KC-97 is museum’s new attraction

By Nathan Oster

The largest air tanker ever operated by storied local aviation company Hawkins & Powers has been added to the Museum of Flight and Aerial Firefighting.

A resourceful group of residents recently repaired a flat tire on the Boeing KC-97 parked in front of the B&G Industries hangar and towed it approximately one-half mile to the museum, which is directly behind the Greybull Rest Area.

It will become the eighth historic aircraft on display when the museum reopens in the spring, joining two PB47-2 Privateers, two C-119 Flying Boxcars, a Neptune P2V-7, a Beech 18 and an Aero Commander 500.

All but the Aero Commander 500, which was donated by Bridger Aerospace in 2022, are either the actual planes or the type of planes that Hawkins & Powers Aviation used for aerial firefighting during its 35-year run at the local airport.

Bob Hawkins, who oversees the museum, said the KC-97 had about a 20-year history of going to Alaska to fight fires that ended in 2004.  

The airplane never left the airport after that but changed hands three times.  Clay Lacy bought it when H&P liquidated its assets in 2005-06. He sold it to B&G Industries which later sold it to the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation.

It was Tim Chopp, a longtime acquaintance of Hawkins and founder and president of the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation, who ultimately donated the airplane to the museum. 

The deal has been in the works for more than a year, Hawkins said.

“We weren’t able to put it in the museum last year because it warmed up too quickly,” he said. “You need to have ground that’s frozen to move that big of a plane.”

Origin

The H&P story dates to 1947, when it was founded as a small aerial spraying company. Dan Hawkins, Bob’s dad, was hired as a helicopter pilot in 1964 and Gene Powers arrived soon after to work as an airplane pilot. They eventually became the managers of the company, and in 1969, renamed it Hawkins & Powers.

H&P went on to become one of the largest privately-owned, firefighting companies in the nation. It did so by purchasing old military aircraft, retrofitting them for spraying and firefighting and securing government contracts.  

At its peak in 2002, H&P employed more than 200 people at its base of operations at the Greybull airport. But that same year, two of its aircrafts crashed due to structural failure. Soon after, the government contracts dried up, and in 2004, the company went out of business.

Bob West was among the group that recently moved the plane to the museum.

“I flew that airplane for 20 years, from 1984 to 2004 and mostly up in Alaska,” said West, now retired and living in Greybull. “It worked really well up there because of the tanker system it had in it.”

West explained that the KC-97 “carried a good load...the standard  was 3,000 gallons (of fire retardant) but it could hold 4,000 gallons.  Conditions had to be just right, though, because it was a little underpowered.”

West said KC-97 had good engines, but they proved to be its “Achilles heel” as a firefighting aircraft.

“It was a fun airplane to fly. It took a crew of normally three — sometimes, we had a flight mechanic with us — and it was very versatile.  We hauled hay in it one year to feed the buffalo and bison out on the Indian reservation. It had snowed so much, they couldn’t feed themselves.”

West said the firefighting aircraft of today cost considerably more to build and operate, but are capable in some cases of carrying up to 10,000 gallons of retardant and come with pressurization and air conditioning.

The latter was a luxury that West could only dream of during his 20 years in the KC-97. “That’s one of the reasons the cockpit is painted white — to reflect the sun,” he said.  “We’d open all the doors and take the windows out.”

West said he still has fond memories of his friends in Alaska throwing him a 50th birthday party inside the plane.

“It’s going to be a great museum piece,” he said. “It’ll be open to the public and (the museum) will need to figure out how to let people go in there and also ensure that it’s preserved ... because everyone wants a souvenir.”

West said the plane is flyable at the present time, but that won’t be the case after the Berlin Airlift people claim its four engines.  But they’ve assured the museum that they’ll immediately replace them with four non-functioning engines.