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News and Events
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F-106 Restoration Project Open House May 28, 2006 The F-106A Restoration Project Open House on May 28 was a success! At least fifty to one-hundred people stopped by to check out the progress of the restoration. While at the Open House, many people made donations and purchased F-106 shirts, hats, pins and coins. The Open House was covered by both the paper, radio and TV media. It was back to work today on the restoration. Everything seems to be on schedule and we hope to start painting by the end of June.
Below is the article that ran in the Mining Journal
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WLCU TV-6 visits the museum May 23, 2006 WLUC-TV 6 out of Negaunee spent some time with Dan Benstrom, the curator of the K.I. Sawyer Heritage Air Museum, today interviewing Dan about the museum and its opening rescheduled for the first of June. They were quite interested in all the artifacts that are on display and in their report, they will encourage everyone to visit.
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Getting ready for Memorial Day May 23, 2006 Museum board members Bob Vick and Lani Duquette spent most of the day cutting the grass under and around the static displays today. Boy, what a job! Two 42" riding mowers and one push mower and it still took both of us over four hours! The static display area is ready for Memorial Day. It looks great now. Hopefully we will have lots of visitors this weekend and they will put lots of donations in our collection box.
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Restoration Planning Meeting May 1, 2006 Several volunteers from last years crew met to discuss a maintenance plan for Phase Two of the F-106A Restoration Project. Scott Mills, Lee Nellist, Bob Vick, "Woody" Wood, Bill Dowling, Terry Pihlainen, Tom Bleau, Steve Farnsworth and Lani Duquette spent about an hour discussing where we go from here. Hands on work starts Thursday May 4th at 9 am. For now, Thursday's will be our workbee day until we get a handle on exactly what we'll be doing. Volunteers are always needed and you are welcome to come by on Thursdays to see what's going on.
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New signage for the Quail May 1, 2006 Four members of the K.I. Sawyer Heritage Air Museum erected a new informational sign along side the ADM-20 "Quail" Decoy. This is the third sign to be upgraded in the memorial park.
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Museum takes delivery of the F106 Ejection Seat on loan from American Legion Post 349 April 25, 2006 The F-106A Ejection Seat Trainer was brought to the K.I. Sawyer Heritage Air Museum this morning. Board president Lani Duquette and American Legion Post 349 Commander Richard "Woody" Wood signed the loan agreement making it official at the museum. The seat came from aircraft 59-0101. This "A' model crashed in Echo Lake in Houghton County, Michigan in the Western Upper Peninsula on July 18, 1979. The seat is a nice addition to the museum. It should attract a lot of looks. The museum thanks American Legion Post 349 of Little Lake for loaning us the seat for display in our museum.
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461 gets a visit from an old friend April 15, 2006 Former 5th FIS maintainer Guy Herring recently returned to K.I. Sawyer to get up close and personal with an old friend. Guy worked on 0461 several times while stationed with the "Spittin Kittens" at Minot AFB, North Dakota. Guy was at Minot from 1967 to 1970. He was only a four year man in the air force. Guy is going to try to solve a mystery for us. Under the left upper avionics door of 0461, the word "granny" is stenciled. What does that mean? Guy will try to find that answer for us. Lee Nellist was the guide for this tour. He said Guy was really touched to once again see one of the aircraft he worked on during his short career with the air force. Guy took lots of pictures and hope to return this summer to help with some of the restoration and painting work. Lee presented Guy with a nice picture of 0461, a copy of the newsletter featuring 0461 and a hyd. hose once used on 0461. Guy was thrilled with these memento's. If you are reading this and you are an old 5th FIS guy, come see the old girl, I think she'll be glad to see you.
