Friday, September 05, 2008

New public art in my neighborhood


This is not a great photo, but I took it with my cell phone camera out of the driver's side window of my minivan. It's a four-engine C-130 aircraft used by the Wyoming National Guard at its base just south of my neighborhood. It looks a bit smaller than a C-130. Maybe it's something else?


A Korean War-era Starfighter stood on this site until a few months ago. It disappeared mysteriously overnight (Chicoms spirited it away?) and now we have this public sculpture, which is a better representation of the Guard's mission.


By the way, I'm not complaining about this new addition. I'm a fan of airplanes. Once, during the Guard base's open house, I was exploiring a C-130's cargo bay and a young woman in uniform asked if I had any questions. "You fly one of these things?"


She gave me a nervious grin. "Yeah, I'm the one making all the racket for the neighbors."


I shrugged. "I like the sound of airplanes."


She seemed a bit surprised by this, and said the base gets a lot of complaint calls, especially at night. I said that I wasn't one of them.


I wonder if the Guard gets any complaints about their choice of public art.


I have to get a better photo of it. Keep posted.

3 comments:

a572mike said...

So is this across the road from the F-84?

Michael Shay said...

Oops, thought that was an F-86. Was the F-84 used by the Wyo. Air Guard? What about the F-86?

a572mike said...

That particular F-84 used to sit at the Western Nebraska Technical College in Sidney until the late 80's. They did operate F-80's and F-86's back in the late 50's and early 60's.