Preserving aviation history.
At the Champaign Aviation Museum, you’ll get a close-up look at historic aircraft that soared to great heights to preserve freedom. More than stationary museum pieces, these warbirds have been, or are being, restored to fly again.
Join the corps of volunteers to help reconstruct the B-17G Champaign Lady (#44-85813). Piece by piece, you can help return the Flying Fortress to flight status, right in the museum. Champaign Lady was a test bed for the Curtiss-Wright Corporation for experimental turboprop and turbojet engines. It also was flown for propeller research and eventually was modified as an air tanker. In 1980, while fighting a forest fire, the plane crashed in Bear Pen, N.C. The Champaign Lady will be painted in the scheme of the 401st Bombardment Group (H), 1st Air Division of the Eighth Air Force, which flew 155 missions out of Deenethorpe, England, from Nov. 26, 1943 to April 20, 1945. A section from another B-17, being used in the restoration, was used in making the classic film “Twelve O’Clock High.”
Other aircraft on display include a B-25 Mitchell, a C-47 Skytrain, an A-26 Invader, a Fairchild 24, and a Stinson 10A. If the sight of all these warbirds gives you the itch to fly, you can buy a ride on Champaign Gal, the museum’s restored B-25J Mitchell bomber.
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