Great Falls Tribune from Great Falls, Montana • Page 118

Oreo, Mi Tribune, Sunday, May jl, 19S9 Malmstrom Museum gets ready for visitors Titmi i 111! nil omtyi I. Rice photo A T-33 Shooting star jet trainer, used for many years at Malmstrom Air Force Base, is among aircraft displayed at the Malmstrom Museum. the base Public Affairs Office. Public Affairs should be contacted well in advance of a planned visit. For Montanans, a visit to the Army Reserve's Capt.

William W. Gait Center on Gore Hill will have historic significance. Gait was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for gallantry on the field of battle during World War II. In a display near the entrance to the center is Gait's Medal of Honor, his Silver Star and Purple Heart medals, a citation from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, photographs and other memorabilia.

Arrangements to visit the center can be made by telephoning 452-8552. The Montana Army National Guard has a training center for its tank company and its engineering detachment at 501 2nd St. that people can visit if they call in advance and make arrangements. Appointments to visit the Montana Air National Guard's 120th Fighter Interceptor Group facilities and its F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft can be made by telephoning 791-6286 at least a day in advance. Ah the southeast comer of its property at the 1-15 off ramp, the 120th has an F-86 Saber Jet as a weathervane.

Over its main gate is an F-89 Scorpion. It has an F-102 Delta Dagger on display in Lions park at 2700 10th Ave. and another F-102 and a T-33 on display near its main hangar. Great Falls also boasts a Naval Reserve unit, which includes a hospital unit and a SeaBee detachment, in the same general area as the Air Guard and Army Reserve. RONALD J.

RICE The Malmstrom Air Force Base Museum is being preened (or the 1989 Centennial year season. According to Gerald C. Hanson, president of the Malmstrom Historical Foundation, the year promises to be the biggest in the museum's history. Located just inside the main gate at Malmstrom at the east end of Second Avenue North, the museum provides Great Falls visitors with a free afternoon of modem military history. Admission to the base is provided by checking at the base's entry office and showing a driver's license and certificate of insurance.

Other points of modern military history in Great Falls include the Montana Air National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve at International Airport on Gore Hill. Displayed in the park where the Malmstrom Museum is located are seven aircraft of types connected with the base, and a Minuteman III missile. During the past year, a T-33 Shooting Star has been installed in the park, where it joined a KC-97 propeller-driven Stratotanker, B-25 Billy Mitchell medium bomber from World War II, F-101 VooDoo jet fighter, F-84F Thunderstreak jet fighter, EB-57 Canberra electronic warfare aircraft and a UH-1F Iroquois (Huey) helicopter. Hanson said the foundation is in the process of transporting a P-63 King Cobra, a World War II fighter, to the museum from Connecticut.

It will require three to four years for volunteers to restore the aircraft after its parts are brought here. Also in the park is a totem pole, carved by Canadian Indians and presented to Malmstrom by Canadian Forces stationed here with the 24th North American Aerospace Defense Command Region. Hanson said the aircraft and missile, which are on loan to the foundation from the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, are being given a spring cleaning by volunteers. The museum is open Monday through Friday, from 1 to 3 p.m. After June 1 it is open for the same hours Monday through Saturday.

The park is open during daylight hours every day, Hanson said. There is no charge for visiting the museum, which is funded by the Malmstrom Historical Foundation. Sidewalks, signs and benches have been installed in the park and the Malmstrom Kiwanis Club has donated landscaping and flower beds, Hanson said. Members of the club care for the decorative floral displays throughout the summer. Inside the museum is a military aircraft model collection, a typical World War II barracks room, and a World War II diorama of the PRIDE Hangar with model aircraft on the ramp in front of the hangar.

The aircraft are the types which were flown north from the base then Great Falls Air Base to Alaska and eventually to the Soviet Union under the Lend Lease Program. A visual history of Strategic Air Command missions at the base is depicted with photographs, memorabilia and flight-suit displays. There is a shop in the museum where patrons can buy coffee cups, pens and other souvenirs. Tours of Malmstrom are difficult to arrange, but it can be done by contacting Aircraft aplenty planned for annual Big Sky Day Malmstrom Air Force Base has planned an entirely new format for Big Sky Day, July 22. Maj.

Doug Geddes, Big Sky Day project officer, said two jewels in the Big Sky Day crown will be a B-1B bomber, the newest long-range bomber operating in the Strategic Air Command, and a B-52 Stratofortress, dowager queen of SAC's bomber fleet, which has been a Big Sky Day favorite in the past. Geddes said all branches of the Armed Forces have been invited to take part. He said there will be plenty of aircraft both on the ground and doing flybys. As a special feature of the Centennial year show, a missile community display is being planned. Now that Malmstrom has two missions the 341st Strategic Missile Wing and the 301st Air Refueling Wing the display will allow Montanans to talk with the people who make the 341st's missile business operate, Geddes said.

The display will include three sections: combat missile crews who control the operations of flights of missiles, the people who maintain the missiles, and security police, who patrol the facilities. The 301st's KC-135R Stratotankers will perform flybys during the day and a commitment has been made to have a KC-10 Extender, SAC's largest air-tanker, at Malmstrom. F-16 Fighting Falcons of the Montana Air National Guard's 120th Fighter Interceptor Squadron are expected to fly across town from Gore Hill and will participate in the day's activities, as will the two T-38 Talon trainers which the 301st is using in a new flight enhancement program. Service organizations from the base will be providing concessions throughout the day, Geddes said. Tours are planned including the T-9 trainer, which is a modified Minuteman missile silo used as a training facility, Geddes said.

The Malmstrom Museum in the park just inside the main gate will be open all day without charge. Seven aircraft are displayed in the park. Most of this year's Big Sky Day will happen after the Montana Centennial Parade, scheduled to wend its way through the streets of downtown Great Falls beginning at 10 a.m. that day. The length of the parade and early indications are it will be a long one will be a factor in determining the hours for Big Sky Day.

Base officials also may open several gates to the public instead of just at the main gate, at the east end of Second Avenue North. Parking areas near the PRIDE Hangar no longer are available, and new construction and construction equipment is occupying other possible parking areas. Geddes said a plan for parking vehicles in outlying areas of the base and bringing visitors by shuttle to reduce the expected congestion, is being considered. RONALD J. RICE TO f'r V- Naturally Hresistiblel A masterful blend of ingredients.

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