There are quite a few surprises when you search for aviation museums on your map app. A recent surprise was just how close Maryland is to State College, Pennsylvania. With some time to visit a museum, thanks to inclement weather at the home field, a search was made and a museum was found. Less than three hour's drive, and a mere one mile south of the Maryland-Pennsylvania state line, lies the Hagerstown Regional Airport (KHGR), home of the Hagerstown Aviation Museum. With a fine collection of aircraft and a great staff, they have only recently begun opening their doors on a weekly basis. And when you step through their doors, you'll learn that the museum not only houses aviation history, it is a haven for local history as well.

Approaching the hangar to park, the older crowd might make an honest mistake about industry connections. The pegasus on the sign might bring to mind a certain oil company and make you wonder if they have local ties. For those a mite older, you would probably guess, correctly, that the pegasus on the sign is none other than the Fairchild emblem. A bit of time with my docent for the day and he had me set straight. As it turns out, Hagerstown was the home of Fairchild aircraft after their acquisition of another local aircraft company, the Kreider-Reisner Aircraft Company. But Fairchild and Kreider-Reisner weren't the only game in town. In the early 1900's, Giuseppe Bellanca built one of his early designs in Hagerstown as well.

Another display with local roots is a Kinner R-5 engine. No, not the engine manufacturer. Kinner was about as far from Maryland as you can get, with an airfield and engine manufacturing setup in California in the 1920's. In this case, it was the donor of the display model that was a local. An area aviation mechanic school donated the operable engine, operable by hand that is. On last measurement it had pretty much zero compression.

Back to airplanes, the tour begins to get heavy on Fairchild products. One of the surprises of the museum are two aircraft that seem to be years apart, and yet, were both manufactured in 1933. The Fairchild 22 is a sleek looking airplane with dual open cockpits and an aerodynamic fuselage, thanks to the inverted inline engine. The Fairchild 24 is a wide-bodied blocky airplane with an imposing radial that doesn't even have valve covers. At the same time, however, the model 24 was available with an inline inverted engine to match its sleeker cousin. But it wasn't until a few years later that the fuselage was smoothed out and the windscreen replaced with formed lexan pieces.

Before there were Fairchild aircraft, there were Fairchild cameras. If it weren't for the aerial camera business for aerial surveying, Fairchild most likely wouldn't have become an aircraft manufacturer. Over the years, the diversification of the company led to aerial surveying, flight analysis, and gun-sight camera production. Like the camera diversity, Franklin's empire was also diversified; making cameras, airplanes, engines, and even boats for a time.

The Hagerstown Aviation Museum has another model 24, this one a 1939 Fairchild 24R-9. Like its earlier namesake, this is a cabin plane. Unlike the earlier version, this 24 has the inverted inline engine. It's a true Fairchild-Fairchild! The 24R-9 has a Fairchild engine under that cowling, unlike the Model 22 on display. While they both have inverted inline engines, the Model 22's cowling houses a Menasco Pirate. And while the museum's 24R-9 has a Fairchild Ranger, the Warner Super Scarab was still available each model year, for those radial engine purists who prefer to stop and oil their valves (and windscreen) every hour.

Once the war years hit, it was all hands on deck. Every manufacturer in America shifted gears and used their present skills and machinery to make something for the war effort. The museum houses several WWII era PT planes, used by both the US and Canadian forces for training. One of the curiosities of these planes is what is found inside on inspection. The museum found markings inside one of their planes from another local manufacturer. During the war, the skills of the local Moller Pipe Organ Company were put to use to craft wings and other wood parts for the Fairchild Aircraft Corporation.

Of course, the Hagerstown Aviation Museum has a few aircraft from more modern eras. With the focus being Fairchild, there are a few passenger aircraft hanging around. One of the more recent additions bridges the gap between passenger plane and military service. Most people would know the Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner as a small "puddle-jumper" commuter plane. More or less a stretch limo version of the Swearingen Merlin, the Metroliner was used in the 1990s to haul passengers from feeder airports to main hubs. The Museum's variant is the RC-26 Condor, a type which flew with the Coast Guard, Air National Guard, and other government agencies for drug interdiction and disaster relief. The museum recently acquired a UH-1 Huey helicopter representing air medical rescue during the Vietnam War era. With local veterans of the 357th Army Transportation Company just up the road in Pennsylvania, the Huey helps to tell the story of locals who maintained these craft and fought to protect them and each other in the Vietnam era.

No room at the inn! Some of the Fairchild designs are just too big to keep in the museum's hangar. Case in point, the decoy that looks like a personal fighter jet. Then there are the big three out on the tarmac. The Hagerstown Aviation Museum is proud to curate examples of a C-123 Provider, a C-82 Packet, and a C-119 Flying Boxcar. Each of the three are in various states of repair and restoration. And if the stars align, the museum might one day have the space to put them inside. For now, the three giants all rest outside taking a break after long lives of service in their field.

With all of the airplanes in and out of the hangar, it was a welcome sunny day to enjoy the museum outside as well as inside. And the long walk resulted in a beauty of a plane. Perhaps you could say it's the museum's story of "local boy makes good." The Hagerstown Aviation Museum is the proud owner of a real life movie star. Okay, so maybe it's a supporting actor. As Pete walks into a hangar in the 1989 movie Always, you can see the museum's Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar dumping a load of water in the background. Back in the day, it still had the jet assist takeoff (JATO) on the top of the fuselage. Of course, back then it wasn't just acting like an aerial firefighter...that was this actor's day job.

If you find yourself in Maryland or, in fact, in Pennsylvania and are looking for a nearby museum to visit, be sure to keep the Hagerstown Aviation Museum in mind. The museum itself is a work in progress, with several plans to grow progressively. In the past year they have refurbished their main hangar, one of the last wooden structure hangars from the WWII era. Only weeks before this visit they made the transition to having regular open hours. The staff are happy to welcome visitors each weekend. They are also excited for their Open Airplane days, starting again in April, and their Wings and Wheels Expo in September. If you'd like to visit the museum, they have ample parking for cars and taxiways leading right up to the hangar if you come by air. If you're looking for a way to get to KHGR, take a look out on barnstormers.com for a ride. At the moment there are a few Fairchild parts and projects on Barnstormers. If you're ambitious, you might have time to get one of them flying in time for Wings and Wheels. No matter what you fly or drive, the museum staff will be happy to greet you. Of course, if you want to arrive in style, fly what the locals made.