Atterbury-Bakalar Air Museum

The Atterbury-Bakalar Air Museum is an aviation museum located at the Columbus Municipal Airport in Columbus, Indiana.

Background
In mid-1988, an F-4 was flown to the airport as a sling load underneath a helicopter and was placed on display a few months later.

Establishment
The museum's 3,168 sqft building was dedicated on 11 November 1992. The restoration of the former base chapel, renamed the Lewellen Memorial Chapel, was completed in 1998. It opened a new exhibit called A Century of Flight in 2003 featuring a 1:4 scale replica of the Wright Flyer.

The museum broke ground on the Bruce Dalton Media Center, the first half of a two part expansion, in July 2009. It began construction of a second, 3,700 sqft addition in July 2013. The addition opened in April 2014 along with a new barracks exhibit. Then, in 2017, it announced plans for an 1,800 sqft expansion to store artifacts and serve as a restoration shop. The Thomas Vickers/John C. Walter Artifacts & Restoration Center was dedicated in June 2018.

The museum acquired a C-119 from Greybull, Wyoming and began disassembling it in 2019. The last parts arrived in July of the following year and it was placed on display in May 2021.

Exhibits
Exhibits at the museum include an airport beacon, a reproduction barracks, a CG-4A glider nose section. Local manufacturers such as Cosco Housewares, Cummins Engine Company, and Noblitt Sparks are also represented with displays of some of their products. Other objects include a motorized cutaway of an R-3350 engine. A collection of five 1:8 scale aircraft models hang from the ceiling.

Collection

 * Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar
 * McDonnell F-4C Phantom II