
Leatherneck history takes flight

Museum display provides look at Marine airplanes

By Asher Price

August 31, 2003

Sitting in the cockpit of a red-and-black Corsair F4U, Anthony Johnson sized up the hard back of the seat, the calibration of the dials, and the view through the dusty canopy.

Having built models of the Corsair and watched old episodes of the Black Sheep Squadron, he was already familiar with the plane's numbers: he can easily rattle off statistics about propeller size, wingspan and combat use.

Now he examined the weathering of a muscular plane he pronounced "sexy."

"Looking at models, watching them on TV, that's one thing," said Johnson, a 32-year-old graphic designer from Scripps Ranch. "This is history right here."

The Corsair was one of three aircraft with open cockpits yesterday at the Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.

Visitors seeking to re-create the thrill – and discomforts – of battle also scrambled into the open cockpits of the bulbous UH-34 Seahorse, a green Vietnam-era transport copter, and an SNJ Texan, a fighter jet.

In the Texan, a father with a toddler on his lap made spluttering propeller noises as he checked landing tabs.

This is the first year the 13-year-old museum has had open cockpit days, and yesterday's was the fifth of its kind. The last one will be Sept. 20.

The days have proven popular. The museum expects to lure 20,000 visitors this year – 5,000 more than last year – in part because of the cockpit days. The last such day drew 700 people. On normal days the museum, which is run by the base command, lures between 50 and 100 visitors.

But while the museum displays 25 aircraft, it exposes only three cockpits to the public because of a limited number of volunteers and concerns about damage to the planes.

"The more people that can get in the planes, the happier you are to do it," said retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Bob Butcher, chairman of the museum's board of directors. "But more people also means more damage."

He said that at the last open cockpit day, on Aug. 2, the knobs on a MiG-15 were stolen and kids playing in an H-34 cracked the cyclic, or stick, that controls the pitch of rotor blades.

These planes, Butcher said, were an integral part of many missions.

"The ground forces work beautifully partly because of functions that Marine aviation brings to the table," Butcher said.

Butcher flew everything from helicopters to combat jets during his 33 years as a Marine. The only aircraft he declined to fly, because he would have had to endure a two-week training session, was the Marines' Harrier jet.

"I don't fly from the back seat," he told instructors.

Now he presides over a squadron comprised largely of engine-less planes.

The planes flew many routes before they landed at the Leatherneck Museum. Some had been declared obsolete by the military and were offered directly to the museum. Others were acquired when other military museums closed. One had actually been parked in an Orange County playground.

All the museum's aircraft, except one, are owned by the Marine Corps History and Museums Division based in Quantico, Va.

The museum has acquired no new planes since it moved to Miramar in 2000 from the El Toro Marine Corps base, which closed in 1999.

But the museum is now seeing its most active duty.

It is negotiating the trade of one of its Vietnam-era helicopters for another in a privately owned collection.

And Butcher is pushing to operate the cockpit days on a monthly basis next year. With the addition of a direct entry off Miramar Road planned to open in mid-December, he thinks they can double the annual visitors to 40,000 next year.

The museum is also heading a $7 million capital campaign to expand the museum onto an eight-acre plot at Miramar. The funds will be raised privately by the Flying Leatherneck Historical Foundation, which pays for the museum's operation. The first new building is slated for completion in 2007.

The museum, which is open Monday through Saturday, is free.


Asher Price is a Union-Tribune intern.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20030831-9999_1m31planes.html


Sempers,

Roger
:marine: