The upcoming Veteran’s Day parade will feature a piece of aircraft special to Indiana County.
The aircraft is a 1961 Cessna 310 that was once flown by Jimmy Stewart. The local chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association has been working on restoring the plane since April of 2015, with the intent to have it on permanent display at the airport. The plane has been undergoing restoration, including rebuilding fiberglass parts, finding propellers that match the plane and painting the fuselage and wings. The fuselage was on display during the St. Patrick’s Day parade and at the Jimmy Stewart Airport Festival earlier this year to show the progress on the project.
Project leader Harold Wood said that one of the tougher parts of the project was the paint job. Not only did the crews have to strip away several layers of old paint, but the only reference point for the plane was a black-and-white photograph of Jimmy with the plane, so trying to find the accurate colors of the plane was very difficult.
The plane was discovered in 2015 in Dallas, Texas, and the EAA sent six volunteers from Indiana to Dallas to disassemble and move the plane. The money to pay for the project is coming from donations, as the EAA chapter in Indiana is a non-profit organization. The plane will head down Philadelphia Street as part of the parade on Saturday, November 11th.
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