MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan. – Five of the aircraft that visited McConnell Air Force Base for the 2024 Frontiers in Flight airshow are remaining at McConnell.
Each aircraft received varying degrees of damage from a wet microburst that lingered over the base Sunday morning, delivering recorded wind gusts of up to 54mph. That weather event forced the cancellation of the airshow.
The aircraft that are remaining include:
- One Civil Air Patrol Cessna 182
- One Kansas Highway Patrol Cessna 206
- One Commemorative Air Force Cessna UC-78 Bobcat
- And two Stearman Biplanes
The privately-owned Cessna 150, seen in many photos for being flipped upside-down by the winds, was righted Monday by Airmen from the 22nd Maintenance Group.
That Cessna 150 is painted to resemble a Civil Air Patrol aircraft from an earlier era, and has been misidentified as a current Civil Air Patrol aircraft. The Civil Air Patrol is the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary.
That Cessna 150 left McConnell Tuesday on a flatbed truck, to return to its home airfield to begin repairs.
In the meantime, the McConnell flightline has been returned to normal military operations, after the return of most McConnell aircraft not currently engaged in other missions off-station.
As part of that procedure, Airmen from across base conducted a 'Foreign Object Damage' walk on Monday morning and again Tuesday morning. An FOD Walk is a safety procedure, when Airmen line up in a side-by-side formation to walk a flightline and remove any potential loose items. This is to prevent any FOD from being accidentally ingested by a jet engine and damaging that engine.