Fighter rescue mission half there
But CF-100 faces year-end deadline for $41K to secure city’s 75-per-cent pledge
Fundraising efforts to restore a rusting Cold War aircraft have reached half the required altitude.
But the mission to secure a total of $320,000 to fix a 1950s-vintage CF-100 Canuck is getting short of runway.
The Hangar Flight Museum, which is hosting the fighter plane, has until year’s end to raise another $41,000 to secure a city pledge to cover 75 per cent of the money needed for the project.
After four weeks, the museum has collected $41,000 for the restoration of the twin-engine aircraft, the 26th of 692 built to help keep tabs on Soviet bloc forces during the Cold War.
It came to Alberta in 1955, eventually ending up as a static display outside the old downtown Centennial Planetarium beginning in the early 1970s. Since then, it’s spent much of its time exposed to the elements and, due to its unique metallic construction, deteriorating from the inside-out.
The Canuck was the only Canadian-designed fighter to go into mass production and the first straight-winged aircraft to reach supersonic speeds.
It earned the nickname Clunk for the sound it made when lowering its landing gear.
The museum is planning to expand its tent-style display space to accommodate the aircraft.
Meanwhile, the museum is preparing to receive a Second World War Hawker Hurricane fighter next spring after 10 years of rehabilitation at the Reynolds Alberta Museum in Wetaskiwin.
The aircraft type, along with the famed Supermarine Spitfire, played a crucial role in turning the 1940 Battle of Britain in the U.K.’s favour.
The museum will also be marking the return of a 1930s deHavil-land Tiger Moth biplane trainer next year.