Beech Party 2021, Part 1: Getting There is Half the Fun

By Mark Nankivil 

The 2021 Beech Party held last month at the Beechcraft Heritage Museum in Tullahoma, TN was a great success, attracting a wide variety of Beechcraft types along with other visiting aircraft from around the country. The annual event is packed with activity, including camping, seminars and museum tours, and of course as much flying as possible! The Aero Experience was again at the Beech Party, and we will be featuring our daily coverage in several installments over the course of this week following the brief overview - Beech Party 2021 and Tennessee Trip Preview - already provided earlier by Fred Harl.  

In Part 1 of this series, we begin with a look at some of our stops on the journey to Tullahoma from St. Louis and back. When travelling across the aviation-rich Midwest, getting there is half the fun!

Mount Vernon Outland Airport, IL

Mount Vernon Outland Airport is one of our favorite destinations. Here we feature two Air Evac Lifeteam helicopters on alert at the Mount Vernon base.

Evansville Wartime Museum, IN

The museum displays the P-47D Hoosier Spirit II, one of 6,242 Thunderbolts made in Evansville, nearly half of the total Thunderbolts made in WWII. The Museum also has a nice Stearman N2S-1 and history on the wartime production efforts of the city. 167 LSTs were made there along with M-4 Sherman tanks and huge quantities of ammunition.

Aviation Heritage Park, Bowling Green, KY

The Bowling Green Aviation Heritage Park features an aircraft display honoring aviation heroes from throughout the region. A museum is now being constructed as seen below.

 

Music City Executive Airport, Gallatin, TN

The F-4C Phantom II jet on display at the airport is NF-4C s/n 63-7654 in its fading Edwards AFB 6512th Test Squadron color scheme. 

Captain Jeff Kuss, USMC Memorial, Smyrna, TN 

Dedicated on June 9, 2018, this memorial honors U.S. Navy Blue Angels solo pilot Captain Jeff Kuss, USMC, who perished in the crash of his Hornet jet on June 2, 2016 during practice for the Great Tennessee Airshow. F/A-18C b/n 163498 represents the aircraft type flown at the time.