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Little Lake American Legion Post 349 loans ejection seat to the Museum April 11, 2006 "Woody" Wood has informed the KISHAM Board that the executive board and general membership of American Legion Post 349 of Little Lake has approved the loan of the F-106A ejection seat trainer to the K.I. Sawyer Heritage Air Museum. We are drafting a letter of agreement from the museum to the legion, so that the seat will be available to the museum. It was noted that a "face-to-face" presentation made by KISHAM Board members to the general membership is what gave this request credibility. Everyone was pleased with our presentation and felt the seat belonged in the museum. Woody wants the legion to also provide us with the B-52 and 50 cal. machine gun - he will be working on that. The pictures below are (L) a F106B aft Weber Zero-Zero Ejection Seat, (R) during the 2005 87th Reunion, Amber Klein - daughter of 87th alumni Elmer Klein - is sitting in the (soon to be loaned) ejection seat at the American Legion Post 349. She was told to "look scared and grab the yellow handles", then (Lani Duquette) took her picture. She is wearing her father's original USAF fatigue shirt.
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Museum gets a visitor from down-state April 2, 2006 KISHAM board members, Lani Duquette and Dan Benstrom, hosted an Eastern Michigan University student, Robert Cabanan, who flew into K. I. Sawyer to learn more about the history of Sawyer and how it has adjusted to becoming an international airport serving the central upper peninsula and the world. Robert interviewed both Lani and Dan then was able to meeting with Airport Manager Keith Kaspari while looking our the F-106A Restoration project. Robert was able to learn a lot the history of Sawyer and how the airport runs today. Robert is a senior at Eastern studying Airport Management and will graduate this coming fall. Robert also made this a very productive trip. After the school work, his parents who live over in Munising, drove over and picked him up so he could spend the weekend with them. Robert is also employed by Mesaba Airlines downstate near Eastern.
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Another 87th "Dart Part" finds it way home March 23, 2006 This throttle quadrant off of F-106A 59-0096, was recently donated to the K.I. Sawyer Heritage Air Museum by a supporter of the Hill AFB Museum in Ogden, Utah. Salt Lake City resident Edward Payne was the successful bidder on eBay for this throttle recently. Museum president Lani Duquette lost the final bid to Mr. Payne in the last twenty seconds of the bidding. So what does one do when you lose ... contact the winner and offer to buy it from them! After learning we were trying to get it for our museum, Ed said "It's yours!" Lani asked him for how much and he said, "NOTHING, I'm donating it to your museum. What's your address." Can you believe that? We have thanked Mr. Ed Payne and he has told us he was glad to do it. What a great artifact for the museum.
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F-106A Restoration restarts May 1 March, 2006 After taking the winter off, the F-106A Restoration Team will start up again on May 1 (weather permitting of course). 461 has been in the main hanger all winter and everyone has been chompin' at the bit to get back to work. There's some finish-up work that needs to be done to prepare for sanding, priming and painting. We've got the paint, we've got a professional painter now all we need is for mother nature to cooperate with the temperature. With the gears in place we can tow 461 wherever she needs to go. We've been talking about rolling her out and giving her a bath - just think with everyone will think when they see an F-106 on the Transient Ramp ... Keep watching the website for updates on the Restoration. Also we're starting to put together a plan for the dedication - which seems to be coming up sometime between mid-August to mid-September. As soon as the final date is set we'll send out an emailing and post it on the site. WE'RE GETTING CLOSE!!!
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More hands get the museum ready for opening March 17, 2006 After some of Northern Michigan's winter "time off", there was a burst of energy on Friday March 17. Lani Duquette, Lee Neelist, Jim Dellies, Dan Benstrom, Jim Heinz and Elmer Klein (up from Chicago) spend most of the morning working on displays.
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Pushing toward Spring (opening the museum) February 28, 2006 Museum work continues. Today Lani Duquette, Lee Nellist, Bob Vick and Donald Poe from Gladstone spent the morning hanging more artifacts on the wall. They also started to hang K.I. Sawyer squadron pictures. We have about six all total. Four need to be repaired but they will be hung up next week. Interim Curator Dan Benstrom had to leave a little early this morning so Lee and Lani decided to enforce squatters rights on one of the remaining walls in the museum. This is the area we have decided to tell the whole story about the real "Defenders of SAC," the infamous fighter interceptor squadrons of K.I. Sawyer. All in all it was a very productive morning. We entertain visitors any time they want to have a look.
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Cub Scouts get a sneek peak at the museum February 24, 2006 Pictured along with Austin Hartman, looking at aircrew survival equipment, are other members of Wolf Den of Pack 356 of Skandia, Michigan on a sneak peek tour of the K.I. Sawyer Heritage Air Museum. Local curator and chairman of the board of directors, Dan Benstrom gave the local Cub Scouts and private viewing recently as part of the scouts monthly meeting. Dan also presented each scout a picture of the museum's logo and the F-106A currently being restored. The scouts all appreciated the chance to visit the museum. Our museum continues to move toward the opening in the spring. Inventory of all the museum items is due to start soon.
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Marquette County inmates make a difference February 24, 2006 For the last two weeks the museum has been able to take advantage of Marquette County Jail inmates and trustee's on a work detail at the West Branch Township Community Center. Most of the resident's of the jail are working off community service requirements. They have been a great help and have enjoyed doing work for us. Museum curator Dan Benstrom has supervised them and done a lot of things the small volenteer museum work crew has not been able to get to. They have organized and cleaned up our storage room, cleaned all of the floor mats, dusted down plaques and pictures, mopped and waxed the museum floor and taken out the garbage. Dan isn't sure if we are going to get them back any more but believe me, he'll find them more work for them to do. We thank the local judges for sentencing them to community work.
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Carquest of Marquette makes a major contribution February, 2006 CARQUEST Auto Parts of Marquette, Michigan has made a major donation to the F-106A Restoration Project. After seeing one of their customers, LaFayette Collision of Marquette, step forward and paint 461's main and nose wheels, they also wanted to help. Through speaking with Todd LaFayette and finding out we were seeking paint supplies for the painting of 461, they said they would be more then glad to contribute needed supplies. Masking tape, sanding disk's, Scotch pads and masking paper made up the first donation. Donations of small quantities of paint needed for the "Red Bull" tail is going to be provided by Todd and LaFayette Collision. The K.I. Sawyer Heritage Air Museum and everyone from the F-106A Restoration Project once again thank Todd LaFayette, Dick Harris and everyone at CARQUEST of Marquette for their donation.
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Mining Journal Reports on KI Sawyer Heritage Air Museum January 16, 2006 During the week of January 16 the Mining Journal ran two articles. The article on the left was announcing the KI Sawyer Heritage Air Museum Open House. The one on the right was reporting the recent awarding of the Medal of Merit from the Air Force Association, Chapter 238 to Robert Vick, Nolan Duquette and Leland Nellist for their work on the F106 Restoration Project.
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From Locomotives and Iron Ore Cars to a "Delta Dart" Fighter Interceptor January, 2006 The F-106A Restoration Project Team showed their appreciation recently to the Lake Superior and Ishpeming (LS&I) Rail Road Company, now a division of the Cleveland Cliffs Michigan Operations Transportation Division, by presenting tokens of their appreciation to Mike Silta, General Foreman, Mechanical Department (L), Jim Scullion, Interim Area Manager, Transportation Division (C) and "Machinist Extraordinaire", Tom Bleau. Through the efforts of a former "Phantom Fixer" Tom and with the support of his supervisor, Mike, and the support of the Area Manager, Jim, LS&I was directly responsible for helping get our "Delta Dart" up on her two main landing gears. The K.I. Sawyer Heritage Air Museum and the F-106A Restoration Project Team would like to thank everyone at the LS&I maintenance shops for their interest and support of this project. We especially thank the Cleveland Cliffs Michigan Operations - Transportation Division for their interest and support also.
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New Signs installed for static displays January 16, 2006 K.I. Sawyer Heritage Air Museum members Bob Vick, Lee Nellist and Lani Duquette installed two new aircraft informational signs at two of K.I. Sawyer's static display aircraft recently. The FB-111A and the F-101B now have a brief history of each aircraft plus their specification details right where everyone can read them. Funds for the signs have been donated by people in a donation collection box located at the aircraft along side the Upper Peninsula Memorial Retreat Center. These signs are a great addition to the static display area.
