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Around-the-world
trip will begin here
As seen in The Panolian newspaper
November
18, 2003
Celebrities
to pilot first King Air
When they
couldn't get any support for the project from Raytheon Aircraft
Corporation in Wichita, Kansas, the owners of the first Beechcraft
King Air, serial number LJ-1, made the decision to move the airplane
to Mississippi for restoration.
Alex Major,
who originally purchased King Air LJ-1 in 1985, grew up in Jackson,
Mississippi and took his first flying lesson at Bruce Campbell
Field in Madison at the age of 17.
Major, now
an international entrepreneur who has worked and lived all over
the world, has family in Mississippi and has been investigating
business opportunities in the state in the fields of aviation
and renewable energy for a number of years.
Through his
Mississippi aviation contacts, Major heard that the aircraft structural
repair capabilities of The Hangar, Inc. in Batesville were unequalled
in the region. In July Major flew with a friend to Panola County
Airport to see The Hangar, Inc. facility firsthand and meet owner
Mike Wruk and Larry Freeman, Vice President of Sales and Marketing.
When Major
told Wruk and Freeman that he was considering bringing the original
King Air to Mississippi for restoration to factory-new condition,
they modestly told Major that The Hangar, Inc. was the only company
in the state that had the expertise and the experience to undertake
such a project.
It seems that
The Hangar, Inc. had restored a Falcon 20 for Federal Express,
which is now on display at the Smithsonian National Air &
Space Museum in Washington, DC and were familiar with the type
of museum-quality restoration Major was looking for.
Wruk and Freeman
immediately recognized that here was the possibility to have a
second aircraft restored by The Hangar, Inc. on display in the
Smithsonian, a feat accomplished by few, if any, maintenance,
repair or overhaul facilities in the United States, except of
course for the Smithsonian's own Paul E. Garber Restoration Facility
in Suitland, Maryland.
In early August,
Major and Freeman met a second time for dinner at Morgan Freeman's
Madidi Restaurant in Clarksdale and Major agreed to truck the
King Air from Salina, Kansas, where it had been in storage for
10 years, to the company's structural repair facility at Panola
County Airport.
King Air LJ-1
arrived at The Hangar, Inc's facility on August 11th and the restoration
process has now begun that will culminate in an historic around-the-world
flight to be flown by a number of celebrity pilots in August of
2004. Following that flight, King Air LJ-1 will be donated to
a prestigious American aviation museum.
Award-winning
Hollywood actor and Mississippi resident, Morgan Freeman, has
agreed to fly one of the 30 legs (he has chosen a leg in Russia)
of the around-the-world trip.
It is the
King Air Foundation's intention to extend invitations to celebrity
pilots from all walks of life. All of the celebrity pilots that
join the flight team will have the unique opportunity of flying
King Air LJ-1 as pilot-in-command for a 1,000 nautical mile leg,
which will take approximately four hours with King Air LJ-1's
average air speed of 250 nautical miles per hour. The 30,000 mile
trip is expected to take 45 days to complete and is being planned
for August of 2004.
Two to four
of the additional seats in the aircraft will be auctioned or raffled
over the next six months so that the winners can choose which
celebrity pilot they want to fly them as passengers in this historic
airplane on a once-in-a-lifetime flight. Proceeds from the auctions
and raffles will go towards the cost of the project and to medical
research foundations.
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