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Kalamazoo Air Zoo Turns 40

Andy Robins
/
WMUK

The Kalamazoo Air Zoo turns 40 this year. The aerospace museum plans to celebrate its birthday with several new exhibits. They include "Memories and Milestones," which includes old photographs of the Air Zoo as well as new and vintage airplanes it flew during airshows at the Kalamazoo-Battle Creek International Airport.

“Everybody has a special memory of the Air Zoo from this community," says Air Zoo CEO and President Troy Thrash. "It’s so cool to see people, grandparents, and parents talking to their kids about their experiences with the Air Zoo, 10, 20, or 30 years ago and that’s really the power of what we do is the stories.”

The Air Zoo's anniversary celebration also includes continued work to restore two World War Two airplanes. The Grumman FM-2 "Wildcat" fighter and a Douglas SBD "Dauntless " dive bomber were recovered from the bottom of Lake Michigan where they crashed during training accidents in the 1940's.

Credit Andy Robins / WMUK
/
WMUK
The Lockheed SR-71 jet at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo

“There are other organizations that are restoring aircraft and other Navy assets," Thrash says. "But what is unique about us is that we said to the Navy, 'Yes, we want to do this, but we want to create a hands on interactive community restoration project.'”

The Navy has given the Air Zoo aircraft on loan to restore in the past that are on its exhibit floor.

“If we’re going to do this, we’re not going to put it in some box somewhere where it goes in and nobody sees it for eight years and it comes out and voila it’s restored,” Thrash said. “It has to be different if we’re going to do it.”

Other new exhibits at the Air Zoo include one about D-Day that will open in early June, and a 50th anniversary Apollo 11 exhibit that starts in July. Visitors can also buy a ride in a two-seat, open cock-pit airplane and fly around the Kalamazoo area. Other exhibits will open throughout the rest of the year.

If you are wondering how the Air Zoo got its name, Thrash has the answer. He says several Kalamazoo-area residents who owned vintage aircraft from the Second World War and some of their friends flew their airplanes for fun. But others saw them overheads and asked about them. Thrash says that led to the opening of what was then called the Kalamazoo Aviation History Museum in 1979. The name later changed to the "Air Zoo" because the first five airplanes, like the Tigercat, War Hawk, and Wildcat were named after animals.

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