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F-106A Team Member visits the Hill Aerospace Museum in Ogden, Utah January 16, 2006 While in Salt Lake City, Utah recently, F-106A Restoration Team Member Lani Duquette, visited the Hill Aerospace Museum located on Hill AFB, Utah in Ogden, Utah. Lani met with and made a presentation of a plaque as our appreciation for all the help the museum curator, Mr. Tom Hill , has provided for us. Tom has stepped forward from the beginning of our project providing unlimited technical data as we have requested. Recently, being unable to share his copy of the F-106A "Dash Four" tech order with us, he had his volunteer staff reproduce the entire three volumes of this tech order and get it out to us. The -4 has now become our bible in the restoration of our "Delta Dart." This past spring, the Hill Museum completed restoration on their F-106A. They did a great job. As the museum at Hill AFB begins to grow three fold, Tom has continued to pledge his help and support toward our project. The K.I. Sawyer Heritage Air Museum and the F-106A Restoration Project Team thank Tom Hill for his great help.
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Corporate Donation - Paint for the F-106 Restoration December, 2005 Thanks to AKZO NOBEL Aerospace of Waukegan, Illinois the F-106A currently being restored through the K.I. Sawyer Heritage Air Museum will have a fresh coat of paint when the restoration is complete. Click the link above for more information.
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Reorganization of the Museum Board November, 2005 On September 1 there was a meeting and a reorganization of the KI Sawyer Heritage Air Museum Board of Directors was accomplished. The new board will focus on getting all state paperwork up-to-date and resolve the immediate problem recently encountered with liability insurance pertaining to working on the F106 Restoration Project. Follow this link for more information.
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F106 Restoration Work Schedule October, 2005 Officially scheduled work times is finished for 2005 Restoration is planned to finish this year on October 31. In order to conserve expenses, very limited work will be done on the aircraft during the winter. As soon as a "spring" starting date is available it will be posted on the website. A big thanks goes out to all the people who were able to put in time this year getting 461 prepared for display. During the week, we've set aside Monday and Thursday. Anyone from "out of town" that wants to get involved we've set up every other weekend. Weekend times are on a BY APPOINTMENT ONLY - you can sign up by sending an email to Lani Duquette.
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CAP visits K.I. Sawyer Heritage Air Museum and F-106A Restoration Project October, 2005 Recently while on a weather hold at the K.I. Sawyer International Airport, thirteen members of the Michigan Wing of the Civil Air Patrol, received a private tour of both the museum and the "Six" project by Lee Nellist. The Civil Air Patrol were at Sawyer conducting several days of airborne land surveying. When they we're weather grounded for a day, coordinator Donald Poe requested the tour. Don is an active member of the local Air Force Association Chapter and has stepped forward to volunteer to work on both of these projects. All who attend were excited to view each project and felt there had been a lot of hard work done on both projects. The attendee's were from all over the State of Michigan. Lee encouraged them to visit the museum web site and to stop in any time they may be at Sawyer.
