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Anoka County, Minnesota Airport


MWalsh
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Minnesota is obviously nowhere near the state that others are in terms of old aviation history & old aircraft. However, there are two CAF squadrons with some excellent aircraft, at least three or four aviation museums, then of course aircraft in parks all over the state.

 

The Anoka County Airport in Blaine, Minnesota is north of Minneapolis & St Paul. It is a commercial airport and has quite a number of vintage aircraft. I try and drive through and see what is there whenever I pass by. The vintage military stuff has come and gone over the years. The American Wings Air Museum was a great place to visit but had to close due to due to losing their space. Many of their aircraft are still at the airport though.

 

Every year the City of Blaine & the airport have aviation days, I got there the day after, while many of the old museum, aircraft were still out. There had also been some really bad storms the night before I got there, high winds, bad thunderstorms, and a couple small tornados. The aircraft you see which are parked all askew are due to the wind the night before moving them around. I am amazed none of them got flipped onto their backs.

 

Anyway, I took a bunch of pics. I tried to get serial numbers on some of them for those of you who keep track of such things.

 

MW

 

First up is an old Beechcraft twin engine - sorry I do not remember the exact model & such.

 

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Sorry, I do not remember the model of this one, it is an old Cessna though if memory serves me right. I am unsure if this one is ex-military, I took the pics of it in case it was, or in case someone else knows, as I know several models of this air craft are restored and flying as ex-military aircraft, one or two have documented Vietnam time. I am unsure about anything on this one tho.

 

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This is either an A-7K or a TA-7, I do not recall which. This one was at one time I think "stationed" at the US Navy Reserve facility at the Minneapolis St Paul International Airport, probably 25 miles away. It migrated from there to the Fort Snelling Minnesota Air Guard Aviation Museum, then to the American Wings Museum, in Blaine. I think the Navy Reserve may now have an F-14? I believe it was used as a simulator for practicing various things, but never flown once it came to Minnesota.

 

 

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I do not recall this F-5 from the American Wings Museum days. This one is interesting in that it still has some Swiss markings on it. I know the Swiss were big users of the F-5 at one time. This could be an ex-Swiss aircraft brought to the US and then just repainted as an Agressor for museum use, or maybe was Swiss, then US military, then?? I dunno'.

 

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What the Anoka County Airport has a ton of is OV-1 Mohawk related things; aircraft, cockpit sections, etc. Several years ago they had at least a couple flying, I think they were a feature story in Air & Space from the Smithsonian too. For those of you not up on the OV-1, it was an armed intel gathering aircraft, lots of sensors on it, and flown by the Army. They were actually assigned to Military Intelligence units. American Wings was heavy into the OV-1 and they were the reason that so many of them ended up in the upper midwest.

 

 

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