Established | 1987 |
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Location | Greybull, Wyoming |
Coordinates | 44°30′37″N108°05′06″W / 44.5104°N 108.0851°W |
Type | Aviation museum |
Curator | Robert Hawkins [1] |
Website | www |
The Museum of Flight and Aerial Firefighting is an aviation museum located at the South Big Horn County Airport in Greybull, Wyoming focused on the history of aerial firefighting.
Hawkins and Powers Aviation was founded at the airport in 1969 as an aerial firefighting outfit. It maintained a large collection of stored airtankers as a boneyard at the airport and, over time, a number of the airframes were towed to the south side of the airport where a small museum was opened in 1992. [2] [3] The museum was initially established five years prior, when the company became embroiled in the U.S. Forest Service airtanker scandal, in which former U.S. military aircraft that were allegedly to go to the Forest Service in exchange for older retired military aircraft instead ended up in the hands of private companies. This was followed by a pair of accidents which led to the grounding of their fleet and the company was sold in 2006. [4] [5] [6]
Exhibits include a memorial to the flight crews killed in the 2002 airtanker crashes. [7]