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A legend of the F106 has passed away August, 2005 Anyone who has been associated with the F106 will undoubtedly be saddened by this announcement. Joseph Rogers, the legendary Air Force colonel who was a combat veteran of Korea and Vietnam and set the still-unbroken world's record for the fastest flight in a single-engine jet plane, died Saturday at his ranch in Healdsburg. Col. Rogers, who was 81, died of congestive heart failure after a life that saw him turn his boyhood fascination with airplanes into a career in aviation studded with enough hair-raising and heroic feats that would make movies like "Top Gun" look tame. He set the single-engine jet world's record on Dec. 15, 1959, in an F-106 Delta Dart over Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California: 1,525 miles per hour. The speed record was later broken by two-engine jets, but never by a jet with only one engine. An excerpt from an email submitted by Dick Stultz: "In 1969 Col. Rogers' (Edwards AFB) F-104 got a few of our Red Bulls painted on it's side. In 1971 I (Dick Stultz) observed them still painted on the side during a visit at Hamilton AFB. The Wing Commander, Vermont Garrison told me that Joe wouldn't let anyone take the Red Bulls off his plane.Joe doesn't have to keep his speed up and check 6 o'clock any more. RIP." News Links:
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Congressman Bart Stupak visits the F106 Restoration Project August 11, 2005 The highlight of the August 11th work session was special do to the fact that Congressman Bart Stupak made a visit to the restoration project. Congressman Stupak was pleased by what he saw and thanked everyone for their hard work and dedication for not only taking on the project of bringing back one of the last "Delta Dart's" to the Upper Peninsula but for all the time spent on this restoration. The Congressman told every one he is behind the project 100% and said if we need anything let him know. He was very sincere and we will take him up on his offer. The museum and the F106 Restoration Team also thanks Congressman Stupak's Upper Peninsula representative Jim Dellies for making this visit possible. Congressman Stupak has promised to return when the jet is dedicated.
Lee Nellist, Lani Duquette, Congressman Bart Stupak, Representative Jim Dellies
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Former Pilot Meets Up With “Old Friend” July, 2005 Retired and former 87th FIS and 5th FIS “Delta Dart pilot, and current American Airlines Captain Chuck Backman II, caught up with one of his old friends this past weekend. F-106A #56-0461 and Chuck were reunited after over twenty years. After coming to K.I. Sawyer as a fresh 1st Lt. pilot in 1973, Chuck served with the 87th FIS until 1974 at which time he was sent to Southeast Asia to fly as a forward air controller. When Chuck returned to the United States, and with his F-106A experience, he was sent to Minot AFB, North Dakota. While at Minot AFB, Chuck logged thirteen missions in 0461 and one of which he will never forget. This past weekend, Chuck was continuously trying to look under each of 461’s wings. I was puzzled but when he came up for air, he told me that one time he had to make a high speed abort in this aircraft. During the abort, both drop tanks separated from the wings but luckily did not catch fire. After the jet was returned to service, there were a couple of dents under each wing that weren’t required to be fixed. I guess he was looking to see if “Backman’s” dents were still there. Chuck and his wonderful wife came all the way to the U.P. from Madison, Wisconsin to see his old friend. After walking around the aircraft several times and after reading all the names of 87th Alumni on the left wing root, it all came together when Chuck climbed up and got into the cockpit. I swear I could hear him saying, “I could still do this!” I could tell it was an emotional moment for this former fighter interceptor jock! Of course as any pilot would ask he said, “Is this seat safe?” I did tell him to be real careful. I remember when I told everyone what aircraft we selected, Chuck was the first guy to email me and tell us, we picked the right jet. Chuck also wants to be sure I thanked everyone for all their hard work and dedication that they have put into this project. Chuck hopes to attend the next reunion in 2008, as this will be the year he will be forced to retire from American Airlines. Currently Chuck commands a Boeing 777 out of Chicago to London. He also told us that we was in London during to past two attacks. We are all glad nothing happened to him Chuck plans to return to help the girl get ready for her greatest show.
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F-106A Delta Dart Restoration July, 2005 The first “hands on” restoration of the Sawyer Six Project’s F-106A that recently arrived from the bone yard at Tucson, Arizona, will be held this Thursday morning July 28th from 9 am to approx. 1 pm. If you would like to volunteer or be involved with this restoration project, please come to the old “Nose Dock #2” or Hangar 662 on K.I. Sawyer. Look for the sign on the door that says “Home of the Sawyer Six” We will be developing work schedules and inspecting the aircraft for work priorities. The F-106A Restoration Team plans to install the wings and landing gears by the first of October. At that time, all work for this year will cease until next spring. Although we would like to have everyone help, you need to be at least eighteen years old to volunteer. For more information, please contact Lani Duquette at 906-475-7179. For updates on the restoration project please go to our new K.I. Sawyer Heritage Air Museum web site at www.kishamuseum.org and hit the “Restoration” link.
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