A DAY AT THE MUSEUM

They flew the 1944 FM-2 Wildcat yesterday at the Military Aircraft Museum. That sound. Wow, that sound.

A special person came to hear it. A WWII vet, he parachuted into France with the 101st Airborne on D-Day, June 6, 1944. He went on to be in the Siege of Bastogne and the Battle of the Bulge.

Let's say he was 18 when that happened, he would be in his 90's now. Can you imagine the flutter in his tummy when he heard that 9-cylinder radial engine make pass after pass over the crowd of over 500?

Given the weather the day before, the scheduled return of the P-51 Mustang was delayed so the crowd witnessed that beautiful bird and its distinctive Rolls-Royce V-12 Merlin engine as it came home.

Every weekend during the summer, weather permitting, the museum flies one or more of the War Birds. There are over 60 and most of them are airworthy.

Maybe it will be the Hawker Hurricane, flying in the livery of  Kenneth Haviland, the only American RAF pilot who flew in the Battle of Britain and survived the war. Or the PBY 5A Catalina, the flying boat that can stay aloft without refueling in excess of 24 hours. Maybe the first acquisition of the museum's owner, the Curtiss-Wright P-40E that was rescued as a box of junk parts and emerged with the famous shark mouth of the Flying Tigers.

I'm not qualified like the docents who have tons of information and stories about the aircraft and the museum's celebration of the first 50 years of flight, but I get this "feeling" when I go there. Something about how different the world would have been.

And then to see one of the Greatest Generation, in person. And experience that sound.